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by Peter Cunliffe-Jones LAGOS (AFP) - Nigerian authorities on Tuesday ordered troops onto the streets of Lagos to restore order after three days of ethnic violence left more than 100 dead.
Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu told reporters the decision to launch joint police and army patrols had been agreed at a top-level security meeting of army, police and government officials. "We have decided that a joint military patrol should be drafted to restore law and order," Tinubu said. Thousands of terrified residents sought protection in police and army barracks Tuesday as Yoruba youths hunted down Hausa rivals in the worst ethnic violence to shake the city in almost a year. The fighting, which has once again raised fears for the stability of Africa's most populous country, erupted here Sunday in apparent reprisal for violence in the central city of Ilorin on Saturday. Late on Sunday, members of a Yoruba group, the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), attacked members of the Hausa community in the rundown Ajegunle district of the city. Red Cross officials put the numbers killed in three days of fighting at 100 but suggested the final toll was likely to be far higher. Late Tuesday heavily armed police cordoned off the main trouble area and continued to fire in the air to warn off crowds from gathering. Smoke rose into the sky as dozens of cars and homes were burnt. A dusk-to-dawn curfew remained in force in the district for the second night running. Tinubu told reporters the decision to launch joint police and army patrols had been agreed with leaders of the main ethnic Yoruba and Hausa communities in the area, Tinubu said. But Frederick Fasheun, the leader of the OPC said he opposed the decision. "In a democracy, the army has no place being on the streets", he told reporters. Fasheun also denied that the group was organizing the killings. "The OPC has not masterminded these events. Those responsible are criminals masquerading as OPC," he said. The OPC, set up in 1995 as a Yoruba organization to fight for Yoruba interests, is accused by its critics of being behind a series of attacks on other ethnic groups in the Yoruba-controlled southwest of the country. The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, himself a Yoruba, last year threatened an all-out war against the OPC after blaming it for riots last year in the Ketu district of Lagos in which more than 100 people, mainly Hausas, died. Since then, though regular clashes have occurred with the police, the most prominent OPC leaders have continued to operate publicly. Tinubu said he had agreed to set up a committee on which leaders of all the ethnic groups present in Lagos would be represented. A liaison officer would be appointed so that the communities could quickly alert the state government in case of any unrest, he said. "We should remember, we are one nation in spite of our cultural diversity," Tinubu told reporters. Violence would only drive investors away from Lagos, the governor said. "We shouldn't be discussing violence here today. We should be discussing employment and social amenities. But we are discussing violence. It is a shame to this nation that we witness this carnage," he said. |
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