Health workers in the northern Nigerian state of Kano will on Saturday launch a drive to immunise more than four million infants against polio, despite ongoing opposition from Islamic radicals. Since August last year, Kano has become the epicentre of the world’s fastest-growing outbreak of the crippling virus.
A radical Muslim group that triggered panic over polio immunisation in northern Nigeria said on Tuesday it remains opposed to the vaccine, despite it being passed as safe by a hardline state government. Polio vaccination was suspended in Kano state last year after claims that the drugs had been laced with chemicals to make African girls infertile.
The government of Nigeria put extra police and soldiers on the streets of several major cities across the country on Thursday to prevent any further outbreaks of religious violence between Muslims and Christians. The city of Kano remained tense but calm after two days of religious riots that claimed at least 30 lives.
Thousands of Christians have fled the suburbs of the northern Nigerian city of Kano to seek police protection after coming under attack from Muslim mobs. Also, security was tightened on Wednesday in many parts of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, amid fears that the fighting between Muslims and Christians could spread south.
Tensions between Nigeria’s rival Muslim and Christian communities rose sharply on Tuesday, as Islamic leaders addressing a 10Â 000-strong crowd warned of an imminent backlash in the aftermath of a sectarian massacre. The leaders issued President Olusegun Obasanjo with a seven-day ultimatum to put an end to the killings.
A Nigerian Christian has been forced to pay a massive fine in order to escape a six-year jail term after Muslim vigilantes caught him selling beer in the Zamfara state. On Friday, the man — identified simply as Fred — was convicted in a magistrate’s court and fined 400 000 naira ( 945).
At least 10 churches were torched and one police station vandalised when Nigerian Muslims rioted after a young Christian defaced a copy of Islam’s holy Qur’an, a witness said on Monday. Rioting broke out on Saturday in the religiously mixed northern town of Makarfi, a local resident said by telephone.
Isa Mohammed distrusts doctors, especially white foreign ones. His suspicions, he says, stem from a 1996 drug study by American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in which his daughter, now partially disabled, took part. It is that study that is driving a polio-vaccine boycott, now six months old, among northern Nigerian Muslims.
Business was good in the taverns of Kano as the city’s football fanatics gathered to watch the English FA Cup quarterfinals this weekend, and as the beer sellers stacked crate after crate of empties back onto their trucks they seemed unaware that this might be one of their last loads.
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/ 11 February 2004
An influential Nigerian Islamic body on Wednesday warned the London-based rights group Amnesty International to stop interfering in Islamic religion in the name of human rights campaigns. A new Amnesty report condemns the use of the death penalty in 12 Nigerian states where the Sharia legal system is in operation.
Their crimes were small: One man stole a goat, another a cow, another two bicycles. Each had a hand chopped off by order of Islamic courts. Nigerian Muslims overwhelmingly voice support for the severe penalties meted out by Islamic law, which authorities started adopting in the predominantly Muslim north in 1999.
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/ 10 September 2003
Eight people have been killed and 2 215 displaced in flooding in Kano State in northern Nigeria, state officials said on Wednesday.
Rioters have burned down buildings belonging to two key supporters of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, in protest over alleged ballot-rigging in parliamentary elections.
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/ 30 January 2003
An army of women is fanning out across northern Nigeria, dressed in brightly coloured, ankle-length robes, heads covered with scarves for modesty, each carrying an insulated box with ice packs and an oral vaccine.
THE grieving families of Kano buried their dead on Monday, consigning many to a mass grave two days after an airliner crashed into the northern Nigerian city, flattening homes and killing 149 people.
When the people of Kano celebrate the birthday of Abdulkadir Jilani, founder of a medieval Islamic sect, it has all the appearance of a serious religious festival.
The Miss World beauty pageant may be the world’s most watched television spectacle, but this year it will not be seen in part of the country hosting it, Nigeria, an official said.