Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Civil violence in Nigeria

Another case of civil unrest in Bauchi [see map at left] that is not political suggests that stability is not firmly established in that northern Nigerian state.

At Least 35 Dead in Islamic Sect Violence

Fighting between Islamic militants and security forces in northern Nigeria left at least 35 people dead as sect members armed with spears and arrows ransacked a neighborhood and set homes ablaze, a police official said Tuesday.

Mohammed Barau, a police spokesman for Bauchi state, said members of the Kata Kalo sect began fighting among themselves and accusing each other of causing their leader to fall seriously ill.

The militants' fierce attack sent the military unit into a retreat, Barau said. At least one soldier died in the initial clash early Monday morning, he said, as well as two bystanders.

Barau said military and police units returned to the area in force later, but ''before police got there, they had already killed themselves.'' However, extrajudicial killings are common in Nigeria...

In July, fighting in Bauchi sparked by another Islamic sect's attack on a police station began a wave of violence across northern Nigeria that left more than 700 dead.

From The Daily Trust (Abuja)

38 Killed in Bauchi Skirmishes

Thirty eight people died at Zango village on the outskirts of Bauchi yesterday in what the police said was a clash between members of a fringe Muslim sect described as the Kala Kato. The sect members had earlier in the day killed a soldier and a policeman...

Narrating the cause of the incident, Commissioner of Police Atiku Kafur said... even though the sect members were well armed and they were using their arms against the police, but police used over 100 smoke canisters to force them out of their enclave "and we successfully moved them in where we traced that they killed themselves. We evacuated 37 dead bodies inside the enclave even though some of them were alive but they passed away in the hospital."...

Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.

Find out What You Need to Know

Labels: civil society, Nigeria