Local government vote provokes death of hundreds in Nigeria, Hannah Cooper

Hannah Cooper — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:09:49 +0000

Violence erupted last week in Jos, the capital of the central Nigerian Plateau state, after a rumour spread that the Muslim-backed All Nigeria People's Party had lost the election for a new local government chairman to the People's Democratic Party, which has mostly Christian support. By Sunday the worst seemed to be over, though Nigeria troops were still patrolling the city and a night time curfew replaced the 24-hour one which was in operation over the weekend.Keep up to date with the latest developments and sharpest perspectives in a world of strife and struggle.

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The toD verdict: The failure of electoral workers on Friday to publicly post local election results led to speculation over the winner of an important local government posts that sees its holder control hundreds of thousands of dollars in government funds. This is what sparked the ethnic-religious clashes in the area, the death toll from which has not yet been confirmed. Whilst official figures put it at around 200, reports from people registering the dead count at least 400. Thousands of people are thought to have fled their homes.

The location of Jos itself is significant as it lies between Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south. The country as a whole has a population of 140 million, with a more or less equal split of Muslims and Christians. This region has not held local elections for many years because of fears that they could provoke religious conflict, but this violence still came as a surprise to many people in the region. Interfaith organisations have made great headway in the region in past years. As Salihu, a Muslim who has been involved in peace work between the communities, said: "This has set our work back 10 years... It will take us a very long time to rebuild the confidence."

This incident of communal strife is the worst that Nigeria has seen since the death of hundreds of people in clashes in Yelwa in 2004 which lead then-president Olusegun Obasanjo to announce a state of emergency. Jos also saw ethnic-religious fighting in 2001 when hundreds were killed.

Demand for resignations over Mumbai shootings

The Chief Minister of the Indian state of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh, has proffered his resignation after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Deshmukh is awaiting the acceptance of his resignation by Congress, and will follow in the wake of the Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil whose resignation has already been accepted. Calls for government resignations are reported to be high, and as strategic affairs expert K. Subrahmanyam has said: "There is an impression that the government is weak and not able to deal with terrorism."

Last week's attacks have raised questions about the relationship between terrorist attacks in India and centres of extremism in Pakistan, and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's statement urging Pakistan to cooperate completely with Indian investigations could raise tensions as Pakistan continues to deny its involvement.

Elsewhere in India, a truck was seized in the eastern state of Jharkand by suspected Maoist insurgents on Monday. The vehicle contained 23 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and was en route to an explosives factory. Ammonium nitrate, when mixed with certain materials, can be used as a powerful explosive.

Thai protestors leave Government House

The People's Alliance for Democracy, which has spent the past three months calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat whilst staging a sit-in at Government House, said on Monday that they were worried about the grenade attacks which have already killed two protestors and wounded many others at the Bangkok location, which houses the prime minister's office. Due to these attacks, the protestors are to move to one of the two airports which are being occupied, Don Muang or Suvarnabhumi, to support the efforts there.

Unconventional threat posed by terrorists

A report produced by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism has said that the next five years will see a terrorist attack using "unconventional weapons", unless the US and its allies take urgent preventative action. These "unconventional weapons" include biological and nuclear warfare, and the report points to concerns surrounding the development of nuclear programmes in unstable or hostile countries, especially singling out Pakistan as a top security priority for Obama's administration.

The report, produced by a panel of nine members, was the result of field work and interviews over a six-month period. Notable criticisms included within the paper include faulting the Bush government for concentrating on the nuclear threat while ignoring the prospect of biological warfare, as well as a general lack of preparedness for an attack using unconventional weapons.

Diners gunned down on Mexican border

Masked gunmen stormed into a diner on the Mexican border with the United States on Friday and opened fire, killing eight people. The attack has been linked with drug violence and gang warfare between drug cartels; drug-related violence has been on the rise in areas of Central and South America over the past months, and Mexico has played a large part in this increase. Ciudad Juarez, where the shooting took place, saw the death of a total of 25 people on Friday in related incidents and is in a key position for the drug war. Whilst the government claim that they are reassured by the increased violence as it shows the desperation of the drug cartels, this is little consolation for citizens exposed to these frequent attacks.

Explosions rock Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq

Monday morning saw the continuation of bombings which took place over the weekend, with the death of eight people in a suicide bomb attack targeting a military checkpoint in Pakistan's Swat Valley. One soldier was counted among the dead, and the rest were civilians. Earlier on the same day, the drivers of transport trucks bound for Afghanistan were killed in a grenade and gun attack near the city of Peshawar.

Across the border in Afghanistan, eight civilians and two police officers were killed by a suicide bomb which was set off in a busy market in the south of the country. The day before, a suicide bomb explosion in Kabul killed two people and wounded three when the bomber detonated himself in a traffic jam. The Taliban has been implicated in both of these attacks, which are respectively the second and third in just five days. On Thursday, four people were killed and seventeen injured in a Taliban car bombing.

Two coordinated bombings in Baghdad on Monday targeted the police training academy, killing fifteen people and injuring 45 others, whilst elsewhere in the country, a suicide car bomb killed fourteen in the northern city of Mosul on the same day. Over the weekend, a UN compound in Baghdad was hit by a rocket, killing at least two foreign contractors and wounding fifteen others. This incident, which took place on Saturday, followed a car bomb explosion on the same day which resulted in three deaths and at least thirteen casualties.

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Local government vote provokes death of hundreds in Nigeria, Hannah Cooper