Riot-struck northern Nigeria tense before prayers

Ulhas Joglekar ulhasj at bom4.vsnl.net.in
Sat Feb 26 06:42:05 PST 2000


26 February 2000

Riot-struck northern Nigeria tense before prayers KADUNA, NIGERIA: Fear of renewed violence gripped northern Nigeria ahead of Moslem prayers on Friday after hundreds of people died this week in religious riots between Christians and Moslems demanding Islamic sharia law. President Olusegun Obasanjo told foreign investors they should not be put off by the clashes, which have intensified concerns over the fate of Africa's most populous nation and its latest attempt at democratic rule. "All the big mosques will be under combined surveillance by soldiers and police to prevent any problems," police spokesman Tamimu Bindawa told Reuters. Moslems are due to begin assembling for their most important prayers of the week from about 1 p.m. (1200 GMT). Violence flared on Monday during a Christian protest against Moslem appeals for the introduction of sharia law. Trucks gathered hundreds of bodies from the streets of Kaduna on Thursday. More than 300 bodies had been sent to mortuaries during the first three days of violence. Police and state officials declined to estimate the death toll, but few Kaduna residents believed it could be less than 1,000. The killings have reinforced prejudices and put a big question mark over the future of the diverse country of at least 108 million people, where a million people died during civil war in the 1960s. Obasanjo, a Christian southerner, faces his greatest challenge yet after a succession of ethnic crises since he took office last May to end 15 years of military rule by Moslems from thenorth. Prices for Nigeria's oil are riding at nine-year highs and foreign lending agencies appear to keen to help after years of corruption and mismanagement. Crisis Hits Investment Prospects But the Kaduna crisis has done nothing to help Nigeria's chances of winning badly-needed investment other than in the energy sector -- a growing proportion of which lies offshore. "President Obasanjo affirmed that the federal government had the will and capacity to deal with such incidents," an official spokesman said he had told a visiting French trade delegation in Abuja. "The president said that despite idiosyncrasies which were a reality of existence in Nigeria, his administration was determined to strengthen democracy and achieve the disciplined, peaceful and progressive society desired by the majority of people," he said. In Washington, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said she was concerned about the violence in Nigeria but said she supported Obasanjo's "overall approach" to the conflict. She told a news conference the United States was talking to the Nigerians and hoped the president would be able to regain control. "We support...his overall approach to how he is dealing with the very serious problems in Nigeria," she said, adding she had discussed the issue of ethnic conflict during her visit to Nigeria last October. The clamour for a society organised along Islamic lines has grown in conservative northern Nigeria since the ethnic power balance shifted to the lush, more permissive south at the end of military rule. Many Moslems want the introduction of Islamic sharia law in Kaduna state, along similar lines to its implementation or planned adoption in more exclusively Moslem northern areas. But Christians living in pockets in northern Nigeria and in the rest of the country are uneasy at the prospect. Thousands of Christians and southerners living in the north have fled south in recent days or taken refuge in military camps. (Reuters) For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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