Abuja | Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged to protect “all religious and ethnic groups” in Africa’s most populous country, in response to deadly violence that erupted between communities on Friday in a market in southwest Nigeria.
Nigerian media reported that unrest erupted Friday in Shasha market in Ibadan, Oyo state, between the Hausa (majority ethnic group in the north of the country) and Yoruba (majority ethnic group in the southwest) communities. .
They claim that at least six people have died in the clashes. It was for the moment impossible to confirm this information: the authorities spoke of several deaths, without giving an exact figure.
“I can confirm that at least one person was killed and the damage is estimated at millions of naira,” a local security source told AFP who asked to remain anonymous.
“The situation in Shasha is now calm,” the source added.
In a statement released late Sunday, President Buhari “condemned the violence and assured that his government would act to stop its spread.”
Earlier, its vice-president Yemi Osinbajo had also reacted “to the tragic human losses recorded in recent days at Shasha market”.
However, he said that “when a criminal act is committed” it should be seen as such, and “not as an ethnic conflict”.
For several weeks, southern Nigeria has been facing a rise in hate speech targeting people in the north.
Several settlements of Fulani herders (in the north of the country) have recently been attacked in the southwestern regions – dominated by the Yoruba ethnic group – and the southeast, mostly Igbo.
Pastoralists are accused by some of being responsible for the rise in kidnappings and deadly attacks in these regions.
Following these attacks, some thousand Fulani herders fled the south of the country to the north.
In recent years, declining rainfall and droughts in the north have gradually pushed Fulani herders to venture further south and settle there, often in a sustainable manner.
With the dizzying population growth in Nigeria, land has become the object of fierce competition. Gradually, conflicts over land became more widespread.
These tensions are used by some to fuel resentment between different communities or ethnicities.