Obasanjo declares emergency

2004-05-18 12:27

Abuja - President Olusegun Obasanjo declared a state of emergency on Tuesday in Nigeria's strife-torn central state of Plateau, where hundreds of people have been killed in what he called "a near mutual genocide".

Obasanjo suspended Plateau State's governor and put its government under the control of a retired general for at least six months.

"The situation in Plateau State, to say the least, constitutes a challenge to our democracy," he said, in a televised address to the nation. "We need to take very serious action to stem the tide of what has become a near mutual genocide."

For the past three years, rival Christian and Muslim ethnic groups have been fighting for control of farmland around the towns of Yelwa, Shendam, Wase and Langtang in the south of Plateau, 300 kilometres east of Abuja in Nigeria's central highlands.

Hundreds of people have been killed - most recently more than 200 Muslims who were slaughtered by a Christian ethnic militia in an attack on Yelwa on May 2 - and more than 30 000 people from both communities have fled to seek refuge in neighbouring states.

"What has become clear is that the constituted authority in Plateau State is incapable of maintaining law and order, giving confidence to the people, managing religious, ethnic and social pluralism and protecting the lives and property of all citizens - or is determinedly unwilling to do so," Obasanjo said.

Obasanjo accused Plateau State's elected governor, Joshua Dariye, of incompetence and of taking sides in the dispute, and warned that the violence in Plateau had endangered the fragile peace between Christians and Muslims across Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with 130 million people.

Last week, rioting erupted in the northern city of Kano, when Muslim youths targeted Christians to avenge the Yelwa massacre. More than 10 000 Nigerians have been killed in mob violence since 1999, and tensions are once again mounting.

"It has become imperative that the bloodshed in Plateau State - which has also reverberated in Kano and is threatening Kaduna, Bauchi, Taraba, Gombe, Benue and Nassarawa, and even the federal capital territory - should and must be stopped," Obasanjo said.

"The spillover from Kano is already threatening Owerri and Umuahia," he warned, in the first indication that trouble might spread from the Muslim north and the country's unruly central belt to Nigeria's mainly Christian south.

"The governor and his deputy by this declaration will go on suspension and cease to be in charge of the affairs of Plateau State for six months at the first instance. An administrator to manage the affairs of Plateau State in the person of retired General Chris Ali is hereby nominated," Obasanjo said, citing his emergency powers under Nigeria's 1999 constitution.

- AFP