violence
Chris McGreal
Troops were sent into Kano, Nigeria’s main city in the north, and a dusk-to-dawn curfew was imposed on Monday in an attempt to stop ethnic clashes that have left dozens dead, provoked by similar violence in the south-west.
Governors of both regions have appealed for an end to the murderous conflict between the country’s two largest ethnic groups, the Hausas and the Yorubas.
The killings began two weeks ago in the town of Shagamu, 55km from Lagos, after a Hausa woman from the north was murdered for breaking a local taboo by watching a Yoruba ceremony.
At least 60 people died in the ensuing riots in the area, and thousands of Hausas were forced to flee to the north. Their accounts of the killings provoked retaliatory attacks last weekend on Yorubas living in Kano.
The government says the death toll in Kano was “not high”, but residents say dozens of bodies littered the streets, including those of children. Nigerian newspapers say at least 100 Yorubas were murdered in Kano.
Hausas were also killed, apparently by the security forces as they tried to crack down on the rioting.
The government says calm has been restored, but thousands of Yorubas sought refuge at police stations and at a military barracks on Monday.
Tension between Hausas and Yorubas has frequently burst into violence among the one million people of Kano, the de facto capital of the north.
While the Hausa-dominated north is Muslim, southern Nigeria is at least nominally Christian. But the rivalry is also fuelled by political differences.
Southerners, and Yorubas in particular, have long blamed Hausas for the decades of military rule that have blighted the country. The army is dominated by Hausas. Many Hausas feel the Yorubas have exercised too much influence through their control of business and the economy.
The political balance, however, shifted with the swearing in two months ago of General Olusegun Obasanjo as the country’s first elected president in 16 years. A Yoruba, he has promised to end the abuses of the past.
But the clashes in Kano and Shagamu, along with growing unrest in other parts of the country, offer a challenge to the fledgling administration’s attempts to be seen as a government for all Nigerians.
Hundreds of people have been killed in recent months in a series of clashes in the oil-rich Niger Delta as local communities demand compensation for pollution and a share of the wealth pumped from their soil.
On Monday a local newspaper reported that youths had kidnapped 64 employees of the Shell oil company, including seven foreigners.