Politics seen fuelling violence in Nigerian city

By Estelle Shirbon

ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) – Political power struggles
ahead of Nigerian elections next year fueled clashes in the
southeastern city of Onitsha that killed at least six people in
the past week, residents and rights activists said on
Wednesday.

Police and soldiers in flak jackets patrolled flashpoints
across the chaotic market city, which is under a dusk-to-dawn
curfew after armed groups fought street battles, set fire to
police stations and stormed a prison, freeing 200 inmates.

“The violence has been brought under control. Police and
army have set up a strategy to curtail this kind of mayhem,”
said Deputy Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro, who flew in
from the capital Abuja to help restore order.

Traders were back to business in most parts of Onitsha,
West Africa’s largest market, a maze of potholed, muddy alleys
strewn with rubbish, that sprawls along one bank of the River
Niger.

Residents and civil society groups attributed the violence
partly to thugs controlled by politicians who wanted to
destabilize the city in order to cause trouble for the state
governor and take his place in next year’s polls.

Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999 after three decades
of almost uninterrupted military dictatorship, but violence
remains a feature of political life in Africa’s most populous
country.

ELECTION BUILDUP

The build-up to the 2007 elections, when the presidency and
many powerful state governors’ seats are up for grabs, has been
marred by ethnic clashes and attacks on the oil industry that
have been partly fueled by political rivalries.

“There are political undertones to the violence. The whole
thing is geared toward control of the state ahead of the 2007
elections,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, chairman of the Civil
Liberties Organization (CLO) in Anambra state, where Onitsha is
located.

“There is a political cabal here that does not believe in
building political popularity. They believe in imposition. They
are organizing themselves to subvert the decision of the people
of Anambra state. That’s why they are sponsoring these
hoodlums,” he said.

After the last elections in 2003, Chris Ngige, candidate of
the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), was declared
governor of Anambra.

But opposition candidate Peter Obi accused the PDP of
rigging the elections and after a three-year legal battle, the
courts agreed with him and Ngige had to step down this year.

Residents accused powerful PDP members of using thugs to
make Anambra ungovernable and capture it back from Obi.

Onitsha is one of Nigeria’s most violent cities. In
February, mobs from the Ibo ethnic group, which dominates the
southeast, killed about 100 ethnic Hausa in retaliatory attacks
after dozens of Ibo were killed in predominantly Hausa cities
in the north.