President tours violence-wracked southwest

President Olusegun Obasanjo has visited two communities in southwest Nigeria where recent fighting left at least 80 people dead and hundreds of homes destroyed, AFP reported.

The meeting with leaders of the Ife and Modakeke Yoruba communities was arranged late Thursday after Obasanjo toured towns where a 20-year-old feud flared again on 3 March over land rights, the agency said.

Ife, one of the traditional Yoruba homelands, is the larger, more established community. The people of Modakeke moved to the area 150 years ago, and consider their neighbours to be arrogant.

This feud is just one of many that have erupted to present levels in the country since Obasanjo’s civilian administration began ruling on 29 May, 1999. In the Osun State capital Osogbo, Obasanjo called on Thursday for unity and an end to the communal fighting across the country, AFP said.

Nigeria’s 120 million people are split into some 200 ethnic groups and the Christian and Muslim faiths.

Exasperated by the constant outbursts of violence, Obasanjo met on Wednesday in Abuja with security chiefs to order a tightening of security across the country. Critics accuse him of failing to deliver on police reforms seen as vital to ensuring peace, AFP said.