By Toye Olori
LAGOS, Feb 5 2002 (IPS)

The ruins of more than 200 houses are the relics left behind at Idi-Araba, the battered suburb of Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, where ethnic conflict broke out at the weekend.

The hitherto busy suburb has been turned into a ghost town after more than 1,000 families have been displaced by the Sunday clashes. At least 300 persons have been killed in the conflict, between Yoruba and Hausa, according to unconfirmed reports.

“This is what has been left of our dear Idi-Araba where we all had been living in peace before this unnecessary destruction,” says Mohammed, pointing at the smouldering houses when IPS visited the area, on Tuesday.

The clashes, between Nigeria’s dominant Yoruba and Hausa ethnic groups, come less than 10 days, after an ammunition dump explosions at an army barracks at Ikeja, a Lagos suburb, left more than 1,000 people dead in a stampede. More than 5,000 people also have been displaced and property worth millions of dollars destroyed.

The Red Cross Monday said 57 people were seriously injured and 150, who received machete and gunshot wounds, were treated. More than 200 houses also have been razed to the ground, it said.

The displaced, who numbers about 1,000, have been moved to Ikeja Police College to join their colleagues displaced from last week’s bomb blast in Lagos.

Schools, churches and mosques have remained closed for fear of being attacked by a gang of people who reportedly invaded adjoining suburbs, terrorising residents on Monday.

“We closed school very early yesterday (Monday) when our teachers said they heard rumours that the Hausas have invaded schools in Mushin, attacking innocent children. The teachers asked us to stay home today until everything is calm,” says 10-year-old Toyin Babatunde, who goes to school in Fadeyi, located two kilometres from Mushin, a suburb of Lagos.

The Lagos State government announced the closure of all public schools without boarding facilities in the metropolis.

A statement, signed by Tunji Bakare, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, said the closure followed the bloody clashes between the Hausa and Yoruba militants.

“The measure is taken to ensure safety of lives of students,” said Bakare. He urged head teachers of the affected schools to await further directives on the date of resumption.

As the rumour of a possible attack on other neighbourhood spread, soldiers and anti-riot police officers were drafted to the Ikorodu road, a major expressway between the crisis-ridden neighbourhoods and the rest of the mainland, to prevent further spread.

At Iganmu where IPS office is located, a gang of youths on Tuesday attacked Hausa drivers who parked their fuel tankers under the flyover.

“We don’t want Hausas here anymore. They should go back to the north. They cannot be killing our people in the north and coming to our town to kill us. We are tired of living together with them,” says one of the attackers, a southerner.

Newspapers Tuesday reported that truckloads of soldiers patrolled cities in the north, particularly Kano, to prevent the conflict in Lagos from spilling-over there.

Police also reportedly sent reinforcement to Jigawa State that borders Kano, a highly volatile city and scene of communal and religious mayhem that killed hundreds of people last October.

“Because of the situation in Lagos, we have placed our men on red alert,” Yakubu Bello, Kano State Police Commissioner was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

No one knows exactly how the fighting in Lagos started on Sunday. One account said dispute over games of cards led to the stabbing of a Yoruba boy by a Hausa youth, resulting in a fracas.

Another was that “a Yoruba boy defecated in a drainage near a mosque and when he was asked by the Hausas to clear the mess and he refused, a fight ensued, leading to his being stabbed to death,” says one eyewitness.

Bola Tinubu, Lagos State Governor, in a broadcast to reduce the tension, absolved the Oodua People’s Congress, a militant Yoruba group, of masterminding the conflict. He blamed a Yoruba gang, popularly known as the “Area Boys”, for the crisis.

Tinubu said the fighting has resulted in the “loss of lives and property, as though we have not had more than enough deaths already”, referring to the tragedy that followed last week’s bomb explosions in Lagos.

“We are in control of the situation in Idi-Araba. The crisis has nothing to do with OPC. It is the ‘Area Boys’. I have already ordered the combined team of military and police to patrol the area. Hausas and Yorubas in Idi-Araba have been living peacefully together for years. Any ‘Area Boys’ caught will be dealt with accordingly,” he warned.

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