They have been given orders to shoot on sight in an effort to quell hostilities that mark the worst clashes in the restive West African nation since 2004.

For the second straight day on Saturday, angry mobs went through the town burning homes, churches and mosques.

The Nigerian Red Cross says at least 10,000 people have fled their homes.

Contested election

The mostly Christian-backed governing party, the People’s Democratic Party, was declared to have won the state elections in Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital city.

The result was contested by the opposition All Nigeria People’s Party, which has support from Muslims.

Violence started on Thursday night as groups of angry youths burnt tyres on the roads over reports of election rigging.

Bodies from the Muslim Hausa community were brought into the central mosque compound.

The local imam, Sheikh Khalid Abubakar, said more than 300 dead bodies were brought there on Saturday alone.

Those killed in the Christian community would probably be taken to the city morgue, raising the possibility that the total death toll could be much higher.

Police spokesman Bala Kassim said there were “many dead,” but couldn’t cite a firm number.

Despite the overnight curfew, groups in some areas took to the streets again as soon as police patrols had passed by.

Troubled past

In 2001, more than 1,000 people died in religious clashes in the city, situated in Nigeria’s fertile “middle belt” that separates the Muslim north from the predominantly Christian south.

And in 2004, a state of emergency was declared in Plateau state after more than 200 Muslims were killed in the town of Yelwa in attacks by Christian militia.

Correspondents say communal violence in Nigeria is complex, but it often boils down to competition for resources such as land between those that see themselves as indigenous versus the more recent settlers.

In Plateau, Christians are regarded as being indigenous and Hausa-speaking Muslims the settlers.

 

 

Your mobile phone beeps, you have received a text message.It begins: “I swear, I will make sure I give you HIV…”   

But it’s not an abusive threat, it’s a “romantic” text message copied from a book on sale all over Nigeria that professes to give young people the words they need to court the woman or man of their dreams.

“H is for Happiness and joy forever with an I: Incomparable love that will never V: Vanish until death do us part. I love you,” the message concludes.

The book, called “Touching the heart through unforgettable text messages (vol.2)” is one of several on sale in markets around the country that give suggestions to tongue-tied young lovers.

Text compulsion

Nigerians are compulsive text senders.

 

Corny “romantic” messages and jokes are constantly being sent, received and recycled.Many men complain that women send them “hot” text messages, but all they really want is money, while women say they are pestered by men sending “romantic” texts when all their suitors really want is sex.   

But the book’s author, 33-year-old entrepreneur Femi Emmanuel, says he writes text messages for people who are too busy, or illiterate, to properly express what is in their hearts.

He is not married but says he sends “special” text messages to his girlfriend – original ones, not out of his books.

The sale of all four volumes has been such a success he has bought a car with the proceeds.

“People have really embraced the mobile phone here in Nigeria, but they may not be smart enough to know what to say in these kind of situations, or maybe they’re too busy, running an office or whatever,” he said.

‘Bollywood’ inspired

He gets inspiration from Indian “Bollywood” films and Mexican or Nigerian soap operas.

 

“I was watching a Bollywood film and the main actor said to his female lead ‘hey baby, I’m a crazy lover’,” Mr Emmanuel told the BBC.”I thought ‘that’s good,’ I paused the DVD and copied down the subtitles.”   

The text message threatening HIV was inspired by watching a Nigerian film.

“In the film, a man threatened a woman with giving her HIV. I thought how could I turn this acronym into a message?”

“You could send the first sentence on its own,” he says.

“You are putting them in suspense, to create fear, and then you follow up with the interpretation that will give them joy and happiness.”

The BBC asked people on the streets of the capital Abuja what they thought of the message.

Ferdinand Nwonye, 36, a civil servant, said he thought the message was funny.

“The person would first be scared, and then as they went through it they would start laughing,” he said.

He added that the text books are mostly used by teenagers.

“I like sending romantic texts to my wife, but I think of my own, I don’t need one of these books.”

But not everyone sees it that way.

Businesswoman Janet Babalola, 35, says she gets romantic text messages from her husband.

“But if I got something like that I would be shocked,” she says.

Mr Emmanuel, who paid for his high school education by selling newspapers at the roadside, borrowed 75,000 naira ($637; £363) from his brother to publish the first book.

He sold thousands of copies in cities all over the country.

Cheesy?

What may appear cheesy and ridiculous to western eyes may not be so creepy to Nigerians, says a well-known agony aunt.

Nana, who answers readers’ questions about relationships in the Weekly Trust newspaper, says Nigerians might see the words differently to native speakers of English.

“I think this boy who wrote these texts is a bit of a poet,” she says.

“A lot of us in this part of the world are translating in our heads constantly from our local languages to English.”

“A lot of Nigerian languages don’t have a difference between ‘love’ and ‘like’, so a lot of these messages will come across as a love proposition when what the sender really means is ‘I like you’.”

But the texts can also serve as “adverts” which people can use to attract attention to themselves, with seedy intent, she says.

“Many girls and boys too are out on the road looking for customers, and it is only natural that technology has made that a bit easier.”