Long before Nigeria lowered the Union Jack and raised her green-and-white flag in 1960, there was a land in her heart that had already learned what it meant to be free. Tucked in the cool embrace of the Jos Plateau, where the ridges rise like ancient sentinels and valleys open like cradles, small communities carved out lives of liberty.
In the 19th century, when the Fulani jihad swept through the plains, countless groups scaled these heights, fleeing not just for safety but for sovereignty. On the Plateau, they found both. They built villages on hilltops, tended terraced farms on ridges, and guarded their languages, shrines, and stories with unyielding pride. For them, freedom was not an abstract idea, it was the daily act of planting yams without tribute to a foreign ruler, or of singing ancestral songs beneath the granite rocks that stood like shields.
The Plateau was not aloof from history. It was a haven that carried the memory of what true independence felt like, centuries before Nigeria herself became bound and free.
The Plateau’s Ancient Memory
Scratch beneath the grasslands of the Plateau, and history speaks. Acheulean hand axes from the Stone Age, Nok terracotta sculptures with wide eyes and elaborate coiffures, dating back as far as 900 BCE. These relics whisper that this land was not just a refuge but a cradle of civilization; a place where art, metallurgy, and organized life flourished long before colonial boundaries were ever drawn.
If independence means staking a claim in the world’s memory, Plateau had already etched her name deep into the soil of time.
Tin, Columbite, and the Forge of a Nation
Fast forward to the early 20th century. The British arrived with rails, shovels, and an appetite for minerals. Beneath the rolling hills of the Plateau State, they discovered one of the richest deposits of tin and columbite in the world. By 1904, mining camps sprouted. By the 1940s, the place we now call Plateau was supplying nearly half of the world’s columbite, an ore critical for making steel alloys and, later, jet engines.
What was pulled from Plateau’s belly fueled wars, industries, and economies far beyond Africa. Yet the Plateau gave more than minerals. It gave Nigeria one of its first true melting pots. From the Yoruba craftsmen to Igbo traders, Hausa and Kanuri laborers, and European supervisors, Jos became a place where people who might never have met in their homelands now worked shoulder to shoulder. In canteens, on rail lines, and in crowded markets, Nigerians debated politics, exchanged ideas, and slowly began to imagine themselves as one people.
Independence may have been declared in Lagos, but its roots were quietly watered in Jos where diversity lived side by side, and the idea of one Nigeria was not just a dream but a daily practice.
A Living Metaphor at Independence
When Nigeria finally won her freedom in 1960, Plateau stood as a metaphor of what the young nation aspired to be: diverse but united, resource-rich yet humble, rooted in ancient heritage yet open to modernity.
Here was a land that had always been given: tin and columbite to build industries, rivers that flow into the Niger, the Benue, and even Lake Chad, feeding nations beyond its borders, fields that produced grains, fruits, and livestock in climates cooler than anywhere else in Nigeria. The Plateau was not at the periphery of independence; it was at its core, showing what was possible when resilience and diversity found common ground.
The State is Born
It wasn’t until 1976 that Plateau State, as we know it today, was carved from the old Benue-Plateau. With Jos as its capital, the state grew into a constellation of seventeen local governments: from the potato-rich fields of Bokkos to the iron-laden rocks of Wase, from the farmlands of Langtang to the waterfalls of Riyom. Seventeen pieces, one story: Plateau as a giver, a nurturer, and a symbol of unity.
The Plateau That Feeds Nigeria
Agriculture remains Plateau’s beating heart. Over 75% of its people farm, and the land answers their labor generously. The Plateau produces over 92% of Nigeria’s Irish potatoes and 95% of her fonio (acha)—a tiny golden grain hailed globally as a “super food.” Add to that maize, rice, yams, tomatoes, cabbages, apples, and even roses once exported across West Africa.
And then there are the cattle. The tsetse-free climate made Plateau the perfect haven for Fulani herdsmen, whose milk supplies birthed Nigeria’s first modern dairy in Vom. Today, the Plateau still whispers her generosity in every glass of milk, every plate of jollof rice with tomatoes from Jos, and every bag of potatoes trucked across the nation.
If Nigeria is a body, then Plateau has long been part of her bloodstream; nourishing her silently and faithfully.
The Wealth Beneath the Rocks
Mining may have slowed, but the Plateau’s earth remains a treasure chest. Lead, zinc, feldspar, barite, kaolin, sapphires; all names that glint with promise. These minerals, if fully harnessed, could help power Nigeria’s future industries. Once, the Plateau helped the world build railways and airplanes. Tomorrow, it could help build Nigeria’s clean energy revolution.
Nigeria’s Tourism Haven
And then there is beauty. Plateau has long been called Nigeria’s tourism haven, and rightly so. Where else can you find ridges that look like the backs of sleeping giants, waterfalls that tumble like silver ribbons, and a climate so cool it feels like a whisper from another continent?
From Assop Falls to the Shere Hills, from Riyom Rock to Pandam Game Reserve, Plateau is a gallery of nature’s best work. Its cultural festivals of Ngas dances, Tarok chants, Berom drumming, among a variety of others are not just spectacles, but living museums of identity.
No wonder Plateau State is often called Nigeria in miniature. More than 40 ethnic groups live here, each with their own traditions, yet all woven into the same fabric.
Leaders From the Highlands
When Nigeria needed leaders, the Plateau answered. General Yakubu Gowon rose from these highlands to steer the nation through its darkest hour, the Civil War, with his enduring call for “Reconciliation, Reconstruction, and Rehabilitation.” Joseph Gomwalk dreamed of development for Benue-Plateau before his untimely death. Solomon Lar, the first civilian governor of Plateau, championed democracy and minority rights across Nigeria.
Each, in their way, carried the Plateau spirit of resilience and unity into Nigeria’s national story.
The Strengths and the Struggles
Like Nigeria itself, Plateau carries its contradictions. It is fertile yet underdeveloped, mineral-rich yet scarred by decades of underinvestment. It has been tested by episodes of ethno-religious violence that strained its “Home of Peace” identity. But perhaps that is precisely why Plateau mirrors Nigeria so powerfully: a land of immense gifts, wrestling with division, yet always striving to rise above.
Plateau’s Independence Lesson
So what does Independence mean when viewed from the Plateau?
It means resilience! Of people who once climbed hills to escape conquest and chose freedom over submission.
It means contribution—of tin that built industries, potatoes that fill markets, rivers that quench nations. It means promise—of leaders, artists, farmers, and dreamers who continue to shape Nigeria’s story.
Independence is not just a date marked on calendars. It is a living rhythm, carried in the Plateau winds, sung in the Plateau songs, whispered by the Plateau rocks: that freedom is not given, it is lived.
A Highland Gift to the Nation
Today, as Nigeria celebrates another Independence Day, the Plateau stands not just as a part of her, but as one of her greatest gifts. A land that remembers Nok and Acheulean axes. A land that fed colonial rails with tin and still feeds kitchens with grain. A land that mirrors Nigeria’s struggles and yet embodies her potential.
Before Nigeria knew how to be free, the Plateau had already known.
And long after, the Plateau continues to remind her what freedom requires: resilience, generosity, and unity in diversity.
