|
Over 72,000 Displaced By Ethnic Clashes in Nigeria
LAGOS, July 2 (IslamOnline and News Agencies) - More than 72,000 people fled their homes in two Nigerian states following ethnic clashes last month, the Nigerian Red Cross said Monday.
More than 22,000 people have fled due to fighting between ethnic Hausa and ethnic Jarawa peoples around the town of Tafawa Balewa, the acting secretary general of the Nigerian Red Cross, Abiodun Orebiyi, told AFP.
"We have over 22,000 people, representing over 4,000 families displaced," he said, describing the clashes as an apparently ethnic dispute.
On June 19, Muslim-Christian clashes, sparked by a row over the imposition of Islamic law regulations on bus seating, broke out in Tafawa Balewa.
Christians angered by the introduction of the Islamic law code (the Shari'ah), rioted after a Muslim bus driver insisted that his male and female passengers, some of whom were Christians, be segregated into different areas of the bus. They cited that the driver's action meant Islamic law was being imposed on them.
Most Hausa are Muslim and most Jarawa are Christians. But, it was not clear Monday whether the most recent unrest was religious as well as ethnic in nature.
Meanwhile, more than 50,000 people have fled their homes in central Nigeria because of fighting between ethnic Tiv and others in the Nasarawa State, the Red Cross said. The conflict erupted on June 12 and has left dozens of people dead.
The dispute in Nasarawa is both over land and political rights and was sparked by the killing of a local traditional ruler, which was blamed on the Tiv.
The Red Cross said Monday in its statement that, "over 50,000 persons have left their place of residence and found shelter either in Benue State or in Lafia, the state capital of Nasarawa State."
The deputy police commissioner of Bauchi State confirmed that unrest had taken place at the end of last month, but said the situation was now "gradually returning to normal."
Eleven northern states have started implementing Shari'ah, but the federal government is seeking to review the way it is enforced in a country where some of the people, especially in the south, are Christians.
Of these, nine states are already implementing the code fully. Two others have offered restricted versions of it, despite opposition from Christians, Western rights bodies and the federal government.
To ease tensions created by the introduction of Shari'ah, the federal government held two rounds of talks with northern governors on its implementation and the use by some states of vigilante groups to enforce it.
The talks, demanded by President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, have been led Vice President Atiku Abubakar, a Muslim with the most recent session held early this month.
The Shari'ah body said in Tuesday's statement, which was signed by its national president, Datti Ahmad, that the government move was designed to delay Shari'ah in the states which have reached an advanced stage, ahead of the launching of the law.
"Given the diversity of states in the country, there is no way a single Shari'ah system can be workable. The whole move is motivated by political calculations with an eye on 2003 elections," it said. Presidential elections are scheduled for that same year.
After lurching from one military coup to another, Nigeria now has an elected leadership. But, it faces the growing challenge of preventing Africa's most populous country from breaking apart along ethnic and religious lines, the BBC online archives said.
Thousands of people have already died due to the communal rivalry of the past few years. Separatist aspirations among some groups have been growing, prompting reminders of the bitter civil war over the breakaway Biafran republic in the late 1960s.
Having gained independence from the British Colonial Empire in 1960, Nigeria adopted a secular form of government rather than one based on Shari'ah. But, Muslims in northern Nigeria have called for the restoration of the Shari'ah, as it existed in the pre-colonial Hausaland of the 19th Century.
Muslims in Nigeria, despite Western complaints, say they are happy that they finally have been able to take "their destiny in their own hands" and that Muslim masses have been able to assert "people's power."
In addition, they have often praised the changes that led Muslims to fight what they called "all manner of social evils afflicting them."
|
