February 5th 2002.
Footage of the aftermath of violent inter-communal clashes in the Lagos district of Idi-Araba between participants from the Yoruba and Hausa ethnic groups. Army and police patrol the still smouldering ruins of a neighbourhood.
Reuters Text:
"Police, reinforced by the army, fought gun battles on Monday (February 4th) on the smouldering streets with the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), an ethnic Yoruba militia blamed for causing the violence ... Lagos State Police Commissioner Mike Okiro said there had been a break in the fighting overnight for the first time since the clashes began on Saturday night. But residents said they feared the ethnic militants were regrouping and waiting for security forces to leave ... In the Hausa north, troops were on standby to stamp out any reprisals against Yorubas there. ... For Nigeria, the latest in a series of murderous clashes since army rule ended in 1999 were a stark reminder of its fragility as it gears up for general elections next year ... Nigeria has routinely used the army to put down ethnic disturbances which have killed thousands since President Olusegun Obasanjo took office in 1999 to end a disastrous 15-year spell of corrupt and oppressive military rule."
Abdullahi Laidajo, an ethnic Hausa businessman:
"I hate military administration but today, my frustration ... democratic (democracy) has frustrate(d) me. I love military to come back. You know, I don't want military before but I will bear military because in here they are killing. I have no security. There is no security for me ... I want foreign investors to scare away from Nigeria. They should never come and invest until Obasanjo resigns. Or the foreign investors should give Obasanjo an alternative - either he resigns, he goes, we make a fresh election, or they should quit away. My attorney general, Chief Bola Ige (Yoruba politician assassinated in December 2001), was killed in this country. I am not a Yoruba, I am Hausa-Fulani. But now how can I tell my foreign friends when they was calling me from overseas? They say "Ah, Ah, how come?".Because I was planning for them to come and invest in my country."
Source: Reuters New Archives.
