This book, Home Away from Home, tells the story of the Ogbomoso people who left their town in the early part of 20th century for Jos where they helped to energise and enliven a city that has now been brought to grief. They were generations of up-country people with pride and self-respect. The author, Olayinka Oyegbile, celebrates the stamina, the diligence, the honesty, the sense of honour, the enterprise, the godliness and the loving kindness of those Ogbomoso voyagers. In Chinua Achebe’s No Longer At Ease, a novel set in Lagos, a member of Umuofia Progressive Union opens one of their meetings with the following prayer: “We are strangers in this land. If good comes of it, let us share in it, If evil comes let it go to the owner of the land who knows what gods to appease”. The Ogbomoso people in Jos did not think or behave that selfish and clannish way in their dealings with other nationalities. They shared the joys, the sorrows and anxieties of the Igbos, the Urhobos, the Hausas, the Beroms, the Anagutas, the Afizeres, e.t.c. among whom they settled. Because he was born and raised in that city, Oyegbile tells the story feelingly as a participant even when his renderings are perfunctory. He spoke to the surviving members of the old generations for the living history of their migrations. The result is a book that not only informs but also instigates and makes us angry in the end.
World history, literature and the scriptures are replete with wonderful stories of migration, of how humankind and animals tend to move from place to place in total submission to the unconquerable force of nature. We know that when an elemental force refuses our sacrifices, when it rejects appeasement, only exceptional creatures tend to fight back valiantly. As subsistent farmers, many of those Ogbomoso people had worked their savannah land to a diminishing point. By 1885, the exodus to far-away lands including Jos and Ghana had started in earnest. The pull of commerce was so irresistible because of their sheer need for survival and dignity of labour. Kolanut, we are told by the author, was the most important article of their trade. At this period in their migration history the Ogbomoso traders spent nine months away from home and spent three months in Ogbomoso for a holiday. The lifestyle of prolific enjoyment would soon earn these young and energetic people the appellation Ogbomoso ajilete, in derision. (Remember the Ibadan people were also, at a time, described as Ole to n jare oloun) In no time these men changed as the ajilete appellation became ajisegiri. (He who wakes up to his responsibility). It was this ajisegiri mentality that those who moved to Jos in huge numbers at this time took there. Indeed, the ajisegiri code of conduct would define the Ogbomoso people in diaspora.
Located on the Jos Plateau, about 4,062 feet above sea level, Jos enjoys a more temperate climate than the rest of Nigeria. This climate was a major attraction to many Europeans and Americans. But the Ogbomoso people moved to Jos because it was a major mining town. At that time Nigeria was the sixth largest producers of tin in the world. According to the monarch of Ogbomosoland, Oba Jimoh Oladunni Oyewumi: “Ogbomoso people were neither involved as miners or labourers. We were only traders who went to sell our wares and nothing more. No indigene of Ogbomoso was a miner, at least in Jos. There was pride or dignity, depending on how you look at it, in the Ogbomoso people. Even if a labourer earns eight times above what a trader makes from his trading, the fact that he is called a labourer is enough stigma”. These Ogbomoso traders scornfully described ‘salary’ as “Sir – lari” – it’s all sir, sir, sir, no money! They learnt Hausa very quickly because it was not only the language of commerce but the lingua franca, more or less. Once they finished learning the trade, these Ogbomoso people hawked their business not only in Jos but also in the adjoining villages. They also went to Gombe, Biliri and Funtua. As they did, Ogbomoso remained an imaginary homeland in their minds. To protect their interest they formed an association called Ogbomoso Parapo. Many of them did not go back to their hometown for years because they fell in love with Jos where they made incredible progress. They lived communally as their houses were named after people and events. They were the largest Yoruba community in the town and a formidable force of commerce.
In his foreword to this book, the first executive governor of Plateau state, Chief Solomon Lar, observes that the relationship between the people of Ogbomoso and the city of Jos and the northern part of Nigeria helped the socio-economic transformation of the region especially in the informal sector of the economy, western education and the spread of Christianity. Chief Lar is right. On October 20, 1911 the First Baptist Church was founded, using Magajia House as the place of worship. When Magajia became too small, the congregation purchased a piece of land from Mr. Thomas Oyateru. This land was very close to the central market. By February 17, 1929 a new church had to be built to accommodate the growing population of the Ogbomoso Christians. Evangelism was aggressive. So converts from Berom, Anaguta, Tarok and other tribes rapidly expanded the number of worshippers. Mr. Adebayo from Abeokuta, later donated a large expanse of land to the church. We are told that the First Baptist Church is still located on that land. The church gave a small portion of the land to Nurudeen Mosque where the Ogbomoso Muslim community still worship. The building of many other Baptist Churches followed. So was the building of Baptist Primary School. The magnitude of the evangelical work of the Baptist Mission in Jos impressed the Nigerian Baptist Convention so much that it decided to establish a major secondary school: Baptist High School, Jos. The school grew to be one of the best in Nigeria. Its founding principal was an American, Dr. Cowley.
Long before the United Trading Company (UTC), United African Company (UAC), Patterson Zocchonis (PZ), Kingsway Stores, K. Chellarams and others became big merchants in Jos, the Ogbomoso traders were dominating the markets. Prince Oyewumi, was one of the reputable traders. He arrived in Jos on May 17, 1944. As a young man he learnt how to trade from his aunt while going to St. Paul School. Like all other Ogbomoso people before and after him, Prince Jimoh had to learn to adjust to the cold weather by wearing many clothes to keep warm. He also had to learn Hausa language which even the indigenes spoke in addition to their languages. When the white began to dominate the business, they trusted Ogbomoso people because, according to Oba Oyewumi, “They knew that we didn’t joke with our good names, so they gave us goods on credit knowing that we would not run away. If we bought on credit we always honoured and paid back”. He later became one of the biggest distributors for CFAO, a French company. It was during a trip to Paris where he lodged in Hotel Terminus that the idea of building and naming his own hotel, Hotel Terminus occurred to him. He had bought the land where he built the hotel in 1957. Hotel Terminus was the first modern hotel in the centre of Jos. At a time that many of his contemporaries were not willing to borrow from banks, he took the risk. At a time that his contemporaries preferred to live in a predominantly Yoruba community, he chose to be different. He was able to invest in real estates and other businesses. He became one of the wealthiest men not only in Jos but in Nigeria. One other superb entrepreneur was Chief David Oyediran Olagbemiro who invested in manufacturing, transportation and distribution for breweries, CFAO, UAC, UTC and other multinationals. His Olagbemiro Bus Services managed to bring down the cost of transportation with its luxury buses. He was also well known for his chain of supermarkets where he distributed for PZ, Lever Brothers, etc. Other successful traders like Alhaji Y. A. Ishola followed the examples of his forerunners. Their dominance of business in Jos only came under serious threat when the Igbo rose to the Yoruba challenge until the civil war of 1967-70 set them back.
As the Hausa traders began to make significant inroads in trading a healthy rivalry between them and Ogbomoso traders developed but love ultimately prevailed. The ascendance of the Hausa traders was made smooth by Hausa language which everybody spoke. But they also had immense political power on their side. Unlike the Ogbomoso people who refused to have a Yoruba King in Jos, the Hausa, since 1902, had always had a Sarki who was always an immediate political rallying point. So strong was the link of their political power that some Hausa Sarkis began to show that in Jos they and their people wielded more power than the Gbong Gwom Jos and other indigenes. It is the contention of Oyegbile that the unending crises that have turned Jos, a home of peace for all, into a place of constant turmoil, has its major origin in the antagonism between indigenes and settlers. Like many members of his generation, the author has also been a victim of this animosity. It was, after his university education, when he was denied employment in Jos, a place where he had lived in for 37 years, that it dawned on him that he was not a northerner after all. In what could be regarded as a journey of political discovery, Oyegbile tries to understand the tragedy that has befallen Jos by speaking to all the parties involved, and the victims of a city now lost to anarchy.
Apart from trading, the Ogbomoso people in Jos certainly knew how to enjoy themselves and that they were passionately engaged in partisan politics. In fact, the rift between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel Ladoke Akintola in the Action Group got them so worked up and divided. While the majority of them in Jos followed SLA, their town’s man, it is remarkable that there were people like David Adesina, the Action Group leader in Jos, who did not dump the AG. Why did they stay? In those giddy days of mindless killings of political opponents and treacheries, what happened to them? Oyegbile does not tell us. There were other professionals too like colonel Shittu Alao and naval officer Salau Akano. But the writer does not profile them in detail. What about the stories of the children of those Ogbomoso settlers in Jos? Oyegbile fails to render their accounts. What the author dwells on is the feud between the Hausa-Fulani and the Beroms over who owns Jos. The creation of Jos North Local Government by General Ibrahim Babangida for the Hausa-Fulani and Jos South Local Government for the indigenes has further escalated the animosity. All the panels of inquiry including those of Justice Bola Ajibola and Major General Emmanuel Abisoye have not stopped the descent of Jos into hell.
To many Ogbomoso people, who have made Jos a home away from home, this turn of events is as painful as the 14 day ultimatum to leave Ghana given to the majority of their sons and daughters by President Kofi Busia in 1969. This pain of a lost city, is shared by people like Segun Odegbami, Mikel Obi, Obinna Nsofor, P.Square, Bongos Ikwe and all others who had enjoyed wonderful childhood in Jos. As our country embarks on another huge project of constitutional amendments, there are some questions which the Jos tragedy compels us to ask: How do you protect the indigenes constitutionally without neglecting the settlers? How can settlers partake in the political power and economic opportunities of a place without taking advantage of the indigenes? In a country without a genuine national ethos, can we really wish away indigeneity? If the Berom and other minorities in Plateau State are fighting to save themselves and their children from being swamped by a rampaging army of Hausa-Fulani supremacists is it fair to blame them? Questions like these will continue to blow in the wind as long as justice is not the first condition of our humanity.
– Mr. Ajibade Executive Editor of TheNEWS magazine read this review on November 13 at one public presentation of the book.
