Bringing former foes together through storytelling

RIGHTS/COMMUNITY

Seven years ago, when Dalyop Timothy Toma was 15, an angry mob came in the night to torch his family’s home in Kyeng village. Everyone but his grandfather fled outside into the bushes to safety. “He couldn’t run because he was disabled,” recalls Toma, then adding matter-of-factly, “We were planning revenge.”

Toma and his family, who are Christians from the Berom ethnic group, blamed Muslims, mainly from the Fulani group, for the attack. Sectarian tensions have run high in Kyeng and other communities in Nigeria’s Plateau state. Disputes often involve politics or land and sometimes erupt in violence.

But in 2022, a youth leader from Kyeng invited Toma to do something extraordinary: Recount his painful story aloud to a big room full of people from different ethnic groups he distrusted. That gathering, organised by a non-government organisation Youth Initiative Against Violence and Human Rights Abuse (Yiavha), changed Toma’s attitude toward those he thought were his enemies.

“Telling my story helped me heal gradually,” says Toma, explaining he no longer thirsts for revenge. Yiavha has made him a peace ambassador, his job to spread his story of grace and forgiveness at intergenerational storytelling sessions in his community and in others.

Plateau state in central Nigeria is home to some four million people. Jacob Choji Pwakim, a longtime peace-building activist in Jos, the state’s capital, founded Yiavha to change the narrative in communities that have been riven by ethno-religious violence.

The origins of the violence in Plateau state can be traced to a tumultuous week in Jos in early September 2001. More than 1,000 people were killed and tens of thousands displaced amid a long-running struggle for political and economic power among the area’s different ethnic groups. Disputes also flared between settlers and people indigenous to Jos. 

Yiavha has held at least 66 storytelling sessions across the state. Elders have given accounts of bygone times when residents from various ethnic groups lived in harmony, even sharing gifts during religious celebrations for Eid and Christmas. Meanwhile, young people have recounted why they destroyed farms or livestock belonging to members of a different faith or tribe.

“This was what inspired me to set up Yiavha in 2014, with the objective of creating a platform where young people across the divide can talk about their experiences without judgement,” Pwakim says. 

So far, Yiavha has worked with up to 3,300 young people, including more than 300 who have been trained as peace ambassadors who might eventually organise storytelling sessions in their communities. Other young people have become agents of change after attending the sessions, organising interfaith meals, youth soccer competitions, and litter cleanups. Yiavha specifically seeks out young people who have shown a tendency toward violence, in the hope they will change their ways, Pwakim says. 

One sunny afternoon this past February, a group of young people assembled in Kambel, a community in the Anglo-Jos settlement within Jos. Ahmed Haruna told stories to the rapt audience, which included residents of both Kambel and Channel Seven, another community in Anglo-Jos.

“Growing up, we didn’t even know the difference, who was Muslim or Christian among us,” Haruna says. Over the years, residents have lived in segregated areas, with Christians mainly in Kambel and Muslims mainly in Channel Seven. But the storytelling sessions have gradually brought them together once again. After Haruna finished sharing stories about the settlements’ tranquil past, peace ambassador Joshua Tsok opened the floor for questions.

Hands went up. Thomas Zakariah asked how the peace enjoyed decades ago could be achieved nowadays, given that violent conflict has continued to rock Jos and other parts of the state. Another, Aisha Isiyak, wanted to know whether the current peace in Kambel and Channel Seven could be sustained. 

Haruna told Zakariah patience and tolerance can make peace possible. To Isiyak, he pointed out that many residents in Kambel and Channel Seven, once bitterly divided, have been working toward forming durable bonds. “Now we can send our children to the other community on errands, even at night, without fear,” Haruna says. 

Training for peace ambassadors is extensive. In 2023, for example, peace ambassadors gathered in Barkin Ladi, another community in Plateau state known for violent sectarian conflict. A training facilitator, Hussaini Umaru, who’s an associate professor in the department of theatre and film arts at the University of Jos, says he divided the young people into groups and asked them to narrate and dramatise personal experiences of conflict, and then discuss the episodes. 

It’s not easy for ambassadors to trust their trainers. Umar Farouk Musa, a development consultant who facilitated a training session in August 2024, explains this is typically the first hurdle. “Some thought we were there to introduce an agenda or to spy. But we built their confidence,” he says. 

The government’s Plateau Peace Building Agency is a key partner with Yiavha. Kenneth Dakop, a team leader for the agency, says Yiavha’s initiatives have helped transform young people who previously had been drivers of violence in their communities. “Most of them are either unemployed or into substance and drug abuse,” he says. 

Yiavha’s ambassadors have seen transformations in themselves. “I want to become a professional teacher,” Toma says. This year, Yiavha paired Toma with a Fulani boy and assigned each of them to plant a pear tree in the other’s village to signify a commitment to peace. While Toma is at college, his father tends his tree, patiently waiting for it to bear fruit.

TOP Jacob Choji Pwakim, longtime peace-building activist in Jos

MIDDLE Dalyop Timothy Tom

BOTTOM Ahmed Haruna during a storytelling session in Jos

PHOTOS Nathaniel Bivan

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