13th Nigerian state adopts Islamic law
Zenit (18.12.2001)/ HRWF (19.12.2001) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net - Another state in Nigeria has adopted Islamic law, though an official says it won't apply to non-Muslims.
Governor Abubakar Hashidu, of the northern state of Gombe, signed a draft law to establish Shariah, his Cabinet government announced today.
The legislation, approved Friday by Gombe legislators, responds to Muslims' demands, Hashidu said. Non-Muslims will continue to be judged by ordinary courts, but Muslims will have to appear before Islamic courts, he said.
"If you are a Christian, your right is guaranteed by the ordinary law. If you are a Muslim, it is also guaranteed by the Shariah," the governor stressed.
Twelve other states have adopted Islamic law, despite the opposition of the federal government, Christian associations and human rights groups
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Stop demolition of churches now - Okonkwo
by Ben Nwabuwe
This Day (13.12.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.12.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has urged the Lagos State Government to take appropriate measures to stop the demolition of the Victory Church and other churches within Lagos State, as Christians "will not fold their
hands and watch further demolition of churches in the state."
The call was made by the President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Bishop Mike Okonkwo, at a press briefing in Lagos.
He warned that if urgent measures were not taken within the next three days, Christians would move into the street of Lagos to demonstrate against the demolition exercises.
"It will be a wind that will blow no one any good. If Jesus Christ could bear pain for our sake, we will be most willing to war and conquer to his Glory", he said.
Bishop Okonkwo explained that the demonstration could only be avoided if Tinubu's Government should intervene, such that the confidence of Christians and other religionists in Lagos State rests on fair play, adding that the religion of a Governor should not infer the religious status of his state.
He explained that the demolition of Victory Christian Church, which was allegedly being sponsored by one NASCO Estates Ltd with the full backing of agents of the Lagos State Government was as good as waging a war on the Christian community within the state.
He explained that the Victory Christian Church in Ojoo, the Kingdom Life Bible Church, Ijesha, and other prominent Churches were among many, which Lagos State Government Agents have demolished in the past six months, stating that in these churches, a majority voted for Tinubu during the 1999 election.
Bishop Okonkwo warned that "any further attempt to stretch our anger on this issue would be met with tempestuous resistance," reiterating that "Christian harassment must stop forthwith."
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Nigerian adolescent sentenced to 100 lashes for being pregnant
Zenit (09.11.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (13.11.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A Muslim state court sentenced a pregnant adolescent to 100 lashes for having premarital sexual relations, the local press reported.
Rabiatu, the adolescent, was sentenced by a court in Funtua, in the northern state of Katsina, the Comet newspaper reported Thursday. The girl, now seven months pregnant, will receive the lashes in January, after the baby's birth.
The court also sentenced the father of the baby, Balarabe Tela, 24, to 100 lashes and a year in prison.
Premarital sex is prohibited by the Shariah, or Islamic law, in force in Katsina. A 33-year-old woman recently fled after being sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery.
Over the past two years, 12 northern states have introduced Shariah despite the opposition of the federal government, churches, Christian communities and human rights organizations.
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Group wants Sharia restricted to Muslims
Daily Trust (06.11.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (09.11.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - As the Sharia legal system took off in Kaduna State last Friday, a Non-Government Organisation (NGO) of Southern Kaduna indigenes, named New Vision Movement (NVM), has advised the state government to restrict the operation to Muslims.
Addressing a press conference in Kaduna yesterday, Chairman of the movement, Capt. David A. Sofa, said the observation of his group was borne out of the experiences of some states operating a full-blown Sharia system.
The group also counselled the government to provide equal number of courts for both Islamic and customary legal systems and ensure an even distribution of the courts, stressing that any lopsidedness in the number of such courts would amount to the adoption of a state religion.
"The operation of the Sharia legal system should be confined to the Islamic personal law in order to avoid infringing on the rights of non-Muslims in the State.
"Any lopsidedness in the number of courts in favour of any of the legal systems, will amount to the adoption of a state religion in contravention of section 10 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria," the group declared.
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Tensions over Shariah law erupt again, leaving 10 dead
AP (05.11.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (08.11.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Clashes between Muslims and Christians erupted in Nigeria after Christians proposed moving a local government office out of the palace of a Muslim chief, officials said Monday. Ten were killed in the violence, a reminder of fierce inter-religious battles over the imposition of Shariah law two years earlier.
Rabiu Bako, spokesman for the Kaduna state government, said the rampage started Friday in the village of Gwantu, about 70 miles south of the city of Kaduna, the state capital. At least 19 people were arrested, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Tensions persisted throughout the weekend although the situation was reportedly calm on Monday. Inter-religious tensions in other parts of the state - which is mainly Muslim with a large Christian minority - have risen since Friday when the state began implementing Shariah, or Islamic fundamentalist law, in areas dominated by Muslims.
Kaduna state Gov. Mohammed Makarfi appointed a five-member committee on Monday to investigate the latest clashes, which began after the Christian-led Sanga Local Government Council tried to relocate its offices from the palace of the Muslim chief to another Christian-dominated area.
Kaduna government official Muktar Sirajo blamed the fighting on "troublemakers" trying to capitalize on the recent launch of Shariah.
Rioting in February 2000, when Shariah was first proposed, left more than 2,000 dead by some estimates, while hundreds of thousands more were forced to flee their homes.
Inter-religious fighting has subsequently spread to several of the dozen other states where Shariah has also been imposed. Nigeria periodically experiences outbreaks of fighting along ethnic and religious lines. Africa's most populous nation, with 120 million people from 250 ethnic groups, is roughly divided between a mainly Christian south and an overwhelmingly Muslim north.
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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (30.11.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.11.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Islamic Sharia law will come into effect on Friday in northern Kaduna State despite opposition by Christians there, news organisations reported on Monday. State Governor Ahmed Makarfi, who made the announcement in a state-wide broadcast on Friday, said that the Islamic legal code would only be applicable in areas where there was a Muslim majority, BBC reported.
Kaduna, which is almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims, was last year the scene of bloody clashes between the two groups over the code's proposed introduction. Hundreds of people were killed and homes, businesses, churches and mosques destroyed during the violence. Makarfi's statement is viewed as an attempt to appease both groups but, according to the state branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), they are not satisfied with the apparent concession. "We have made it quite clear from the beginning. I don't know how it is going to work," PANA reported CAN Secretary Saidu Dogo as saying. Meanwhile the secretary-general of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, speaking on Radio Nigeria from Kaduna on Saturday, urged Christians in Nigeria to embrace the Sharia legal system "to check the prevailing moral decadence in society and promote peaceful coexistence among Christians and Muslims.
Several other states in northern Nigeria have already launched Sharia whose strict codes include hand amputations for stealing and death by stoning for adultery.
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in Nigeria and elsewhere
by Norimitsu Onishi
New York Times (01.11.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (02.11.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - After Friday Prayers recently, hundreds of Muslims gathered in front of the emir's palace here and held a peaceful demonstration against the American campaign in Afghanistan. But the peace in this ancient Muslim city, already tense from a recent surge in religious clashes elsewhere in this West African nation, did not hold.
Within hours, residents recalled, youths trooped out of poor Muslim neighborhoods, where posters of Osama bin Laden have become hugely popular. They invaded the Christian quarter, whose residents fought back with arms, waving T-shirts emblazoned with American flags and shouting pro-American slogans.
A three-day riot ensued and at least 100 people died, according to the Red Cross, yet another addition to some 5,000 Nigerians killed in religious clashes since military rulers handed over power in 1999. Most of these conflicts stem from the rise of Islam as a political force and the stunning spread of hard-line Islamic law from one small Nigerian state in 1999 to a third of the country's 36 states today.
Islam in sub-Saharan Africa, an often overlooked member of the world's Muslim community, is growing in size and influence. Statistics on religious affiliation are difficult to come by, and are too sensitive a topic for governments with mixed populations. But most experts agree that Islam is spreading faster than any other faith in East and West Africa.
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Associated Press (17.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (18.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - At least 32 people had been killed in a bout of Muslim-Christian clashes in northern Nigeria last weekend, police said Wednesday.
At least 51 other people were injured, while 55 houses and 37 shops were burned in the violence in the city of Kano, police spokesman Kabir Shehu said.
He said one mosque, five churches and a hotel were also set ablaze along with 16 cars.
"We are determined to ensure that there's no repeat of this unfortunate incident," Shehu said.
The city was reported calm Wednesday.
Nigeria, with 120 million residents, is Africa's most populous nation. The West African country, divided into an overwhelmingly Muslim north and mostly Christian south, frequently suffers violent religious, ethnic and regional disputes.
Thousands of people have been killed in interreligious fighting since a dozen predominantly Muslim northern states began imposing Shariah, or Islamic law, last year.
The latest violence erupted Friday after Muslim fundamentalists protested against U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan.
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Reuters (15.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (16.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Nigerian police shot dead at least one man as fresh violence erupted in the northern city of Kano Monday, the fourth day of Muslim-Christian fighting.
Police say 18 have been killed in the clashes since Friday. Community leaders put the figure at more than 200 dead.
Witnesses said police, under orders since Saturday to shoot rioters on sight, fired at a young man at point blank range as police dispersed a crowd said to be planning reprisal attacks in the teeming district of Tudun Wada.
"Police killed one of the nasty boys causing problems in our area," said Tudun Wada resident Esther Isaac, 24, who witnessed the killing.
"He was telling people they should continue fighting. The mobile police shot him and the others in his group ran away," Isaac said.
Fear of revenge killings have swept the ancient city since clashes erupted Friday after Muslims protested against U.S. military action in Afghanistan.
The official death toll, which police say is based on the number of bodies recovered from the streets, has been hotly contested by community leaders.
Nigeria is grappling with a rising wave of ethnic or religious bloodshed in which well over 2,000 people have died since army rule ended in Africa's most populous nation in 1999.
The introduction of strict Islamic sharia law in parts of predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria, despite opposition from non-Muslims, triggered violence early last year.
But the sharia crisis appears to have only compounded historical ethnic and regional rivalries blamed for a devastating civil war in the late 1960s in which more than a million people died.
Hundreds of people died in Muslim-Christian fighting in the central city of Jos last month and police are battling ethnic unrest in three other northern states.
Kano Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso summoned a meeting of ethnic and religious leaders Monday amid reports that warring parties were regrouping.
"Your presence will be highly appreciated, considering the prevailing security issues in the state," said the governor's invitation letter.
Residents spent a fourth day huddled in their homes with reports of food running short. Shops and city markets have been shut since Friday. There has been no electricity or water in many working class districts in four days.
In Sabon Gari, home to most non-Muslim immigrants, community leaders surrounded by heavily armed troops announced on a public address system that all business would be suspended until after the meeting with the governor.
Boniface Ibekwe, president of the large Christian Ibo community that dominates the retail trade, also used the loudspeakers to call on the Ibo to leave the streets.
"No Ibo man should be thinking of business. Go back to your houses. They have guaranteed us your security. But if there are any further attacks we will know what action to take," he said.
Muslim leaders also counted their losses after the mayhem on Friday and Saturday, when churches and mosques were torched.
Sabon Gari's Ahmadiya mosque was one of those burned.
Mosque official Kazeem Ali, a Yoruba from the southwest, and chief Imam Mohammed Ibrahim, said they were doing a count of burned mosques and had already visited 16. Eight smaller prayer houses had also been destroyed.
"We want to hold an emergency meeting so we can know what to do to the people who burned our mosque," Ali said. "Look at the damage. This is our school. How can we bring our children here?"
The floor of the mosque was covered in rubble and the tin roof was a twisted wreck. Neighboring buildings were wrecked.
Monday's fighting erupted after Kano residents spent a third night under curfew, with troops in armoured vehicles patrolling deserted streets dotted with scorched cars and houses.
Residents said a number of people had been shot elsewhere by police or soldiers since the shoot-on-sight order was first given Saturday. A community leader told Reuters Sunday he knew of eight people rounded up by troops and shot. There was no independent confirmation of those accounts.
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hundreds possibly dead
By Jeff Koinange
CNN (14.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (15.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Authorities in the northern Nigerian city of Kano confirmed at least 18 dead Sunday, after two days of clashes between police and anti-U.S. protesters. Others said hundreds may have died.
By Sunday night, city streets were quiet, but gunfire could be heard in the suburbs. Despite official accounts of the number of dead, witnesses told CNN they had seen hundreds of bodies in the streets and elsewhere.
The protests began peacefully Friday as a reaction against the U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan, but turned violent Saturday.
Some of the fighting was attributed to traditional rivalries between Christians and Muslims. After the violence began, many non-Muslims fled to police stations and military barracks for safety.
Additional government troops entered Kano Sunday to help police keep the peace, after many residents ignored an overnight curfew.
Although Saturday's violence was linked to the bombardment of Afghanistan, it followed a familiar pattern of deadly religious clashes that have rocked Nigeria over the past two years, killing thousands.
The introduction of Islamic law in some northern states triggered Muslim-Christian fighting in cities in the region.
Nigeria's population of about 120 million is split almost evenly between Muslims and Christians.
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SA (07.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (08.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Three churches and several liquor shops have been burnt in Nigeria's northern city Kaduna and Muslims are suspected to be behind what seem to be arson attacks, newspapers reported on Sunday.
The churches were set ablaze in the suburb of Hayin-Banki on Saturday, said The Guardian and The Punch newspapers in their front page reports.
The district was adorned with the posters of Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, linked with the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, said the newspapers.
Riot police and other security agents have swiftly been deployed to strategic parts of the city, prone to religious disturbances.
A witness told The Guardian that it was "the quick intervention of some Christian residents in the area who alerted security officers that saved the lives of about five people who were inside one of the churches".
A spokesperson for the state governor told journalists that the governor has already visited officials of one of the affected churches, the reports said.
The spokesperson, Zuberu Sirajo, said that the police were investigating the incident.
The secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria for all the northern states, Saidu Dogo, told journalists that the fire at churches might be connected with last month's ethnic and religious violence in the central northern city of Jos in which at least 500 people were killed.
Dogo said that some Muslims in Kaduna had vowed to retaliate in the aftermath of the Jos crisis.
"I can assure you that that these people are bent on causing a crisis in the name of religion," Dogo was quoted as saying.
Hundreds of people died in July in ethnic-religious violence in northern Bauchi State and more than 2 000 people died in similar clashes in Kaduna last year.
A senior official from Nigeria's highest Islamic body on Saturday warned Nigerians against whipping up religious and ethnic tensions for political ends.
Nigerians should avoid "excessive and aggressive evangelisation and refrain from politicising religion", the secretary general of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Lateef Adegbite, said on national television.
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UN Integrated Regional Information Network (25.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (26.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Life is returning to normal in the central Nigerian city of Jos after bloody clashes earlier this month between Muslims and Christians, but there are fears that the underlying tensions may have wider national and international ramifications.
The violence, which started on 7 September, caused businesses and offices to remain closed for the better part of two weeks. Although the estimated 500 people killed have been buried, grim reminders of the carnage that occurred remain. Charred buildings dot the city. Burnt-out cars litter the streets. And over 15,000 displaced people sheltering in military barracks, police compounds and other public places are awaiting relocation.
"That such a thing happened at all in Jos means that the ethnic and religious crisis rocking Nigeria in the past two years has crossed a critical threshold," Cheche Okpaga, a graduate of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru, near Jos, told IRIN. "Right now it could happen anywhere in Nigeria and could easily envelop the whole nation."
For many people, Jos was an unlikely place for sectarian violence. Populated predominantly by Christians from the many ethnic groups found in Nigeria's north-central plateau region, the capital of Plateau State had been renowned for its liberal, cosmopolitan disposition. With a mild climate ranging between 15 and 25 degrees centigrade all year round, it had always been a favourite destination of European tourists and settlers since the then British colonisers opened the tin mines that led to the building of the city about a century ago.
Jos also attracted large numbers of Hausa-Fulani Muslims from further north, who came as traders, and similar numbers of Christians from Nigeria's southern states.
A cocktail of ethnic, religious and political grievances
Many people now trace the recent religious violence to the strong feelings aroused among local people by the introduction of strict Islamic or Sharia law in several predominantly Muslim northern states in the past two years. Jos was particularly affected by the violence that last year rocked the northern city of Kaduna, which has a large non-Muslim population, following proposals to introduce Sharia there.
"A large number of the southern Christians who felt compelled to leave Kaduna because of the tension and insecurity there chose Jos as their next destination," Phil Nwachukwu, a resident of the city told IRIN. "Many came with their grievances against Muslims as well, and this has not helped inter-religious relations at all."
However, there was also a mix of other political grievances among the local people against the Hausa-Fulanis that ultimately made the city highly combustible. For one, the Islamic conquests that entrenched both the Muslim religion and Hausa-Fulani rule in large parts of northern Nigeria in the early 19th century did not penetrate the plateau area and most of the central region. However, following British colonial conquest, they were to become part of Northern Nigeria, where the British practised indirect rule using the Islamic emirs as proxy rulers.
Hausa-Fulani political domination continued after Nigeria's independence in 1960, with long-bottled resentment erupting periodically into violence, such as the Tiv riots in the 1960s, periodic communal clashes in the Tafawa Balewa area of Bauchi State since the 1940s, and a crisis between the Hausa and Kataf communities in Kaduna State in 1992. But because Ahmadu Bello, the leading Hausa-Fulani political figure of the 1950s and 1960s, watered down the application of Sharia, keeping it out of criminal matters and restricting it to personal matters, he was successful in dispelling the fears of ethnic minorities in the region, giving credibility to the political notion of a united northern Nigeria.
Things fall apart with introduction of strict Sharia
Things have been unravelling rapidly with the return of strict Sharia in several northern states, which has awakened previously dormant fears of domination among non-Muslim ethnic minorities. Therefore, when President Olusegun Obasanjo's government some months ago appointed a Hausa-Fulani Muslim to head a poverty alleviation programme for the Plateau State capital, it raised the hackles of the indigenes. Thus began the build-up of the tension that exploded in violence a few weeks later, ignited by a quarrel outside a mosque between Muslims at prayer and a Christian woman.
And as Jos burned, the ripples were felt in far-flung parts of Africa's most populous country. In the mainly Muslim city of Kano to the north, militant youths burned a major church in reprisal for the attacks on Muslims in Jos. In the predominantly Christian city of Onitsha in the southeast, Hausa-speaking Muslims were killed in reprisal for attacks on southerners.
The disturbances also coincided with the attack launched on major landmarks in New York and Washington by suspected Islamic extremists. In Nigeria there were signs that religious sympathies coloured some of the responses to the tragic events. Newspaper reports said some youths in the northern state of Zamfara, the first to introduce strict Sharia law, rejoiced at the sad fate that befell the United States. A Lagos university teacher, Nna Odo, expressed his strong pro-Christian, anti-Muslim bias, when he told 'Vanguard', a Lagos daily, that the United States should invade Arab countries in retaliation.
Some analysts feel that such reactions contain a warning for Nigeria's authorities even if the mainstream reaction has been sympathy with the US people, irrespective of religious beliefs.
"If the developments related to the U.S. attacks in the international arena are allowed to fall along the Christian-Muslim divide, it is not unlikely that Nigeria could easily become one of the major flashpoints of worldwide religious conflict that might emerge," political analyst Johnson Okonjo told IRIN.
The government does not appear unmindful of the risks either. Since the Jos riots, it has made efforts to get the Nigerian Inter-religious Council, which comprises Christian and Muslim leaders and has been largely dormant since it was set up by Obasanjo in the first year of his term, to work seriously towards dousing religious tension.
Security agencies on the look-out for agitators
Security agencies, following a new government directive in the aftermath of the U.S. terror attacks, are also now watching out for international infiltrators who might want to take advantage of increasing hostility between Muslims and Christians in the country to foment more sectarian trouble.
A report in the 'Punch' daily said the move was informed by the fact that Mohammed Suleiman al-Nalfi, who was wanted in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York, was arrested last year at Lagos airport and handed over to US law enforcement agents. Several Afghans and Pakistanis had also been arrested in recent months in Nigeria and deported because, according to the authorities, they could not give
satisfactory explanations of their mission in the country.
Haz Iwendi, spokesman of the Nigeria Police confirmed the new security directive last week. "We have beefed up security around the various embassies," he said. "We are also working on theories that terrorists may have links in Nigeria. We are working with Interpol ... All our men are on full alert."
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Nigerian bishops warn of sharia law consequences
Reuters (23.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (24.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Nigerian Roman Catholic bishops have warned of disastrous consequences if the government does not take steps to halt implementing strict Islamic sharia law, the independent Guardian newspaper said on Sunday.
It reported that the bishops under the auspices of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) said it was sad that "the various arms of government both at the federal and state levels have remained indifferent to this problem which could bring disastrous consequences on our nation."
The bishops said in a communique at the end of a meeting in Lagos that it was wishful thinking for the government to believe the sharia issue -- which they blamed for religious and ethnic violence in some northern states -- will fizzle out with time, the paper said.
"We have repeatedly warned that the adoption of the sharia as a state law and the extension of its scope are a flagrant violation of the human rights of non-Muslims in a multi-religious society and a secular state like Nigeria," they said.
"We shall be more proactive and will use every legitimate means to prevent the imposition of sharia on non-Muslims anywhere and for any reason," they added.
Ethnic and religious violence has worsened since Africa's most populous country of more than 110 million people returned to cilivian rule at the end of 15 years of military dictatorship in 1999.
More than 500 people were killed and thousands injured in Christian-Muslim fighting which erupted in the central Nigeria city of Jos earlier this month.
Isolated reprisal attacks elsewhere in the West African country spread fear that violence could polarise multi-ethnic Nigeria with more than 250 ethnic groups.
Hundreds died in the northern city of Kaduna in early 2000 in Muslim-Christian clashes over plans to introduce sharia law.
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by Demola Akinyemi
Vanguard (16.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (18.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - About six students of University of Ilorin and Kwara State Polytechnic are feared dead following the clash of some dare-devil secret cult gangs in the institutions between Thursday evening and Friday morning.
The latest cultist attack came on the heel of the incident of August 24, when some student cultists of University of Ilorin trailed their assailant, one Tunde Moruf Obalola at the front of the main library at the permanent campus and shot him at a close range.
On the recent incident, eye-witness account told Sunday Vanguard that at about 6.00 p.m. within the precinct of Institute of Administration at Kwara State Polytechnic, four students cultists rented the air with gun shooting having brought down their target, one Adekoya Adewale, HND II student of Banking and Finance in the pool of his own blood.
Immediately the cultists ran away, continued the account, the victim was immediately taken to the Polytechnic Medical Centre, from where he was referred to the Emergency Unit of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital where he is being currently guarded with two policemen.
The University of Ilorin took its turn yesterday at about 12 noon when the student cultists gang clashed in front of Business and Social Sciences building engaging themselves in a serious gun battle.
In the ensued pandemonium two student of Economics sustained very serious injuries, while one Accounting student said to be the target, was shot, another student was hit by stray bullets.
All the said victims are lying at critical .......... receiving treatment at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital as at the time of filing the report.
The Rector of Kwara State Polytechnic, Prof. Omobolanle Olatunji when contacted confirmed the incident, while the authorities of University of Ilorin could not be reached for comment.
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Nigerian president appeals for peace in city of unrest
CNN (15.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (17.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Posted: 9:42 PM EDT (0142 GMT) - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo visited the central city of Jos on Saturday to appeal for an end to religious violence that has killed hundreds of people in the past week.
Obasanjo toured the once tranquil city, inspecting damage caused by days of fierce fighting between Muslims and Christians that has raised fears violence may spread through Nigeria's vast multi-ethnic population.
"It is a gory sight. I have gone around to see things for myself," Obasanjo told reporters at the seat of the state government in Jos after meeting religious and community leaders.
He described the violence as "an act of extreme barbarity."
Fighting first erupted eight days ago and flared again on Wednesday after the terror attacks on the United States that were blamed on Islamic extremists.
Tens of thousands of inhabitants have since fled their homes, many taking refuge in army camps and other locations around Jos.
Life has slowly started returning to normal with a few shops opening on Saturday and some commercial vehicles on the streets.
Some of those who had taken refuge in army camps ventured out for the first time, but people continued to stream out of the city on buses, trucks or by foot.
Army reinforcements sent to Jos are enforcing an overnight curfew in the city to avert further trouble.
Hundreds killed
As in previous clashes, officials have been reluctant to give figures for the number of casualties.
The Red Cross has stopped giving updates on the death toll for fear of fuelling fighting between rival Christian and Muslim groups armed with guns and machetes.
The semi-official Daily Times said 500 victims were buried before Wednesday's renewed violence.
The indigenous peoples of Jos, capital of Plateau State, are mainly Christian or animist. While the influence of the Muslim Hausa-Fulani, one of Nigeria's main tribes, has been a source of resentment among locals, the different groups had until recently coexisted peacefully.
Obasanjo has already sent a ministerial delegation to Jos and other trouble spots to appeal for calm and stop bloodshed spreading across oil-rich Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with more than 110 million people.
Ethnic and religious clashes have increased since 15 years of military dictatorship ended in 1999.
Hundreds died in the northern city of Kaduna in early 2000 in clashes over plans to introduce strict Islamic sharia law.
Isolated reprisal attacks have been reported in other parts of Nigeria over the last week, including the burning of three churches in the northern city of Kano, which has seen more than a dozen violent religious clashes in the past 20 years.
Police quell new violence in Nigeria
Roads into city blocked as Muslims, Christians resume fighting
AFP (13.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (14.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Residents of the Bukuru sector of Jos, Nigeria, pack their belongings and prepare to leave the area after recent violence left more than 165 people dead and almost 1,000 people injured. Religious differences are at the heart of the dispute.
Muslims and Christians fought hand-to-hand Wednesday in a market in Nigeria's northern city of Jos, scattering hungry customers at food stalls set up for the first time since a deadly rampage broke out five days ago, witnesses said.
Police fired tear gas and live ammunition to quell Wednesday's fighting at the main market, which persisted for 11/2 hours. The extent of any new casualties was not known.
The Nigerian Red Cross estimates that fighting from Friday to Sunday claimed 165 lives in the hilltop city of several million, 225 miles north of Nigeria's capital, Abuja.
Residents say the toll is probably much higher in the violence, which left tens of thousands of homes, church, mosques and shops in smoking ruins.
Nigerian police, fearing that a high toll would raise tensions, have played down the bloodletting and confirmed only 51 deaths.
Jos resident Susan Akele said that commuters were turned back from the city center Wednesday by roadblocks C some set up by police, others by armed gangs.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, is split into an overwhelmingly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south, with tension between the two groups increasing.
Missionary Craig Ewoldt of Saline, Mich., who works for a U.S.-based Bible distribution network, said the latest shooting could be heard for miles.
"The area around the market was calm in the morning, but someone we know called us later to say they were trapped and couldn't go out because people were fighting again," Mr. Ewoldt said.
Many people were running out of food. Mr. Ewoldt said he and other missionaries had been buying and distributing food to some impoverished residents until shortly before the latest violence began.
Some Christian residents said armed Muslim men in one neighborhood had been celebrating the attacks on the United States by gathering in the streets to shout: "Allah be praised! Down with Christians!"
President Olusegun Obasanjo condemned the attacks on the U.S. in a state TV address Wednesday to his nation of 120 million.
Jos, a predominantly Christian city with a large Muslim minority, has long been a base for foreign Christian missions owing to its climate, its beauty and C until now C its serenity.
Residents have offered different explanations for what started the conflict Friday. Some said it broke out after a Christian woman tried to cross a street outside a mosque where Muslim men were knelt in Friday evening prayers, touching off an argument.
Introduction of Shariah, or Islamic law, in several northern states more than a year ago heightened tension between Muslims and Christians. Since then, northern Nigerian towns have repeatedly exploded into violence, often killing hundreds at a time.
U.S. attacks fuel Nigeria clashes, 500 said dead
CNN (12.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (14.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Christians and Muslims clashed again on Wednesday in central Nigeria, where residents blamed terror attacks in the United States for stoking violence said to have cost at least 500 lives within less than a week.
Residents said Tuesday's attacks in New York and Washington, welcomed by some Muslims in the Middle East, had fuelled fresh fighting in the central city of Jos.
"Some (Muslim) people have been jubilating because of what happened in the U.S., and I believe that must have encouraged them," one resident told Reuters by phone after fleeing fighting in Nasarawa district on the outskirts of Jos.
"It's a real war front. The sound of gunshots from the area is deafening. I saw at least one dead body."
Another resident said troops had cordoned off parts of the city centre early on Wednesday to prevent the trouble spreading.
"Trouble started when a group of Muslim youths came out on the streets shouting 'Allahu Akbar' (God is greatest). Then fighting broke out," the resident said.
Residents said fighting spread elsewhere as soldiers restored order in the city centre.
Abiodun Orebiyi, acting secretary general of the Nigeria Red Cross, said he had received reports of houses burning in the Nasarawa district and that at least 10 people had been taken to hospital on Wednesday with machete and gunshot wounds.
Residents said people were fleeing parts of Jos. Tens of thousands left after a row between Christians and Muslims erupted in violence after Muslim prayers on Friday.
"If I get transportation I will immediately leave the town, because nobody knows when this madness will end," one resident said. He said troops were trying to regain control in Nasarawa.
Local police and government telephones were not answered.
At least 500 reported dead
The state-run national newspaper Daily Times, quoting unnamed sources, said three trucks had carried at least 500 bodies to a mass burial on Monday evening.
Residents said the real toll could be higher. One reported seeing at least five trucks loaded with dead since Friday.
Red Cross officials confirmed at least 165 people had been killed and 928 injured by Tuesday, but said they would release no more casualty figures for fear of fuelling hostilities.
Jos is the capital of Plateau State, whose indigenous peoples are mainly Christian or Animist and have long resented the influence of the wealthier Hausa-Fulani Muslims, one of Nigeria's dominant tribes.
Oil-rich Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with a multi-ethnic population of over 110 million, has for years suffered chronic bouts of ethnic and religious bloodshed.
Violence has increased since the restoration of democratic rule in 1999 after 15 years of military dictatorship. Hundreds of people were killed in early 2000 in an explosion of sectarian violence in the northern city of Kaduna over plans to introduce strict Islamic sharia law.
Acts of bravery and kindness amid Nigeria's religious slaughter
by Glenn McKenzie
AP (10.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (12.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - American missionaries helped Nigerian Muslims sweep up market stalls destroyed by a Christian mob on a righteous rampage. A few blocks away, a 16-year-old Christian girl returned home after being saved from a killer Muslim gang by a stranger. Her savior? A Muslim.
Throughout this stunningly beautiful plateau city on Monday, accounts of human compassion cut across the grain of a three-day cycle of Muslim-Christian violence that left dozens, at least -- hundreds, more likely -- dead.
"If Christians can do this to others," said missionary Craig Ewoldt, pointing to Muslim-owned tourist stalls destroyed in the fighting, "then obviously we all have a long road to travel."
"There were so many bodies," said Muhuyiddeen Jibrin, a Muslim stall owner, who said he watched six people -- one, his neighbor -- gunned down in a single exchange between Christians and Muslims. "I don't know how I'll ever sleep."
Jos, a predominantly Christian city of 4 million with a large Muslim minority, has long been a base for foreign Christian missions owing to its climate, its beauty and -- until now -- its serenity.
That all shattered Friday night, when what had been growing Muslim-Christian tensions exploded over what some said was a simple bit of rudeness -- a Christian woman who tried to cross a street in front of a mosque where Muslim men were gathered in prayer.
Introduction of Sharia, or Islamic law, in several northern states more than a year ago heightened discord between the two groups in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, with 120 million people. Since then, northern Nigerian communities have repeatedly exploded into violence, killing hundreds at a time.
But never in Jos, until now. Monday, as deployment of the army and police helped restore order, the mosque where the conflict was said to have started lay in charred ruins. So did scores of other mosques, and Christian churches, with pages of Sunday-school books strewn about.
Nigerian police at first refused to give a death toll for fear of heightening tensions, then released a preliminary figure Monday -- 51.
Witness accounts and bodies still sprawled in the streets despite days of retrieval by soldiers indicated the true figure was likely far higher. The Associated Press saw 12 bodies Monday, one lying in a river.
Troops blocked journalists and distraught families from hospital morgues. Soldiers confiscated the camera of a news photographer who asked to enter.
Meanwhile, a former military leader, Yakubu Gowon, was mediating talks Monday between Muslim and Christian groups. Religious leaders appealed on state radio for an end to the fighting.
Religious unrest, meanwhile, also broke out Monday in another northern city, Kano, some 150 miles away where a Muslim mob burned a church and cars. Police said the incident was not linked to the Jos uprising.
In Jos, intermittent gunfire still crackled and a few plumes of smoke rose into the air.
Tensions stayed high. Outside the city's largest mosque, Massalachi Juma, soldiers fired shots in the air to ward off crowds of young Muslim men who gathered and then went away, only to gather again.
While the devastation throughout this city was enormous -- with thousands of cars and homes and dozens of places of worship destroyed -- the carnage was far from universal.
Residents recounted stories Monday of Muslims and Christians saving one another from death or risking their own lives to rush wounded to hospitals and pull corpses of friends and strangers alike off streets during the fighting.
Jibrin's stepbrother, Gazali Shuaibu, a Muslim, said he rescued a frightened 16-year-old Christian, Ehuna Nyitsse, when he pulled her into his house Friday evening to help her escape a Muslim mob.
He and his family hid the teen-ager for 48 hours, jeopardizing their own safety. She sneaked home during a lull in the violence.
"I never met her before that, but I saved her because maybe one day maybe something will happen to me and I will need help from her," said Shuaibu.
Ewoldt, a Saline, Mich., native working for a Chicago-based Bible distribution network, was among 10 American missionaries and their teen-age children pitching in with brooms and garbage bags to help Muslim shopkeepers at Jos' main marketplace.
Still, for Beaj Beacham, a teacher at Jos' interdenominational American Christian school, known as Hillcrest, the city would never be the same. Beacham, originally from Laceyville, Pa., has lived in Nigeria with her husband for more than 20 years.
"This never happened before, and we think now that it could happen again," Beacham said, predicting the same cycle of violence for shocked Jos that has taken hold in other northern Nigerian communities.
"Someday there will be a blood bath -- retaliation."
ICRC says 165 reported dead in Jos, 928 wounded
Reuters (11.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (11.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - At least 165 Nigerians died and 928 were injured in three days of ethnic and religious clashes in the central city of Jos, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday, quoting the Nigerian Red Cross.
Antonella Notari, spokeswoman at the Geneva headquarters of the Swiss-run ICRC, said the toll could rise.
"The bodies of 165 people who died were brought to various Jos hospitals," Notari told Reuters. "This is coming from the Nigerian Red Cross, figures they gave us on Monday afternoon. It was as much as they could see at the time."
Earlier, Nigeria's Plateau State government said that 80 people had died and more than 500 people had been injured.
Tension has been building in Jos for about a month. Some members of the majority Christian community of Plateau State had complained about the appointment of a Muslim at the head of the state's poverty alleviation programme.
Talks to end Nigerian bloodshed
CNN (10.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (11.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Talks are taking place in an attempt to stem four days of religious fighting that has claimed dozens of lives in the Nigerian central city of Jos.
Truckloads of charred bodies have been delivered to morgues as violence, between Christians and Muslims, swept through the city, previously untouched by ethnic fighting.
Intermittent gunfire and plumes of smoke continued on Monday after four days of hatred in which at least 50 people have died.
Former military ruler Yakubu Gowon, who took power in a coup d'etat in 1966 and led Nigeria during its 1967-70 Biafra civil war, is carrying out mediated talks.
Leaders from both the Christian and Muslim communities appealed for calm in state radio addresses.
The traditional leader of the city's predominantly Christian Berom tribe called on his people to restore Jos as the "home of peace and unity."
Ivan Watson, of U.S. National Public Radio, told CNN that the government had acted quickly and had imposed a curfew, sealed the borders of the Plateau state to keep violence from spreading beyond Jos, and had sent police and the army into the area.
"You have to give credit to the government for acting quickly," he added.
Conflicting numbers have been given for the death toll. Initial figures from senior government officials cited 70 victims, but a government statement on Monday downplayed the toll by saying 51 had been killed.
The statement from information commissioner Amos Azi and government secretary Ezekiel Gomos said that as of midday on Sunday "the number of people reported killed was 51 and over 500 injured," Reuters reported.
Locals had put the figure much higher -- at least 100 people, including two soldiers.
Official sources say Nigerian authorities often suppress casualty figures from communal or religious violence to avert reprisals among the country's 110 million population. The real toll usually emerges well after the event.
Relief agencies say they are dealing with an estimated refugee figure of 6,000.
'Senseless crisis'
The government statement added that the real cause of the clashes were political and economic rather than religious.
This was then seized upon by various contending interest groups and rampaging mobs who began breaking into shops, public buildings and houses, it added.
"Although the causes of this senseless crisis are not fully understood by the government, it is necessary to state that the riots were not a simplistic Christian versus Muslim fight as has been reported by some media."
Until now Jos has largely been spared the Muslim-Christian clashes which have broke out elsewhere in northern Nigeria.
Nigeria, which is made up of about 250 different ethnic groups, is split between an overwhelmingly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south.
In February 2000, hundreds of people were killed in an explosion of sectarian violence in the northern city of Kaduna over plans to introduce strict Islamic sharia law there before soldiers stepped in to restore order.
Hundreds more died in a second bout of bloodletting three months later.
"We learned from the experience of our neighbours to put measures in place. It could have been worse," Gomos said.
Plateau is in the so-called Middle Belt region of Nigeria, and its inhabitants are mainly Christian or animist minority tribes living alongside a significant Muslim population.
Residents said sectarian tension had been building in Plateau since the state governor named a Muslim to head the state's poverty alleviation programme a month ago.
The trigger for Friday's flare-up was a wrangle between Christians and Muslims after a Christian woman allegedly breached a barricade erected to control traffic around the central mosque area during Friday prayers, residents said.
Churches and mosques were set on fire on Friday. Christian vigilantes poured onto the streets the following day to guard churches after interpreting an all-night Muslim prayer call from mosques as a call for Jihad, or Islamic holy war.
President Olusegun Obasanjo condemned the bloodletting.
"What sort of Christians and Muslims are those who when they clash, the first thing they do is to start burning down churches or mosques?" he asked during a regular radio broadcast.
Multi-ethnic Nigeria has been plagued by religious and communal violence since independence from Britain in 1960. Tensions have risen since the 15-year military dictatorship ended in 1999.
Religious violence enters third day in Nigeria
by Glen McKenzie
AP (09.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (10.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Authorities sealed off a northern Nigerian state hit by Muslim-Christian violence, and warned communities across the state Sunday to watch out for more outbreaks.
Residents of the 4 million-resident city of Jos, contacted by telephone, said the killing was continuing for a third day, despite deployment of the army Saturday.
Rival Christian and Muslim gangs were playing cat-and-mouse with police and troops, singling out targets of opposing faiths and killing them when security forces were not around, residents said.
The violence appeared to have abated from its peak Friday and Saturday, when witnesses said gangs were battling in the streets with guns, machetes and clubs.
With residents still fearing to venture outside, only two churches held Sunday services, after two other churches were burned. Muslims tried to attack one Sunday service, but were stopped by police, residents said.
Clashes were reported on the city's outskirts as well, and at least two killings were reported elsewhere in Jos state.
After initially describing the situation as calm Sunday morning after a 4 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, officials at midday were refusing comment on the violence.
State police commissioner Mohammed Abubakar confirmed that unrest continued Sunday, but refused to discuss the fighting or possible death toll. The police's priority now was securing lives and property, Abubakar said.
The violence in Jos broke out Friday night at the time of Muslim prayers. Some residents said it started when a Christian woman tried to cross a street where Muslim men had gathered to pray.
The violence was the latest since the introduction of Sharia, or Islamic law, in several northern states last year in Africa's most populous nation sparked bloody clashes between Christians and Muslims. Hundreds died in those clashes.
The local government in Jos is made up primarily of Christians, and there is a heavy American missionary presence in the area. The local government has rejected the possibility of implementing Sharia.
Until now, the city, 125 miles from the capital, Abuja, had largely been spared religious and ethnic violence that has periodically wracked other parts of Nigeria.
Religious tensions in the city had been rising, however, following the recent appointment of a Muslim politician as chairman of a state poverty-alleviation committee.
On Saturday, President Olusegun Obasanjo called out the army to try to quell the bloodshed, and appealed to community and religious leaders of Jos to restore peace.
On Sunday, police sealed off other areas and restricted travel in and out of some towns.
Acting Gov. Michael Bomang sent out what was described as an "S.O.S." to dozens of cities and towns across the state, telling them to act to safeguard lives within their own communities.
Fresh killings as thousands flee Nigerian city
By John Chiahemen
Reuters (09.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (10.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Thousands have fled Christian-Muslim clashes in which least 70 people were killed in the Nigerian city of Jos, and violence continued on Sunday as soldiers shot those outside despite a night-time curfew.
Smoke billowed from smouldering cars and houses in the gateway suburb of Bukuru, some 20 km (12 miles) from the middle of the central Nigerian city, where the sectarian clashes erupted on Friday.
Multi-ethnic Nigeria, Africa's most populous state with more than 110 million people, has been plagued by religious and communal violence since independence from Britain in 1960.
Tensions have risen since a 15-year military dictatorship ended in 1999, intensified by Christian and animist unease over the imposition of the strict Islamic sharia penal code across much of the mostly Muslim north.
A Reuters correspondent driving into Jos under military escort counted five bodies on the roadside in Bukuru. Some appeared to have died earlier on Sunday.
Soldiers enforcing the curfew shot two alleged violators just as journalists pulled up nearby. It was not clear if they had died.
An irate mob gathered at the spot where the two fell and later attacked a passing car carrying soldiers. Nearby troops fired warning shots.
Officials said at least 70 deaths had been reported since Friday and that the situation had been brought under control.
But the number of bodies still in the streets and the scale of devastation even in districts well away from the centre, the final death toll looked certain to be much higher.
Thousands flee
Thousands of people sought shelter in unprepared police or military barracks, enduring fear, hunger and thirst.
"We have been here since Friday when the riots started," said one fugitive at the Plateau state police command headquarters. "We have eaten only bread today and that was given to us by the commissioner of police."
He said most refugees still feared to return to their homes in the tin-mining city, better known for its pleasant weather and postcard landscape.
Nigeria's former military ruler Yakubu Gowon flew into Jos on Saturday on a presidential plane to try to broker peace between rival Christians and Muslims, a church source said.
"Gowon immediately went into a meeting with Muslim and Christian leaders...to urge both groups to lay down their arms and seek a peaceful resolution of the crisis," the source said.
He did not disclose the outcome of the meeting. President Olusegun Obasanjo may have enlisted Gowon, an ex-general who ruled Nigeria from 1967 to 1975, to try and obtain a ceasefire in the capital of his home state because he is well respected by Christians and Muslims, the source said.
"There is now relative calm and people are going out to their respective churches to worship," one resident said.
The prompt intervention of army and airforce units appeared to have averted the scale of bloodletting witnessed in Christian- Muslim clashes elsewhere in the past.
In February 2000, hundreds of people were killed in an explosion of sectarian violence in the northern city of Kaduna over plans to introduce strict Islamic sharia law. Hundreds more died in a second bout of bloodletting three months later.
"We learned from the experience of our neighbours to put measures in place. It could have been worse," Plateau State Government Secretary Ezekiel Gomos said.
Plateau is in the so-called Middle Belt region of Nigeria, whose inhabitants are mainly Christian or animist minority tribes living alongside a significant Muslim population.
Full implementation of Sharia begins in Niger state
by Akin Alofetekun
The Guardian (04.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.09.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Sixteen months after its introduction, the Sharia legal system, yesterday took off in Niger State with the inauguration of Zakat commission with a promise by the government to send bill on Sharia Commission to the House of Assembly.
Governor Abdulkhadir Abdullahi Kure attributed the gradual process in the implementation of Sharia to the need to maintain the prevailing peaceful co-existence among the adherents of diverse religions in the state.
He admitted that not a few people were opposed to the introduction of the Islamic legal code system.
"Some of our Moslem brothers too, resisted the Islamic legal code, but we as a government, have it as a responsibility to engage in activities that will profit the majority of the people, because we know that one day all of us will stand before Allah to account for our activities here on earth," Kure said.
Going down the memory lane, Kure recalled that Sharia in Niger State started by tackling the twin problems of alcoholism and prostitution, which he described as the root of all evils.
He enjoined the Moslem Umma to give their total support to the Zakat Commission, pointing out that Zakat could not be described as a personal issue like other pillars which makes the involvement of government imperative.
"Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam and when you threaten a pillar, the entire structure is threatened," the governor said, urging all well-to-do Moslems to pay their Zakat appropriately.
Kure admonished the commission not to dabble into the judicial aspect of Sharia but should restrict itself to regulating and supervising the implementation of the legal system.
Responding on behalf of the commission, chairman of the commission and one time Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Major-General Gado Nasko (rtd) thanked the governor for the confidence reposed in the 6-member commission, promising to be diligent in all its undertakings.
Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam is the payment of a certain percentage of one's savings over a period of one year by well to do moslems.
Thirty Killed In Religious Conflict in Nigeria
by Obed Minchakpu
Compass Direct (20.08.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (20.08.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - At least 30 Christians were killed during a June outbreak of violence between Muslims and Christians in the Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro areas of northern Nigeria's Bauchi state.
More than 158 Christian-owned houses were burned, along with two churches and a Bible school belonging to the Church of Christ in Nigeria, according to a statement signed by four leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
The religious clashes began on June 18 after Bauchi Governor Alhaji Ahmed Adamu Muazu declared on June 1 that Islamic (sharia) law applied to all persons in the state, not Muslims only. On June 4, Muazu assigned an Islamic court judge to Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro Local Government Areas to enforce Islamic law in the predominantly Christian villages.
The four Christian leaders, Rev. Markus Musa, Rev. Canon H.A. Eluwa, Michael Lulu and Yunusa Manzo, accused the governor of masterminding the Christian killings.
"He knew well that Christians were slaughtered at a roadblock at Zwall and Burgel villages by Muslim jihadists. Yet, to date he did nothing about it," the Christian leaders claimed.
"The fact that Governor Ahmed Adamu Muazu, as the chief security officer in the state, did nothing to prevent the slaughtering of the Christians at those roadblocks means that he actually helped in the planning and execution of the jihad against the Christians in Bauchi state," they said.
Christian opposition to the adoption and implementation of the Islamic legal code began two years ago when the Bauchi State House of Assembly made known its intention to enact a bill to declare an Islamic state.
Sporadic violence continues to occur with little relief in sight.
"It will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for sharia to operate in Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa local government areas," one Christian leader declared.
Nigeria's Zamfara state accused of aiding
church demolitions
by Obed Minchakpu
Compass (19.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (20.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Christian leaders in northern Nigeria's Zamfara state have accused the government of coercing Muslim converts to Christianity into attacking Christians and demolishing church buildings.
According to Christian leaders, the government usually threatens the Muslim converts with prosecution under Islamic law, or "sharia," forcing them to return to the Islamic faith. They are also told to demolish churches where they were members or be prepared to face the law of apostasy under sharia. The Rev. Linus Awule, Zamfara state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass in Gussau, the state capital, that "there have been increases in the demolition of church buildings of recent in the state" because of this type of intimidation. He holds the Zamfara state government responsible for the "incessant attacks" on Christians and churches. The CAN leadership believes that such "barbaric laws" as sharia are making life increasing difficult for Christians in the state.
But the Zamfara state commissioner for information, Alhaji Tukur Dangaladima Birnin-Magaji, told Compass that the state government does not support the burning of church buildings or their demolition.
He acknowledged, however, that the government has been receiving Muslim converts who had left the Christian faith and returned to their former faith, Islam. He also said it is true that some of these returning converts have been involved in church burning and destruction. But Birnin-Magaji denied the attacks were encouraged by state officials.
"It was these people (converts) and others that decided on their own to demolish churches in order to have a break with the past," he said.
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Church in Nigeria joins suit against Islamic law
Zenit (29.03.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.03.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - The Catholic Church in Nigeria plans to join a lawsuit against the Islamic law, or Shariah, which has been introduced in several northern states.
The initiative was disclosed March 20 by Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, at the start of a six-day meeting of the Standing Committee of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar.
In an interview with Panafrican News Agency in Dakar, Archbishop Onaiyekan said: "Not only is it unconstitutional for the Shariah to be imposed on Nigeria as a federation, it is unconstitutional for it to be imposed on any particular state or states, even if a state were 100% Muslim."
Several Muslim-dominated states in northern Nigeria have introduced the Shariah, amid strong protests from Christians. The issue has generated sectarian violence, resulting in hundreds of deaths and destruction of property.
Archbishop Onaiyekan said that the country's politicians seem to shy away from the problems, and that unnamed individuals were hoping to make political gains from this potentially dangerous issue.
"The head of state has dragged his feet too long on the matter," he said, "This might be because his hands are tied, or he has decided to tie his own hands."
The archbishop recalled that President Olusegun Obasanjo said it was wrong when the issue first came up, but since then he has made no efforts to "call even a meeting of governors concerned."
Christians in Nigeria are experiencing "a political maneuver by a small group to gain both on the political and economic fronts at the same time," the archbishop lamented.
At a press conference in Lagos on March 19, President Obasanjo said that no religious code introduced for sheer political gains can destabilize Nigeria, and he left room for the possibility that the Shariah, introduced in nine of Nigeria's 36 states, would die a natural death.
As specified in the Koran, the Shariah would forever remain part and parcel of practicing Muslims' legal code. "Shariah is part of Islam, but, when you try to combine it with politics, it will generate reactions," Obasanjo affirmed. "We are a diverse nation, and our strength lies in diversity."
Catholic Church plans legal action against Sharia
WRSN (21.03.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (22.03.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The Catholic Church in Nigeria plans a legal challenge to the Islamic Sharia law introduced by some States in the north of the country, the Archbishop of Abuja, Mgr John Onaiyekan said in Dakar Tuesday.
"Not only is it unconstitutional for the Sharia to be imposed on Nigeria as a Federation, it is unconstitutional for it to be imposed on any particular State or States, even if the State were 100 percent Muslim," the prelate told PANA in the Senegalese capital.
Several Muslim-dominated northern Nigerian States have introduced the Sharia amid strong protests from Christians in the multi-religious and populous nation.
The issue has generated sectarian violence resulting in hundreds of deaths and destruction of property.
Onaiyekan, who is attending a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Association of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, said it is unfortunate that Nigerian politicians have consistently shied away from the problem.
He said some unnamed persons in the government were trying to make some political gains from the potentially dangerous issue.
"The Head of State (Olusegun Obasanjo) has dragged his feet too long on one matter.
"This might be because his hands are tied, or he has decided to tie his own hands," Onaiyekan said.
He added that when the issue first came up, the President publicly declared it was wrong.
But since then, the Archbishop said Obasanjo had back- pedalled, instead of making an effort "to call even a meeting of Governors of the States concerned."
The prelate said Christians in Nigeria were experiencing "a political manoeuvre by a small group to gain both on the political front and on the economic front at the same time."
"That is why they have resorted to this kind of manipulation of religious sentiments."
He explained that although only four or five of Nigeria's 36 States had actually proclaimed the Sharia law, the situation of Christians living in those States is sufficiently grave to deserve immediate national attention.
"We are waiting...," he insists.
The Archbishop said the States concerned based their decision on a "false notion of common will of the people," noting that Article 10 of the National Constitution declares Nigeria a non-confessional Federation.
"It clearly states that the government of the Federation or of any State in the Federation cannot adopt any religion as State religion.
"This means that even if a majority of people of a given State are Muslims, they do not have the right to make Islam the official religion of that State," Onyaiyekan argued.
"We in the Church do not consider that the five or so States are already Muslim States. We still consider the entire affair as an illegal move which must be stopped," he added.
The prelate said the Church considers a planned constitutional amendment as an opportunity to correct the "error."
He praised the strength with which Christians in the northern State of Kaduna faced the challenge of the Sharia imposition.
"They fought back and now the situation is again normal. We regret the loss of lives which that caused, however."
Onaiyekan said the situation is different in other northern States mainly because the Christians are fewer.
But he explained that at the national level, the Church is putting up a strategy on the issue.
"Let's make the facts clear. We are not fighting Islam... We have no problem with Islam. The majority of Muslims are living in harmony with peoples of other religions in Nigeria," Onaiyekan pointed out.
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CHRISTIAN SOLIDARITY WORLDWIDE (03.03.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.03.2001) Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - At least 4 people died, 50 people were arrested and two churches were vandalised during rioting in the aftermath of a visit last weekend by the Israeli ambassador to the capital of Gombe State in Northern Nigeria. The incident comes as governors of Nigeria's predominantly Christian southern states toy with the idea of taking their Northern counterparts to the Supreme Court over the introduction of Sharia Law. It also comes amidst signs that a desire for Sharia law may be spilling over into other African nations and causing religious tensions.
Calvary Baptist church and the Bishara Baptist church, both situated in Gombe city, were robbed of items ranging from wall clocks to electricity meters, and 15 pews were ripped out of Bishara Baptist church and set alight as thousands of Moslem youths took to the streets in protest at the Ambassador's visit. The ambassador was in Gombe to discuss economic matters with the state governor and to inaugurate a Christian pilgrimageassociation, the Shalom Club. The State Governor has established a 5-man committee to ascertain the number of victims and the extent of the damage caused by the rioting.
There is a growing demand on the part of Nigeria's predominantly Christian southern population for high-level political action to counter the rapid advance of Sharia. A recent call by southern governors for a greater control of the country's natural resources, which are situated predominantly in the south, was met by legal action on the part of the government. Southern governors accused the presidency of adopting a selective approach to the resolution of constitutional crises. Taking a leaf out of the government's book the southern governors are now threatening to take their northern counterparts to the Supreme Court over the Sharia issue.
The introduction of Sharia in Northern Nigerian states appears to have ignited a fuse of religious zeal in countries that are predominantly Moslem, or where there are significant Moslem minorities. To the consternation of religious minorities and the political opposition, President Yahya Jammeh of Gambia recently declared his intention to introduce Sharia law into the country despite the fact that Gambia is a secular state where religious freedom is guaranteed by the constitution. In Tanzania a campaign is underway for the imposition of strict Islamic law. Churches have been broken into and attacked, and in January of this year a popular Christian minister, who had repeatedly warned of the danger posed by extremist Moslems, was murdered in his house in front of his wife and children.
A CSW representative said: 'CSW is gravely concerned by the continuing religious tension in Nigeria and its reverberation throughout the African continent. It is imperative that the rights of religious minorities are upheld.'
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State to Implement Sharia March 31
Panafrican News Agency (28.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.03.2001) Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The ranks of Nigeria's northern states adopting the controversial Sharia have swollen with the announcement that Bauchi will begin implementing the Islamic law from 31 March.
The announcement came with the signing into law of the Sharia Bill Tuesday by the state governor, Ahmadu Adamu Muazu, and the establishment of a 10-member task force to co-ordinate the implementation.
"I am happy today that the Bill on Sharia legal system has been signed by me and for all intents and purposes, Bauchi State has joined the league of states in the federation in which the Sharia legal system and law are effectively enforced," Muazu said.
Zamfara blazed the trail in introducing the law January 2001, while other predominantly Muslim states like Sokoto, Niger, Kebbi, Yobe, Borno and Katsina followed suit.
An attempt to introduce the law in Kaduna, almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims, led to the worst violence so far witnessed since the advent of democracy in the country about two years ago.
Hundreds of lives were lost and properties worth millions of naira were damaged during the riots.
Christians, residing mostly in the southern part of the country, are opposed to the introduction of the law, while Muslims say it is a basic tenet of their faith.
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