Mobs burned down houses in Shi’ite neighbourhoods of Nigeria’s main Islamic city on Friday in apparent reprisal for the murder this week of a radical Sunni Muslim cleric, witnesses said.
Hundreds of people stormed through Shi’ite neighbourhoods of the city ”and started burning down the houses in anger”, a witness told Agence France-Press by phone on condition of anonymity.
Abubakar Mohammed, spokesperson for the Shi’ite community in Sokoto, said about 20 houses belonging to members of his community were razed.
Mohammed said the local Shi’ite leader, Kassimu Umar, and 20 of his followers had been detained by police in connection with the killing.
The truck transporting them to the police station had been attacked by a stone-throwing mob, Mohammed added.
A Sokoto police spokesperson, Mohammed Umar-Dasingalri, appealed for calm in the city that is the seat of the Sultan of Sokoto, spiritual head of Nigeria’s estimated 70-million Muslims, who are mostly Sunni.
Sunni’s have blamed Shi’ites for the murder, raising fears of clashes.
Prominent Sunni cleric, Umar Dan-Maishiya, was shot at about 9.15pm on Wednesday shortly after speaking at the city’s central mosque.
He was buried on Thursday at the tomb of Usman Dan Fodio, the founder of the Sokoto Caliphate in Nigeria.
Sokoto, headquarters of Islam in Nigeria, two years ago witnessed bloody clashes between the Sunni and Shi’ite sects over the right to worship at the central mosque.
The murdered cleric was said to have spearheaded the attack against the Shi’ites during the 2005 clashes. He was arrested and released just two months ago.
Northern Nigeria is majority Muslim, although large Christian minorities have settled in the main towns. Since 1999 and the return of a civilian regime, 12 northern states have introduced Islamic sharia law.
The region has a long history of religious clashes, which mostly start after the traditional Friday Jumat worship. — Sapa-AFP