Army orders return of arms seized from security forces

The Nigerian military has told communities in the Yelwa district of central Nigeria's Plateau State to return the weapons of a soldier and a policeman killed while keeping peace in the area or face action by the army.

The head of a military task force in charge of maintaining security in the increasingly volatile state, Brig-Gen Ben Akpunonu, told reporters on Saturday the army would go in search of the weapons if they were not returned before Wednesday.

"I have received orders from the army headquarters through the chief of army staff, that we are given seven days for those weapons to be handed over," Akpunonu told a news conference at the 3rd Armoured Division headquarters in the Plateau capital, Jos. "Otherwise, we shall go into those areas and deal with that situation decisively until the weapons and ammunition have been recovered."

The dead soldier and policeman were part of security reinforcements sent into the Yelwa district late in June following clashes between Muslims and Christians that also spread to Plateau State's Shendam, Wase and Langtang districts. It was not clear exactly when and by whom they were killed. And while their bodies were recovered, their weapons are still missing.

The ultimatum by the military authorities has raised fears in the area that security forces might try to avenge the deaths of their colleagues. In October last year soldiers went on a rampage in several villages in another central state, Benue, killing more than 200 people in an apparent reprisal for the death of 19 of their comrades at the hands of a local militia.

A precedent for this type of action was set in November 1999 when troops razed the town of Odi in the southern oil region and left hundreds dead after militant youths killed 12 policemen.

There have been intermittent clashes in Plateau State between mainly Christian locals and predominantly Muslim settlers from farther north after ethno-religious fighting in Jos that killed at least 1,000 people in one week in September 2001.

Tension had been building up since 2000, when some 12 states in Nigeria’s northern region began to adopt strict Islamic or Sharia law.

The spark for the June violence in Yelwa, which claimed over a dozen lives, was a dispute that arose after Christian youths attempted to stop a love affair between a Christian girl and a Muslim man.