About Jos

The earliest known Nigerians were the Nok people (around 3000BC), skilled artisans from around the Jos area who mysteriously vanished in the late first millennium. Jos was established in 1915 at the site of the village Geash. The name of the city is most likely derived from the village Geash, which was wrongly pronounced as Jos by Hausa traders. It grew rapidly after the British discovered vast tin deposits in the vicinity. Both tin and columbite were extensively mined in the area up until the 1960s. They were transported by railway to both Port Harcourt and Lagos on the coast, then exported from those ports. Jos is still often referred to as "Tin City". In 1967 it was made capital of Benue-Plateau State, becoming the capital of the new Plateau State in 1975. Jos has become an important national administrative and commercial centre. Tin mining has led to the influx of migrants, mostly Hausas, Igbos, Yorubas and Europeans who constitute more than half of the population of Jos. This "melting pot" of race, tribe and religion makes Jos one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Nigeria. For this reason, Plateau State is known in Nigeria as the "home of peace and tourism". Despite this, in 2001, the city witnessed violent riots between the divided Muslim and Christian populations in which several thousand people died. In 2004, the former governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye, was suspended for six months for failing to control the violence.