RELIGION-NIGERIA: Mass Burial Planned as 7000 Displaced Families Need Food

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Nov 25 2002 (IPS) - More than 200 bodies were collected for mass burial Monday, as the Red Cross struggles with effects of the tragedy: 7,000 families made homeless by the violence between Christians and Muslims in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna.

‘’The displaced persons are taking refuge in 18 different points, including army barracks, breweries compound, airforce base, police barrack, and a well-protected primary school in Kaduna,” Patrick Bawa, spokesperson for the Nigerian Red Cross told IPS on Monday.

‘’Within two days we will be moving relief aid to Kaduna. There is need for assessment first to determine the number of people as some of them would have moved out from the camps to their states and some to their families within town where they feel more secure,” he said.

Bawa said that 1,169 persons have been injured in the riot, sparked by a Nov 16 article in Nigeria’s ‘This Day’ newspaper, which said Prophet Mohammed would have married one of the Miss World beauty contestants were he alive today.

The offending remarks sparked riots in Kaduna and Abuja, the administrative capital of Nigeria, which was the venue of the pageant. It has now been moved to London.

‘’We are still updating figures. Most of the injured are in clinics, hospitals and private homes within the metropolis,” said Bawa.

Police say 1,000 suspects have been arrested during the riots, which erupted on Friday. And property worth millions of dollars had been destroyed in Kaduna. ‘’Muslim defendants will be tried by the Islamic court in Kaduna, while Christians will appear before civilian courts,” the spokesperson for the governor of Kaduna State, Maktar Sirajo, told journalists on Sunday.

Local and foreign media have been blamed for depriving Nigeria of hosting the Miss World finals.

Guy Murray-Bruce, Director of Miss World Nigeria, berated foreign media for blowing the incidents in Kaduna and Abuja out of proportion.

‘’What happened is a bit of a shame because the international press has highlighted a little incidence of some rioting way out of all proportion. The loss is for Nigeria. We may use millions of pounds but the loss is ours. We had the great opportunity to showcase Nigeria to the world,” Murray-Bruce said.

Bola Tinubu, Governor of Lagos State, also condemned the riots. ‘’I do not like the violence. It is very damaging for Nigeria’s image,” he said.

But, Jerry Gana, the Minister of Information and Orientation, described the shifting of the venue of the pageant to London as ‘’an international conspiracy against Nigeria”.

Before heading – with the beauty queens – to London on Sunday, the Vice President of the Miss World Organisation Julian Morley, described the cancellation of Miss World 2002 as a tragedy and attributed the problem to the negative media campaign mounted by the foreign press against Nigeria.

She said the international media had been giving out negative reports about Nigeria – whose 120 million people are split 50/50 between Christians and Muslims – even before the event took off.

More than 12,000 people are estimated to have died in religious violence – mostly between Christians and Muslims – since Nigeria’s return to democracy from military rule in 1999.

The hosting of the Miss World 2002 by Nigeria had been dogged by problems even before it started. Some of the beauty queens had threatened to boycott the event over a death sentence by stoning passed by an Islamic Sharia (Law) court on a 31-year old Amina Lawal for adultery. But after promises by the Nigerian government that nobody would be stoned to death, 93 contestants flew into Nigeria on Nov 11.

Immediately, Muslim militant groups in Nigeria threatened to disrupt the contest, if allowed to go ahead.

Nigeria won the right to host Miss World 2002 after its beauty queen Agbani Darego was crowned last year’s Miss World, the first black African to win the prestigious title.

RELIGION-NIGERIA: Mass Burial Planned as 7000 Displaced Families Need Food

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Nov 25 2002 (IPS) - More than 200 bodies were collected for mass burial Monday, as the Red Cross struggles with effects of the tragedy: 7,000 families made homeless by the violence between Christians and Muslims in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna.
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