The latest wave of sectarian violence in Nigeria's central Plateau state, which began on December 24th with multiple bombings in the state capital, Jos, has so far shown few evident signs of abating (January 2011, The political scene). According to a report by the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), published on January 27th, more than 200 people had been killed since the start of hostilities in tit-for-tat clashes. The authorities face a difficult task trying to quell the unrest in this region where inter-communal bloodletting claimed at least 1,000 lives in 2010 and nearly 4,000 since 1999. At the end of January the government began to dispatch new troops to Jos to replace members of the special task force that has served for more than a year in the state, but has been accused by Christians of being biased against them. Meanwhile, Muslims have called for a state of emergency in Plateau state and the removal of the state's Christian governor, Jonah Jang, accusing his government of instigating violence against Muslims.

The tension in Plateau state is fuelled by several hard to resolve, underlying factors, including resentment between so-called indigenous people, who are mostly Christians, and migrants and settlers from the mainly Hausa-speaking Muslim north, who compete for scarce resources, especially fertile farmland, and for political power. The situation is complicated by the operations of the fanatical religious sect, Boko Haram, which wants strict Islamic law extended throughout Nigeria. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the December 24th bomb blasts in two Christian communities in Jos, attacks that appear to form part of a wider plan to destabilise this multi-ethnic, poly-faith nation as it approaches the April elections.

Federal and state authorities face the additional challenge of preventing the violence in the state from spreading to neighbouring states where relations between Christian and Muslim communities have also long been tense. There is already mounting tension in Bauchi state, where a dispute over a snooker game triggered clashes between Christian and Muslim youths on January 27th, killing at least 19 people and badly damaging houses and places of worship.