NYT
November 29, 1999

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        Nigerian Police on Patrol to Curb
        Violence

        Filed at 5:49 a.m. ET

        By Reuters

        LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian police went on patrol on
        Monday to try to prevent more violence after riots killed more
        than 100 people and inflamed ethnic passions in Africa's most
        populous nation. 

        Armed police patrolled the Lagos suburb of Ketu, where fighting
        broke out on Thursday between local Yorubas and Hausas from
        the mainly Muslim north. 

        ``Things are normalizing, the police are still maintaining peace in
        Ketu and we don't expect more trouble for now,'' police
        spokesman Fabulous Enyaosah told Reuters. 

        The latest in a series of ethnic clashes since President Olusegun
        Obasanjo took power in May to end 15 years of military rule once
        more raised fears for the country's fragile democracy. 

        The official fatality count is up to 50 but Reuters reporters and
        other reports from witnesses from different parts of the city said
        the toll was at least twice that. 

        ``It's difficult to say exactly how many people died but certainly it
        was more than 100,'' said John Okeke, a resident. 

        ``For two good days people were being slaughtered like goats and
        roasted alive in the back streets of Ketu and no police came by.
        Dead bodies were littered everywhere and many had been
        removed by relatives before the police finally came,'' he said. 

        Apart from bodies recovered by the police, Muslim Hausa
        residents of the area said dozens of their dead were buried within
        the first day in accordance with the Islamic faith. Some 36 people
        were buried in one mass grave, they said. 

        ``Many people are still missing, unaccounted for and possibly
        dead,'' said one Ketu resident. 

        The end of the draconian suppression of the military years has
        released pent-up feelings of frustration and ethnic suspicion in
        OPEC's sixth-biggest oil producer. 

        MILITARY RULE FOSTERED CRISIS 

        Years of corrupt military rule fostered economic crisis including
        widespread unemployment among urban youths, who have
        become recruiting targets for militants threatening the unity of the
        country of over 200 distinct ethnic groups. 

        Lagos governor Bola Tinubu met leaders of the Yoruba and Hausa
        communities on Sunday and appealed for calm, promising to
        guarantee the security of residents, many of whom were already
        fleeing to their home regions. 

        ``Everybody should go back to their homes and go about their
        normal business. Nigeria can never break up, we're one family,''
        Tinubu said. 

        Yorubas in the northern, mainly Hausa, city of Kano at the
        weekend moved out of districts where at least 70 people died in
        July in violent reprisals after clashes between Nigeria's two biggest
        tribes in the southwestern town of Shagamu. 

        There were fears of trouble in Kano as Hausas returned from
        Lagos with tales of horror. 

        With a multi-ethnic population of at least 108 million people
        divided almost evenly between Muslims and Christians, Nigeria has
        a history of violent upheaval. 
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