Nigeria, April 3 -- For more than two decades, the city of Jos, capital of Plateau State, has become shorthand for Nigeria's unresolved tensions, faith, identity, and belonging colliding in endless cycles of violence. Once celebrated as a cool and cosmopolitan hilltop retreat, Jos today bears scars of division that run through markets, neighbourhoods, and memories.

The losses are hard to quantify. Thousands dead, tens of thousands displaced, homes burned, entire streets renamed by religion. But what is clearer each time blood is shed is that Jos's crisis is not simply religious. It is deeply political, rooted in colonial history, economic inequality, and a state structure that has failed to give all Nigerians a sense of equal citizenship...