BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Clashes between Christian and Muslim youths in central Nigeria triggered by a game of snooker have killed four people and led to the burning of houses, churches and mosques, police said on Friday.
Residents said the dispute in Tafawa Balewa, in Bauchi state, started when a man from the Muslim Hausa ethnic group refused to pay for a snooker game on Wednesday evening.
The snooker club owners, from the mostly Christian Sayawa ethnic group, threw him out but he returned with a gang of friends and tried to set the building ablaze, witnesses said.
Several houses and places of worship were torched as rioting broke out the following morning, leading the police to call in reinforcements from the northern states of Gombe and Kano and the local government to impose a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
"We cordoned off the area in order to prevent a spill over of the crisis to other places," Bauchi state police commissioner Mohammed Abdulkadir Indabawa said.
Bauchi lies next to Plateau state, where religious and ethnic clashes have killed more than 200 people over the past month, according to U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
There have been almost daily clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs in villages around Jos, the capital of Plateau state, since a series of bombs were detonated during Christmas Eve celebrations a month ago, killing scores of people.
The tension is rooted in decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands and for economic and political power with migrants and settlers from the Muslim north.
It is largely contained within one region of Africa's most populous nation and does not, on its own, risk derailing presidential, parliamentary and state elections in April.
But it is likely to escalate in the run-up to the polls and gives President Goodluck Jonathan's administration another security challenge on top of attacks by a radical Islamic sect in the remote northeast and the threat of renewed violence in the oil-producing Niger Delta, on Nigeria's southern coast.
Posted: at 28-01-2011 02:31 PM (14 years ago) | Gistmaniac
divineproject at 28-01-2011 02:42 PM (14 years ago) (f)
Just look at it, the tolerance level has dipped............just a little spark and there is a huge light..........I don tire for all these blood shed everywhere....God, have you turned your face away from Nigeria?.......
A LITTLE HELP HERE; A LITTLE HELP THERE, MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND!
Posted: at 28-01-2011 02:42 PM (14 years ago) | Hero
Mma4life at 28-01-2011 09:01 PM (14 years ago) (f)
Why can't we Nigerians help ourselves? Why shouldn't we love ourselves, while we call ourselves one nation. Why are we calling ourselves one nation while hatred and tribalizen is kill us. Oh God have mercy on us and save our souls. Amen.
Posted: at 28-01-2011 09:01 PM (14 years ago) | Newbie
Mma4life at 28-01-2011 09:02 PM (14 years ago) (f)
Why can't we Nigerians help ourselves? Why shouldn't we love ourselves, while we call ourselves one nation. Why are we calling ourselves one nation while hatred and tribalizen is kill us. Oh God have mercy on us and save our souls. Amen.
Posted: at 28-01-2011 09:02 PM (14 years ago) | Newbie
Mma4life at 28-01-2011 09:06 PM (14 years ago) (f)
Why can't we Nigerians help ourselves? Why shouldn't we love ourselves, while we call ourselves one nation. Why are we calling ourselves one nation while hatred and tribalizen is kill us. Oh God have mercy on us and save our souls. Amen.
Posted: at 28-01-2011 09:06 PM (14 years ago) | Newbie
>:(Why all these killing, naija need deliverance because this is too much,and nobody wann do anything.well those fools should not forget that we are not going to live on earth forever,one day they die too.
Posted: at 28-01-2011 09:47 PM (14 years ago) | Newbie
why cant aboki, mallam and the foolish alhaji leave the christians alone,this is really getting on my nerves.this is really too much for the christians to bear.
Posted: at 28-01-2011 10:03 PM (14 years ago) | Newbie
ayemisunny at 28-01-2011 10:13 PM (14 years ago) (m)
Before i read this i already knew it as another muslim issue. They are so idiot that some people are hidding in a corner keeping their heads save and command them to kill themselves and others. Where is Bin Laden their god father? Why is he hidden?
Posted: at 28-01-2011 10:13 PM (14 years ago) | Newbie
scape goats who allowed themselves to be used by d so called politicianssssssss.when will they learn? dying for nothing n the big men families all chilaxing abroad. SO SAD..
Posted: at 28-01-2011 10:23 PM (14 years ago) | Upcoming
nice9ija at 29-01-2011 12:17 AM (14 years ago) (m)
why wouldn't you pay for a game just like others did?? all he can do is run out like a rabbit to call idiot of his type, is high time to stop associate with any northan Muslims, am sure his intention was to come and course problems this is what they do always,for God sake this people are not Nigerians, what an animals people, i wish to have them in my own state that i will just delete them from the surface of this earth.....wasted group of caws
Posted: at 29-01-2011 12:17 AM (14 years ago) | Gistmaniac
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