Nigeria imposes curfews, sends troops to the north

ABUJA – Nigerian authorities imposed curfews and security forces poured onto the streets of several northern towns yesterday after a two-day wave of Islamic militant attacks against police killed dozens of people.

Sporadic gunfire was reported in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, where some of the worst violence occurred on Monday. Police were exchanging intermittent fire with militants as they tried to raid their camps in the city, according to local journalist Olugbenga Akinbule. He said more than 3 000 people had been displaced in the city.Violence erupted in the northern city of Bauchi on Sunday and spread the next day to three other predominantly Muslim northern states, as radical militants seeking to impose a Taliban-style regime in northern Nigeria launched a coordinated wave of assaults on police and police stations in the region.National police chief Ogbonnaya Onovo said on Monday at least 55 people have died, including 50 militants and five police officers. His spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said authorities were still adding up the number of dead and arrested, and declined to give total figures.Late on Monday, President Umar Yar’Adua’s called for calm and ordered security forces ‘to take all necessary action to contain and repel the sad and shocking attacks by extremists on police posts and public buildings.’Mohammed Maigari Khanna, a spokesman for the governor of Bauchi state, said security forces were searching for militants who had tried to flee and had arrested some of them. He said a dusk-to-dawn curfew had been imposed and security agents had blanketed the area.In Kano state’s Wudil district, where militants on Monday attacked a police station, 17 people were arrested overnight, bringing the total detained there to 53, according to Kano police spokesman Baba Mohammed. He said Kano was calm and police reinforcements had arrived to back up local security forces.Nigeria’s 140 million people are nearly evenly divided between Christians, who predominate in the south, and primarily northern-based Muslims. Shariah was implemented in 12 northern states after Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 following years of oppressive military regimes. More than 10 000 Nigerians have died in sectarian violence since then.The radical sect behind the latest violence is known by several different names, including Al-Sunna wal Jamma, or ‘Followers of Mohammed’s Teachings’ in Arabic, and ‘Boko Haram,’ which means ‘Western education is sin’ in the local Hausa dialect.Onovo referred to the militants as Taliban, although the group has no known links to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.The group, which wants to see traditional government replaced by a Taliban-style state based on a strict interpretation of Shariah law and the Quran, first gained notoriety with a similar wave of assaults on New Year’s Eve 2003. More attacks followed in late 2004.Analysts say trouble has brewed for months, as police began raiding militant hideouts and finding explosives and arms.In November, more than 300 people were killed in sectarian clashes in Jos, capital of Nigeria’s Plateau state. – Nampa-AP