Yoruba/Hausa Clash: See What Buhari Has To Say

President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, appealed for calm following reports of intercommunal violence between ethnic groups in the country.

News Rain Nigeria reports that President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, warned that his government will not allow any ethnic or religious group to stoke up hatred and violence against other groups in the country.

Recall that cashes between traders from the Yoruba and Hausa ethnic groups broke out on Saturday at Shasha market in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo, the state governor’s spokesman said.

Yoruba/Hausa Clash: See What Buhari Has To Say

Also recall that tensions have increased in southwestern states in recent weeks amid claims by public figures that nomadic cattle herders from mainly northern Fulani ethnic groups are carrying out violent crimes, which the pastoralists have denied. Many of the herders have moved south in search of dwindling grazing land.

Usman Yako, chair of the Hausa traders association at Shasha market, revealed that at least 11 people from his ethnic group were killed in clashes at the market on Friday and Saturday that followed an argument between Yoruba and Hausa traders.

President Muhammadu Buhari appealed on Twitter to religious and traditional leaders, as well as elected leaders, “to join hands with the federal government to ensure that communities in their domain are not splintered along ethnic and other primordial lines”.

“We will not allow any ethnic or religious groups to stoke up hatred and violence against other groups,” he wrote.

“The attacks, which led to the loss of lives and properties, must be investigated and perpetrators brought to justice,” rights group Amnesty International said in a statement, referring to the violence at Shasha market.

Nigeria’s security forces are already stretched by armed gangs of kidnappers in the northwest and an Islamist militant insurgency in the northeast.

The President vowed to protect all religious and ethnic groups, whether majority or minority in line with its responsibility under the constitution.

Despite the closure of the market by the State government, the clash between the two tribes continued.