Nigeria imposes partial curfew after deadly attack on convoy of 90 Muslims; 23 dead

On Sunday, the Nigerian authorities enforced a curfew in central Plateau state, just a day after an alleged Christian militia assaulted a group of vehicles of 90 Muslims in which at least 23 people were killed. For years, the conflict has erupted between predominantly Muslim nomadic herders and Christian farmers for several factors such as resource control, water, and land in northwest and central Nigeria. President Muhammadu Buhari issued a statement condemning the incident, saying that it was not really an agriculturalist-versus-pastoralist battle but instead a direct, blatant, and cruelly inspired attack. 

According to police spokesperson Ubah Ogaba, a gang of assailants thought to be Irigwe teenagers assaulted a convoy of five buses carrying Muslim believers on Saturday. The death toll had been raised significantly on Sunday; earlier, police claimed 22 of the 90 travellers were murdered. Later the state governor Simon Lalong in a statement, said that twenty-three of those attacked died, and 23 others were injured. 

Expressing the concern, the governor ordered a curfew on Jos North, Bassa, and Jos South" from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. He further explained the reason for the curfew by saying that in the ongoing tension, it is reported that certain individuals take the law into their own hands and to control that, this partial curfew has been imposed.  

More details of the attack 

Muhammad Ibrahim, one of the surviving members of the convoy, claimed the attack took place near Rukuba road, on the borders of Jos, Plateau state's capital. He claimed the Muslims were coming from an event commemorating the Islamic New Year in Bauchi State. A representative of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, a local group representing herders, Malam Nura Abdullahi claimed that the Iregwe militants assaulted and killed them with machetes, knives, and stones. He added that up to 25 dead bodies had been prepared to be buried.  

Jos has long been a hotbed of ethnic tensions where Christian and Muslim adolescents are fighting. According to Human Rights Watch, Christian-Muslim riots in Jos killed almost 913 individuals in September 2001. 

The governor stated that the Saturday incident should not be ascribed to any racial or religious attribute. On the other hand, the presidency defined it as a pre-planned attack on a specified target, position, and religious background of the travellers, not an opportunistic ambush.  

The presidency further stated that "these sorts of threats on our country's citizens are intolerable, abhorrent, and completely contrary to the principles of our nation's major religions."

Image Credit: AP