February 29, 2000
Paul Ejime
PANA Correspondent
LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) - A dust-to-dawn curfew has been imposed on Nigeria's south-eastern city of Aba after Monday's clashes between ethnic Igbo youths and members of the Hausa community, an apparent off-shoot of last week's sectarian violence that killed more than 200 people in the northern state of Kaduna.
Reports Tuesday from Aba, in Abia state, said the police was mobilised to enforce the curfew and maintain peace after clashes in which more than 20 people reportedly died.
The neighbouring city of Owerri and the famous market town of Onitsha were also reported to be under ethnic and religious tension.
The Aba riot was apparently triggered by tales by Igbo victims of the Kaduna violence on their return home. Funeral processions for the dead reportedly preceded the clashes.
Some Igbo leaders claimed that the majority of victims of the Kaduna clashes between Christians and Moslems were their kinsmen and women, mainly traders.
The Kaduna state government's plan to introduce the Islamic Sharia legal system provoked the Kaduna mayhem.
In what appeared like reprisal attacks, the Igbo youths in Aba allegedly went after Hausas and their interests, setting some buildings, including a mosque, alight before security personnel restored fragile peace.
The city was said to be under an uneasy calm Tuesday.
Monday's riots came two days after President Olusegun Obasanjo visited Abia, and on the day the president was touring Kaduna to assess the damage of last week's violence.
Meanwhile, an emergency State Council meeting has been called for Tuesday in Abuja to address the violence in parts of the country and the general security situation.
The council, headed by Obasanjo, also groups former Nigerian leaders, the 36 state governors and the chief justice, among others.
The meeting underscores the seriousness which the Obasanjo government attached to the unfolding and potentially dangerous ethnic and religious violence confronting Nigeria's young democracy after many years of military rule.
The country is no stranger to sectarian violence, which has killed thousands of people, mainly in northern Nigeria in the past.
The current unrest poses a serious challenge to the Obasanjo administration, which is battling deep-rooted corruption and trying to reposition Nigeria in global politics after years of international isolation.