Photo: The burnt Jos Main Market
The Plateau State diaspora communities in the US, UK, Canada, Germany and South Africa have made a bold offer to crowd fund the rebuilding of the Jos Main Market.for which the state government had earlier entered a memorandum of understanding with an Islamic bank, Jaiz.
Periscope International reports that the government’s controversial decision, which would allow the bank to build the market but take controlling ownership of the rebuilt market and its shops at a ratio of 60:40 with the state government for a period of forty years generated an uproar which has yet to die down across the state.
Musa Bagos, a member of the National Assembly representing Jos South andJos East Federal Constituency, promptly went to court and secured an interim injunction early this week restraining the government from going ahead with the Jaiz Bank deal.
However, in a latest twist in the controversial matter, the diaspora community, in a counter-offer to the JAIZ bank, has offered to rebuild the market through a N10 billion crowd funding.
According to Viewpoint, the diaspora community made the offer during a parley on the matter organised by the project management office of the Plateau State Government.
The report said that the diaspora community offered to pool funds together into what they tagged a “Diaspora Fund” of N1 million per head in order to crowd fund the reconstruction of the ultramodern market, which they consider as a prized asset of the state’s indigenous population.
It was gathered that the Plateau diaspora community insisted that they would rather pool their resources to fund the rebuilding of the market, which was destroyed by terrorists during the 2021 Jos crisis, than allow external investors to come in and take over the equity of such a key asset of the state.
They urged the state government to henceforth halt the MoU with Jaiz Bank, stressing that the main market offered a unique opportunity for Plateau citizens to start to invest massively in Jos.
Among the leaders of the Plateau State diaspora organisation who participated in the parley were the current president of the Plateau State Association, UK,, Mr. Rwang Chall, head of the U.S. Plateau association, Mr Moses Dachan, and a founding member of the Plateau Association, UK,Mr Solomon Fom.
Others included a former vice president of the Plateau Assocation, UK, Dr. Chinnan Dikwal, former president of the US Plateau Association, U.S.,Mrs Azara Turaki among many others members spread across the US, UK, Germany, South Africa, Canada, etc.
