LAGOS (Reuters) – The president of Nigeria on Sunday called for calm after reports of inter-ethnic violence between ethnic groups at a market in the southwestern state of Oyo.
Clashes between traders of the Yoruba and Hausa ethnic groups erupted at the Shasha market in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo, on Saturday, the state governor’s spokesman said. Most Yoruba live in southwestern Nigeria, while the Hausa are concentrated in the northern states.
Tensions have risen in the southwestern states over the past few weeks amid allegations by public figures that nomadic herders from the predominantly northern Fulani ethnic group are committing violent crimes, which the shepherds have denied. Many of the herdsmen moved south in search of dwindling pastures.
Usman Yako, chairman of the Hausa Traders’ Association on the Shasha Market, told Reuters by telephone that at least 11 people from his ethnic group were killed in clashes in the market on Friday and Saturday following a quarrel between Yoruba and Hausa traders .
President Muhammadu Buhari on Twitter called on religious and traditional leaders, as well as elected leaders, “to join hands with the federal government to ensure that communities in their domain are not fragmented according to ethnic and other outlines”.
“We will not allow any ethnic or religious group to incite hatred and violence against other groups,” he wrote.
Oyo State Police did not immediately respond to calls for comment.
“The attacks, which led to the loss of lives and property, must be investigated and offenders brought to justice,” the rights group Amnesty International said in a statement, citing violence in the Shasha market.
Nigeria’s security forces are already being stretched by armed gang kidnappers in the northwest and an Islamic militant insurgency in the northeast.
(Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos, Ardo Hazzad in Bauchi and Tife Owolabi in Yenagoa; additional reporting by Paul Carsten in Abuja; editing by Daniel Wallis)