Plateau crisis: NGO to bridge religious, ethnic divide in Jos

The JTA made the promise at a conference organised for Jos youths, held at the Jos North secretariat. …

Following the recent upheavals in some parts of Plateau, a group of friends under the umbrella of Jos Town Ambassadors (JTA), are making efforts to bridge the religious and ethnic divide in Jos, the capital of the state. 

The members of group, who were mostly born and grew up together in Jos, vowed to deal with social problems such as  cultism, ethno-religious violence, drug addiction and other vices bedeviling the city in the last 20 years.

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The JTA made the promise at a conference organised for Jos youths, held at the Jos North secretariat. 

Suleiman Umar, a founding member of the group said “we are trying to bring back the best of what this town was. It was peaceful and beautiful where we interacted across religions and tribes. 

“What we are trying to do is bring back that peace because we know that the soul of the Jos person, the soul of the Plateau person is peaceful. 

“We are going to go to every neighbourhood and find out what the problem is at the source and bring disparate people to come out and speak.  

“The problem we have in this new Jos is that different sides are not speaking to each other. We have to start with that because the government is not doing enough of that,” he stated. 

According to Umar, their initiative is funded by members of the association but hoped to upgrade into a non-governmental organisation in order to get more support.