Clashes leave over 30 dead

Unrelated acts of violence in three Nigerian states on Tuesday left up to 25 people dead, ‘The Guardian’ daily newspaper reported. In Madiguri, capital of the northern state of Borno State, up to twenty people died after more than 50 people from Niger and Chad clashed with police in the suburb of Wulari over the attempted arrest of some of their kinsmen, ‘The Guardian’ reported. Police commissioner Uba Bala Ringim said that the men, mainly Tuaregs from Niger, were armed with bows, arrows and cutlasses. He said they attacked some policemen who had gone to arrest Nigeriens and Chadians suspected of assaulting local residents. One police inspector was hacked to death and six other bodies have been recovered while searches are underway for others, Ringim said. Calm has now returned to the affected areas, he added. In Lagos, an exchange of fire between police and the Yoruba Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) led to the death of two OPC members, State Police Commissioner Mike Okiro told reporters. The violence erupted in the suburb of Mushin after OPC members reportedly confronted police whom they suspected of wanting to stop a press conference organised by Gani Adams, leader of a militant faction of the group. Adams, who is wanted by the police, spoke of the OPC’s determination to fight for the emancipation of “the Yoruba race from political,social and economic bondage,” the daily reported. In southeast Nigeria, a clash between members of the feuding Ogulaha and Odimodi communities in Forcados, Delta State, claimed three lives. Military personnel deployed to maintain law and order in the region were reportedly hit by bullets fired by the two warring communites, according to ‘The Guardian’.