24 February 2006
Rioters burnt the corpses of the dead yesterday on the streets of Onitsha, the city worst hit by religious riots that have killed at least 138 people across the country in five days.
Mobs seeking revenge for the killing of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with cutlasses, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence.
"We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson," said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where angry youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them.
Dozens more corpses had been thrown into the back of pick-up trucks by security agents overnight, residents said.
There was no fighting in the town yesterday but Emeka Umeh, of the Human Rights Group, the Civil Liberties Organization, called it "the peace of the graveyard."
Some corpses were still lying on the streets and hundreds of Muslim men, women and children fled the city crammed into open-top trucks for fear of more killings. Thousands more were hiding in army barracks and police stations.
Umeh said most of the 85 bodies his group counted were Hausas but some Ibos were killed too.
In Maiduguri where a weekend riot that began as a protest condemning cartoons against Prophet Mohammad, tensions were high during several Christian funeral masses.
A crowd of Christian youths broke away from the burial of one of the victims, a Catholic priest and ran shouting through the streets before police dispersed them.
News of the Maiduguri murders set off the bloodletting in Onitsha and tit-for-tat violence spread on Wednesday to Enugu, where seven people were reportedly killed.
The triggers for riots that killed at least 46 people, mostly Christians, in Maiduguri, Bauchi and Katsina, were different, but religious and secular leaders have linked them to political tensions.
In Bauchi, an alleged blasphemy started the trouble while in Katsina, it was a constitutional review that many see as an attempt to keep Obasanjo in power.
The constitution bars Obasanjo from seeking a third term in 2007 and he says he will uphold the charter. But he has declined to comment on a powerful movement to amend the constitution to allow him to stay.
Meanwhile, the police in Delta State have beefed up security around the Hausa community in Asaba, following reported cases of attacks on northerners in neighbouring Onitsha in Anambra.
The Delta police command's spokesperson, Okuwobi Olabisi, told newsmen in Asaba on Wednesday that security has also been beefed up at the Asaba end of the Niger bridge to prevent the riot from spilling over to Delta.
She said the measure was sequel to the mass influx of people escaping from the riot in Onitsha into the state.
Olabisi said the measure became necessary to avert a breakdown of law and order, adding that "Delta is not known for religious protests and we will not allow it to happen."
The Onitsha riot which started on Tuesday morning, has paralysed all activities in the commercial city, forcing people to flee for safety.
Commercial vehicles plying Asaba-Onitsha route could not operate as the rioters created bone fire everywhere and blocked the highway.
Meanwhile, President Obasanjo has been asked to declare a state of emergency in Anambra state following the failure of the state government and security agencies to restore peace and order.
A Katsina-based Islamic scholar, Shiekh Yakubu Musa, who made the call in a chat with Daily Trust yesterday, said President Obasanjo, had during the Kano and Yelwa/Shendam religions crisis, vowed to slam a state of emergency on any state that allowed religious crisis to escalate unchecked.
He also advocated similar treatment in Borno, Bauchi and Gombe states where similar religious disturbances occurred, arguing that the silence of the federal government over Anambra state on the atrocity committed against Northern muslims in Onitsha shows that the government is biased.
"If this crisis had happened in Kano or Zamfara where shariah is truly practiced, the president would have invoked his powers to impose a state of emergency, but because these states are those backing his third term agenda, he refused to even comment on the crisis."
Sheikh Yakubu Musa condemned the Borno State religious violence and the Onitsha reprisal. He however accused Borno state government of fueling Onitsha killings by allowing the dead bodies to be carried back to their states.
"What do you think will happen if the corpse of our own brothers started flowing into the northern states? It will be another reprisal and there will be no end to the circle of violence," he said.
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