NIGERIA

Reports on Ethnic Relations  /  Rapports sur les relations éthniques

The following section is consisted of part, full or summaries of articles from diverses sources (newspapers, newsletters, etc...).
La section suivante est constituée d'exraits, de la totalité ou de résumés d'articles provenant d'origines diverses (journaux,bulletins, etc..).

01 / 26 / 2004

IRIN

"At least five killed in fresh Itsekiri, Ijaw clashes"

At least five people were killed at the weekend in a fresh outbreak of fighting between rival ethnic militias near the oil town of Warri in Nigeria s oil-rich Niger Delta, residents and militants said on Monday.

Fighting broke out before dawn on Sunday near the Itsekiri stronghold of Ode Itsekiri five km south of Warri, and petered out at day break.

This clash was followed by another round of fighting on Sunday afternoon near Ogbe Ijoh market on the opposite bank of the Warri River, residents said.

Bello Oboko, leader of the militant Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities, said three boats carrying Ijaw traders were attacked by Itsekiri militants as they passed Ode Itsekiri, leaving one Ijaw dead.

The ambush was resisted by our boys and there was a shootout, he said.

Oboko said that later on Sunday Itsekiri militiamen attacked several Ijaw villages in speed boats, shooting indiscriminately into them. The casualties from this second attack were still being counted, he said.

However, Daniel Iremiju, who leads the equally militant Itsekiri National Youth Council, accused Ijaw fighters of launching an unprovoked attack on Ode Itsekiri, killing four people.

He said Itsekiri fighers attacked Ijaw villages in retaliation a few hours later.

If we are attacked we re not going to fold our hands, we will retaliate, he said. And we went into the river and retaliated.

The delta region around Warri has been a scene of repeated ethnic clashes over the past seven years, during which several hundred people have died. At least 200 people were killed in fighting between the rival ethnic groups last year, including some of the soldiers deployed to quell the violence.

Much of the fighting has been over claims to the ownership of land on which oil companies operate. The community which owns such land stands to benefit from jobs and various local ammenities provided by the oil companies.

In October, Delta State governor James Ibori secured a truce between the warring factions and began negotiations to bring permanent peace to the delta.

But given a series of recent incidents of tit-for-tat violence between Ijaws and Itsekiris, Warri has become increasingly tense and many residents of the oil city fear a return to heavy fighting.

01 / 25 / 2004

IRIN

"Muslim fundamentalist uprising raises fears of terrorism"

When a student-led Islamic sect launched an armed uprising last month with the aim of setting up a Taliban-style Muslim state in northern Nigeria, the authorities were swift to quell the insurrection.

However, political analysts and security officials fear the emergence of the Al Sunna Wal Jamma (Followers of the Prophet) group may be an indication that extremist Islamic groups have found enough foothold in Nigeria to make Africa's most populous country a theatre for worse sectarian violence than it has seen in recent years and acts of terrorism.

"What I find striking is that the group had operated in Nigeria for some time, had a cell network of members that included highly educated people and could use weapons," said Ike Onyekwere, a political analyst.

"Though they appear to have been put to flight, there is a chance they might still regroup and emerge in another, perhaps more deadly form," he added.

Strangers with no respect for traditions

Residents in Kanamma, a small town in Yobe State in northeast Nigeria, recall that the "strangers" first set up camp in the outskirts of the small town near the Niger border a year ago. They would come into town to preach to the people about how to attain Islamic purity.

However, the incomers showed a lack of respect for local traditions, especially property rights, and this led to growing friction with the local population.

The young militants farmed anywhere and fished in fishponds on the bank of the Yobe River owned by particular families. They dismissed the complaints of local people by saying that "everything belongs to Allah", Rabiu Usman, a Kanama resident, told IRIN.

Reports of these problems finally reached the authorities and Yobe governor Abba Ibrahim decided to intervene. The governor told reporters he had already initiated moves to peacefully disband the group when it unexpectedly resorted to violence in late December.

Attacks leave 18 dead

The Al Sunna Wal Jama group attacked the police stations in Kanamma and nearby Geidam, killing two policemen. They stripped the buildings of guns and ammunition and burned them to the ground. The group then retreated to a primary school in Kanamma where they hoisted the flag of Afghanistan, spoiling for more violence.

Nigerian army spokesman Colonel Chukwuemeka Onwuamaegbu, said troops were sent to tackle the militants in when it became clear they were "getting a bit too much for the police to handle".

At least 18 people were killed during a fortnight of clashes. Most were Islamic militants, but three policemen and one member of a vigilante group on the Cameroonian border were also shot dead.

Many of the estimated 200 members of the sect are now in custody and others in are in flight.

The attention of the authorities and security agencies is now focussing on how the group emerged to become a threat to public security with little being known about them.

"We now want to find out how they got their arms and weapons training, who their backers are here in Nigeria and possibly abroad," a senior security official close to the investigation told IRIN.

He said investigators were also hoping to unravel the apparently extensive network of cells that recruited members from places as varied as Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, Lagos, in the southwest, and neighbouring Niger.

Fatai Fagbemi, the Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of the northeast, told IRIN that most of the militants in police custody were children "of notable Nigerians". But the police have so far refused to give out any of their names.

Nigeria's volatile mix of religions and its history of repeated outbreaks of sectarian violence make authorities understandably nervous about the emergence of this pro-Taliban group.

The country's population of more than 120 million people is almost evenly split between a mainly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south with a significant number of Animists in between.

In the past four years 12 states in northern Nigeria have adopted the strict Islamic or Shari'ah legal code. This prescribes harsh penalties including the amputation of limbs for stealing, stoning to death for adultery and public flogging for drinking alcohol.

The adoption of Shari'ah has heightened tensions and between Muslims and Christians and has led to repeated outbreaks of communal violence in which thousands of people have died.

Nigerian security agencies have in the past voiced concerns about the activities of certain Islamic preachers whom they feared were radicalising Muslims in parts of the north. Many were suspected of having links to terrorist groups and foreign organisations.

In the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, several Afghan and Pakistani preachers and other residents were arrested and deported because, according to the authorities, they could not give satisfactory explanations of their mission in Nigeria.

The daily newspaper Punch reported at about the same time that Mohammed Suleiman al-Nalfi, wanted in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York, had been arrested at Lagos airport in 2000 and handed over to US law enforcement agents.

Al-Nalfi has since pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism after revealing Al Qaeda links during his trial.

Security officials say an additional reason for increased vigilance is the fact that Nigeria was mentioned alongside Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia in a tape purportedly released by Osama bin Laden, the fugitive leader of Al Qaeda, as a country where Muslims need to be liberated.

Late in November 2003 the U.S. Consulate in Lagos even issued a warning, advising its citizens to avoid a popular shopping mall in an up-market district of the city, citing specific intelligence of a likely terror attack.

According to Soji Olaniyan, a doctorate student in international affairs at the University of Lagos, Nigeria because of its peculiar make-up, large population and increasingly strategic position as Africa's largest oil producer, could become a target of destabilisation from abroad.

"This might include but may not necessarily be limited to terrorist attacks," he told IRIN. "In fact, in most of the countries said to have been mentioned by bin Laden there have already been terrorist attacks and Nigeria has every reason to watch it," he added.

01 / 16 / 2004

IRIN

"At least 10 dead as troops clash with delta militants"

At least 10 people died when ethnic Ijaw militants traded gunfire with government troops in Bomadi, a small town in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger delta, residents said on Friday.

The clash occured on Thursday when soldiers trailing a group of Ijaw militants surrounded the town and engaged the armed youths in a gun battle, the residents told IRIN.

From various accounts no less than 10 of the boys (militants) were shot dead, Wilson Opuebuka, a resident of the Bomadi who fled the fighting to Warri, told IRIN.

Major Said Ahmed, the spokesman for Operation Restore Hope , a joint campaign by the army and navy to check the region s growing violence, confirmed the incident in Bomadi, which lies 35 km of the oil city of Warri.

Our soldiers went to Bomadi for a cordon and search operation, part of our efforts to rid the area of weapons, and the local boys started firing at us, he told IRIN.

However, Ahmed gave a lower death toll. The army spokesman said he could only confirm that one militant was killed and one soldier injured.

The army had arrested 31 people in Bomadi and recovered guns, ammunition and a hand grenade, he added.

The delta region around Warri has been a scene of repeated clashes in the past seven years, during which several hundred people have died.

The fighting has mainly pitted armed Ijaw youths against their rivals from the Itsekiri tribe. Gangs of oil thieves who tap crude oil from pipelines have filled the region with guns, fuelling the violence. Many of the skirmishes have been over claims to the ownership of land on which oil companies operate in order to obtain the benefits that these companies confer in terms of jobs and local amenities.

At least 200 people were killed in fighting between the rival ethnic groups last year. Soldiers deployed to quell the violence also died.

The Ijaws, the largest ethnic group in the Niger Delta, have accused successive governments - including the present administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo - of favouring their Itsekiri rivals.

The 3,000 army and navy troops assigned to Operation Restore Hope have tightened security along the waterways of the swampy and heavily forested delta to intercept barges of stolen oil being shipped out to tankers waiting offshore.

Nigeria is thought to lose about 10 percent of its oil through this theft of crude oil known as "bunkering."

The soldiers have alson undertake frequent cordon and search operations in villages to try and retrieve weapons already in the hands of militants.

THIS DAY (Nigeria)

"Seven killed and palace burnt after local government elections" (Chuks Okocha & Jide Orintunsin)

No fewer than seven people were feared killed just as the local government secretariat, a section of the Emir's palace and several houses were set ablaze in Kontagora, Niger State followign the release of the results of the local government election in the area.

Crisis erupted in the early hours of yesterday when the news of the official results of the election indicated that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate was declared winner of the chairmanship seat of Kontagora Local Government.

THISDAY gathered that earlier on Wednesday the returning officer for the election, Alhaji Hammid Khadi Kuta, had declared the Peoples Redem-ption Party (PRP)candidate, Alhaji Haruna Buhari, the winner.

The PDP, however, alleged that the returning officer was under threat to his life forced to declare the PRP candidate candidate winner.

Consequently the PDP candidate, Alhaji Sani Bello Mustafa, was declared winner by the chairman of the State Indepen-dent Electoral Commission (SIEC), Alhaji Tanko Inga.

Irked by this development, some supporters of PRP and people of the town took to the streets, while another team in 10 buses left the town for Minna, the state capital, to protest the inauguration of the PDP candidate.

01 / 14 / 2004

DAILY CHAMPION (Nigeria)

"Ijaw flee Warri creeks as tension mounts" (Muyiwa Odu)

Fresh tension has gripped Warri, Delta State, following a noticeable influx of Ijaw from the nearby riverine communities seeking to escape renewed attacks on them by suspected Itsekiri youths.

Scores of the Ijaw clutching their luggages were sighted in the past few days moving into different locations in the oil-rich city.

The movements followed barely days after last week's speedboat ambush on the Benin River in which 18 Ijaw, mostly women and children, were killed on their way to Elume Junction Market in Warri North local government area.

Fifteen of the bodies had been pulled out of the water as at 2.30 p.m. Monday.

The rising tension in Warri is due to fresh fear of a possible secret mobilisation and reprisal attack by the large population of Ijaw resident in the city and its environs, in spite of the heavy military presence in the area.

It would be recalled that the state government handed a New Year gift to the crises-weary residents by suspending an over 10-month dusk to dawn curfew imposed there.

The government had justified its action by the prevailing peace in the area, but warned that it would restore the sanction if the peace was threatened.

As uneasy calm settled on the oil city following the latest development, some prominent Ijaw, Daily Champion learnt, are currently frenziedly appealing to their militant youths not to retaliate last week's incident.

Another attack occurred recently when armed Itsekiri youths opened fire on a boat conveying some Ijaws in a creek at Ogunu in Warri South local government area.

During the attack few of them managed to escape the onslaught but an Ijaw royal chief was kidnapped and has not be found till today.

Parading the escapees at a news conference in Warri, the president of the Ijaw National Council (INC), Chief Samson Mamamu confirmed the kidnap of the chief.

"As I am talking to you, the whereabouts of the man is still unknown," Chief Mamamu said.

"I think what the Itsekiri are aiming at is to eliminate the Ijaw race in Warri but that is not possible," he added.

01 / 12 / 2004

IRIN

"18 killed in ethnic clash in Niger delta"

Ethnic tension is rising once again in the volatile Niger Delta after unidentified gunmen attacked two boats near the oil city of Warri, killing at least 18 of the passengers on board.

Delta State government secretary Emmanuel Uduaghan told reporters that all the men, women and children killed in the incident last Friday belonged to the Ijaw ethnic group. Their attackers were suspected to be members of the rival Itsekiri tribe, he added.

The attack raised fears about the future of a fragile truce between Ijaw and Itsekiri militia groups that was negotiated in October. More than 200 people died last year as a result of armed clashes between the two tribes.

The Ijaws and Itsekiri are both seeking to control the benefits that accrue from the activities of oil companies operating in this swampy region of southeastern Nigeria.

Jonathan Ari, a spokesman for the Ijaw community, said the Itsekiris had attacked Ijaws five times in the past two months and each time the Ijaws had been advised by their leaders to refrain from reprisals.

But this latest action by the Itsekiri has truncated the peace talks, he told reporters in Warri.

Itsekiri leaders denied responsibility for the killing spree, blaming the attack on infighting among different Ijaw factions.

On Sunday, troops deployed in the Warri area helped to search for four boat passengers still missing following the attack.

Meanwhile, 200 km southeast of Warri, near the oil city of Port Harcourt, a dispute has broken out between Shell and the rural community of Rukpokwu over an oil spill that began four weeks ago. The spilled oil subsequently caught fire, destroying large areas of forest and farmland and polluting drinking water.

People in the village, 25 km from Port Harcourt, have blamed the oil spill, which caught fire two weeks ago, on the failure of a corroded pipeline. Community leaders have accused Shell of failing to take urgent steps to stop the leak, even though the company was alerted immediately after it was first noticed.

Aaron Azunda, a community leader in Rukpokwu, said a stream that is the only source of drinking water for the village had been polluted, while 300 hectares of farmland and fishing grounds had been destroyed.

Having excavated the pipeline and seen it was caused by corrosion, Shell promised to come on 22 December to clamp it, Azunda said. But until now it has done nothing about it.

A Shell spokesman confirmed that the spill had resulted from the fracture of a corroded pipeline, but he told IRIN that the company had been denied access to the site by members of Rukpokwu community, who demanded immediate cash payments first.

The spokesman accused local people of deliberately setting the spilled oil alight in the hope of receiving hefty compensation payments. He said Shell would clean up the spill if the community agreed to grant its technicians access to the site."

We re committed to high standards, but equipment can still fail, there s no magic to it, the Shell official said.

01 / 09 / 2004

DAILY CHAMPION (Nigeria)

"Ogoni movement states terms for Shell's return" (Fenayi Mbagwu)

Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) on Sunday insisted that Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) would never return to Ogoniland unless the company addressed the demands of the people.

The organisation also vowed that Ogoni would never allow themselves to be pushed to a corner where they would be forced to let the oil company resume operations in their ancestral land.

MOSOP president, Mr. Ledum Mitee, who stated this in Bori, Rivers State, during the fourth anniversary of the Ogoni Day celebrations last Sunday, said Ogoni would never abandon their cause because "our struggle is for posterity."

Mr. Mitee blamed both the government and Shell for their injustice and insensitivity towards the Ogoni.

The MOSOP leader who accused the oil company of fuelling discord in Ogoniland, however, urged the people not to be discouraged in their resolve to fight for their rights.

He commended Ogoni for their sacrifices, understanding and commitment to the struggle for economic emancipation of the area for over a decade now.

"If government reneges on their promises to deliver in critical areas, or the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) demonstrably maintains that we are not entitled to their development projects because Shell Oil is no longer coming from our land, or Shell continues to promote discord in our communities, we should remind ourselves that these are, but weapons in the arsenal against the struggle for which we have committed ourselves," he said.

Mr. Mitee noted that with a comparatively more 30 completed projects, the European Union (EU) has impacted positively on the lives of the Ogoni through its MPP-3 scheme.

"This country can indisputably afford the basic level of services for its citizens if only we could hold those responsible to account," he remarked.

It would be recalled that Shell pulled out of Ogoniland in the 1990s following the outbreak of the Ogoni crisis.

01 / 08 / 2004

IRIN

"Seven armed Islamic militants killed near Cameroon border"

Nigerian police said on Thursday that vigilante groups had shot dead seven Islamic fundamentalists belonging to the group which staged an abortive uprising in the northeast of the country last month as they attempted to cross the border to Cameroon.

Assistant Inspector General Fatai Fagbemi, the officer in charge of investigations into the Sunna Wal Jamma (Followers of the Prophet) fundamentalist group, which attacked police stations in three towns in northeastern Nigeria to seize guns and ammunition, said the militants were killed on Monday night in the village of Damboa near the Cameroon border.

Fagbemi said a group of 10 Islamic militants entered the village and shot dead one of the vigilantes who challenged them. Seven of the militants were then killed and the other three were arrested. Fagbemi said they were carrying bags which contained AK-47 automatic rifles and ammunition.

The latest incident brought to 17 the number of people killed since the uprising began in mid-December. Radio Nigeria said police had so far arrested 47 of the militants, who are followers of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and seek to establish a strict Islamic state in Nigeria.

Fagbemi said those in detention included seven militants who had fled to Niger, where they had been arrested and returned to Nigeria by the local authorities.

He said police were still working to track down other members of the group who were "still on the loose."

"From our preliminary investigations, the majority of the members are children of notable Nigerians," Fagbemi added.

The Sunna Wal Jamma group has been in exisentence for two years. Most of its members are students at universities and polytechnics in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria.

Fagbemi said police had not yet discovered whether the group had any powerful local or foreign patrons.

After seizing the towns of Geidam and Kanamma near the northern frontier with Niger on 23 December, the militants were confronted by a joint force of riot police and soldiers in Kanamma on 31 December.

Following that clash a column of the insurgents drove south to attack police stations in Damatura, the capital of Yobe state, where a further battle ensued and several were captured. Fagbemi said two of the 20 prisoners currently undergoing police interrogation in Damatura were women.

The remnants of the insurgent column were ambushed by police on the outskirts of Maiduguri, the capital of neighbouring Borno state on 1 January.

01 / 06 / 2004

IRIN

"Man sentenced to stoning for sex with step-daughter"

A Shari'ah Islamic court in northern Nigeria has sentenced a man to death by stoning for having sex with his 15-year-old step-daughter and making her pregnant, court officials said on Tuesday.

Umaru Tori, 45, was sentenced to death for adultery last week by a court in Alkaleri, a provincial town in Bauchi State.

His step-daughter was sentenced to 100 strokes of the cane, to be administered after she has given birth to her baby, since she was an unmarried minor.

A senior official of the Bauchi State Shari ah Court of Appeal confirmed the judgment and said both convicts had a 30-day period until January 29 in which to appeal against their sentences.

Bauchi is one of 12 states in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north that began adopting strict Shari'ah law four years ago.

This prescribes several controversial sentences, including stoning to death for adultery, the amputation of limbs for stealing and public flogging for drinking alcohol.

While some amputations and floggings have been delivered, no one has so far been executed by stoning in Nigeria.

Tori is the eighth person to be sentenced to death by stoning in northern Nigeria in the past three years.

So far three death sentences have been overturned on appeal, the most recent being that of Amina Lawal, a 32-year-old single mother. Her sentence was quashed by an appeal court in Katsina state in September.

Lawal's case attracted a wave of international interest and outrage since the man she had accused of fathering her baby simply denied having sex with her and was acquitted.

Four people are currently awaiting the outcome of their appeals against stoning sentences in Nigeria.

Two are former lovers in Niger state and two are men in Bauchi state convicted of separate sexual crimes.One was sentenced to death for sexually molesting three teenage boys. The ofther confessed to adultery with his neighbour's wife after putting her in a spell.

The application of strict Shari'ah has heightened tension between Nigeria's Islamic north and the largely Christian south. This has given rise to periodic outburst of sectarian violence in which thousands of people have died in the past four years.

"10,000 displaced by Muslim uprising in Northeast"

At least 10,000 people fled their homes in northeastern Nigeria over the past two weeks following clashes in the region between the security forces and armed Islamic militants, government officials said on Tuesday.

Mohamed Powa, the head of Yobe State Emergency and Relief Materials Agency, told IRIN that more than half the population of Kanamma, a small town near the Niger border, which the militants briefly turned into their headquarters, had disappeared.

Large numbers of people had also abandoned their homes in the nearby towns of Geidam, Babangida and Dankalawar, he added.

Powa said the Yobe state authorities had begun distributing food, water and shelter materials to the displaced.

The militants belonged to the Al Sunna Wal Jamma (Followers of the Prophet) movement, which has existed for at least two years and enjoys a following among university students in Maiduguri, the main city in northeastern Nigeria.

The militants, who are seeking to create a fundamentalist Islamic state in Nigeria, are self-confessed admirers of the Taliban in Afghanistan. They flew flags bearing the word "Afghanistan" during their brief occupation of Kanamma.

A group of at least 200 militants attacked the police stations in Kanamma and Geidam, where they siezed guns and ammunition, before a joint force of riot police and soldiers was sent to confront them.

Following an initial confrontation with the security forces in Kanamma on 31 December, the militants attacked three police stations in the Yobe state capital Damaturu and set fire to a government building there. A further battle with the security forces took place on the outskirts of Maiduguri, 135 km east of Damaturu, the following day.

Yobe state governor Abba Ibrahim said on Monday that 10 people had died in the clashes - eight militants and two policemen. At least 10 Islamic militants had been captured and were undergoing police interrogation, he added.

Ibrahim said preliminary investigations showed that three of those detained were from neighbouring Niger, to which one group of militants retreated following the initial battle in Kanamma. Two others were Kano, the main city in northern Nigeria, and one had travelled from Lagos, the commercial capital in the south, to join the uprising.

"We want to find out where they got their guns, their buses and who gave them money," the Yobe state governor told reporters, adding that police were trying to determine whether the militants had received any foreign support.

01 / 05 / 2004

"Six die as troops quell uprising by Muslim extremists"

At least six people were killed when soldiers and police quelled an uprising by Muslim extremists who had attacked several police stations in Northeastern Nigeria over the past two weeks, a government spokesman said.

Ibrahim Jirgi, the spokesman for Yobe statement goverment, said on Sunday that the group of about 200 militants belonged to a Muslim sect known as Al Sunna Wal Jamma or "Followers of the Prophet."

This group has been active for the past two years in northeastern Nigeria and demands the establishment of an Islamic state in the country. It professes admiration for the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.

Jirgi said the militants first attacked police stations in the towns of Geidam and Kanamma near the northern border with Niger, where they siezed guns and ammunition. The militants subsequently occupied a primary school in Kanamma, where they raised flags with "Afghanistan" written on them.

Residents in Kanamma said the militants appeared mainly to be students from university students from Maiduguri, the capital of neighbouring Borno state.

Jirgi said a joint force of riot police and soldiers attacked the militants in Kanamma on 31 December, whereupon they divided into two columns and retreated.

One column of insurgents headed for the nearby border with Niger, while the other drove to Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, 180 km to the south. Jirgi said that after night fell, the insurgents attacked three police stations and burn down a local government building in the town.

The security forces fought a two-hour gun-battle with the militants in Damaturu before they retreated once more, heading for Maiduguri, 135 km to the east. They killed a police inspector and abducted another police officer as they fled the town towards Maiduguri, Jirgi said.

The militants were ambushed by the security forces on the outskirts on Maiduguri on 1 January. Jirgi said two militants were killed in that engagement and several others were arrested, while the policeman taken hostage in Damaturu was released unharmed..

The government spokesman said the security forces of Niger intercepted the second column of militants as it tried to head across the border. Three militants were killed in the clash and three others were arrested, he added.

"We are making arrangements to bring them back to Nigeria," Jirgi said.

Police spokesman Chris Olakpe said a joint force of soldiers and police sent to tackle the militants had "brought the situation under control" and was still patrolling the affected area. He gave no details of casualties.

Salisu Yelwa, a resident of Kanamma who fled to Damaturu because of the unrest, said scores of people, mainly farmers and traders, had fled the area since the unrest set in, disrupting economic activities. He said many residents were still afraid to return, despite the intervention of the security forces, because the militants changed locations frequently and turned up when least expected.

The Al Sunna Wal Jamma group has been active in Borno and Yobe states over the past two years, preaching strict adherence to Islamic Shari ah law and expressing admiration for the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. However, this is the first time they have been known to take up arms.

Nigeria, Africa s most populous nation of over 120 million people, has a majority Muslim population concentrated in the north and a minority Christian population resident in the South, with a significant number of followers of traditional African faiths.

Tension between Muslims and Christians has risen over the past four years - periodically erupting into violence that has killed thousands of people.

The scale of clashes has increased since a dozen northern states, including Yobe, began to adopt strict Shari ah law.

Radical Muslim groups often accused the state governments of not being sufficiently zealous in the implementation of Shari ah law, which prescribes harsh and controversial penalties, including the amputation of limbs for stealing, public flogging for drinking alcohol and stoning to death for adultery.

01 / 02 / 2004

IRIN

"800,000 internally displaced across country - refugee agency"

Some 800,000 people have been displaced from their homes as a result of communal and religious clashes that have rocked Nigeria over the past four years, according to the government's National Commission for Refugees (NCR).

Igna Gabriel, the head of the NCR, told reporters in the capital Abuja on Thursday that areas with the highest concentrations of displaced people were Plateau and Benue states in central Nigeria, Yobe State in the Northeast, Cross River State in the Southeast and the oil-rich Niger Delta.

He did not provide any breakdown of the figures by state or region.

However, Gabriel said Plateau State had the highest number of displaced people as a result of clashes between Christians and Muslim communities there. These had led to the burning down of 72 villages over the past two years, he noted.

More than 1,000 people were killed in sectarian clashes between Christians and Muslims in Jos, the Plateau State capital, in September 2001.

Subsequently a low intensity conflict spread to the surrounding countryside, where the mainly Christian farmers clashed repeatedly with the predominantly Muslim livestock herders.

Several hundred more people died in these skirmishes, which forced several thousand people to abandon their homes.

Gabriel said most of the displaced people in Nigeria were women and children who were psychologically traumatised and required counselling as well as food and other material assistance.

It is not enough to provide food and other relief materials for these people, he said. Their problem goes beyond feeding and clothing. Most of them saw their friends, parents and relations murdered in cold blood.

In Benue State, land disputes between Tiv and their Jukun tribes also claimed hundreds of lives in 2001. The situation became more complicated after the army found itself in direct confrontation with the Tivs.

Nineteen soldiers sent to help quell the violence were ambushed and killed by a Tiv militia group. This led to reprisal killings by the army in several Tiv villages.

Gabriel said many of the victims of these conflicts had yet to be resettled.

In the Niger Delta, people had been forced to leave their homes as a result of persistent fighting between the Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo ethnic groups, especially around the town of Warri, he added.

Gabriel said clashes between livestock herders and farming communities in the semi-arid northeastern states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa had also produced large numbers of displaced people.

Gabriel said inadequate funding by the government had hindered the execution of rehabilitation programmes planned by the NCR.

He appealed for contributions from individuals and organizations to aid the upkeep of the displaced as well as the setting up of more rehabilitation centres where they would be taught skills to smoothen their re-integration into society.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous country with an estimated population of more than 120 million.

01 / 01 / 2004

IRIN

"Authorities clamp down on Islamic militants"

Authorities in Plateau State, northern Nigeria, have banned a radical Muslim while in neighbouring Yobe State, security forces were deployed to quash recent anti-police violence caused by a little known Muslim sect, officials said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Plateau State governor ordered the ban of the Council of Ulamma, or the Muslim Council of Elders, on grounds that the group preaches religious hatred and intolerance. The Council is an authoritative religious body in the state and influences affairs concerning the Muslim community.

The ban came one day after the council accused in newspaper adverts state authorities of anti-Muslim bias, an accusation which stems from a deadly raid carried out by Plateau State security forces on a compound in the state capital, Jos, believed to be the base of an extremists Islamic group, known as the Maitatsine sect.

During the 18 December raid, four people were killed and more than 120 were arrested. According to authorities, most of the arrested have been released.

Plateau State spokesman Dauda Lama said the authorities banned the radical group to pre-empt religious clashes as their public declaration could motivate some uncontrolled Muslims to attack non-Muslims in retaliation for the ban. It is not to see a repeat of sectarian violence in September 2001 in which more than 1,000 people died in Christian-Muslim clashes.

The authorities hope the ban will be a blow to both organizations who are ideologically close, Lama said.

"In fact, their intolerance towards other Moslems and outright hostility to non-Moslems is hardly in doubt," said Lamba.

In the 1980s, the Maitatsine sect was responsible for a series of eruptions of religious violence across northern Nigeria in which thousands of people died. The group was eventually subdued with the intervention of the military after they overran the police in the northern cities of Kano, Maiduguri and Yola.

In neighbouring Yobe State, authorities beefed security by deploying anti-riot squads to quash the activities of a local radical Muslim group which in the past week has sacked two police stations and taken over a primary school which they renamed 'Afghanistan'.

Police spokesman Femi Oyeleye said scores of policemen have been deployed in the remote districts of Geidam and Kanamma, about 200 kilometres from Yobe capital Damaturu, since Tuesday to contain the sect.

Residents said more than 200 members of the sect attacked two police stations _ one in Geidam and another in Kanamma _ last week, killing a policeman and taking away arms and ammunition.

Police officials declined to give details of casualties but confirmed there had been violent disturbances involving an extremist Muslim group in the area.

Latest signals coming from headquarters have authorised that action should be taken against them, Oyeleye told IRIN.

Not much is known about the group, but during the recent Ramadan fast they distributed pamphlets accusing state
governor Abba Ibrahim of not following the dictates of Shari ah, the Islamic legal code, the residents said.

Residents said some of their leaders appeared to be former university students and graduates. They have drawn many
followers from the unemployed since moving into the area from neighbouring
Borno State in October.

Yobe is one of a dozen states in Nigeria s mainly Muslim north that have adopted the strict Islamic code in the past four years, approving punishments including amputation of limbs for stealing, public flogging for drinking alcohol and stoning to death for adultery.

The introduction of the Shari ah code has increased tension between Muslims and Christians who are in the majority in southern Nigeria. Thousands of people have died in repeated bouts of sectarian violence that have erupted in the last four.