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Police in Lagos uncover arms cache
Lagos police have unearthed a cache of arms and ammunitions, including two pump-action rifles, one sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun and 114 live cartridges behind the city's National Stadium, police Public Relations Officer Fabulous Enyaosah said.
`The Guardian' newspaper reported Enyaosah as saying on Monday that it was likely that the arms belonged to the Oodua People's Congress, a militant Yoruba interest group that was involved recently in bitter clashes with Ijaw youths in a Lagos slum.
State threatens to crack down on Ijaw militants
Vice President Atiku Abubakar said on Tuesday that the
National Security Council was considering the imposition
of a state of emergency in the Niger Delta, following
the killing of at least 10 policemen in Odi, a town
in the south-eastern state of Bayelsa.
"The fact that we have to run a constitutional
and democratic government does not diminish the capacity
of the government to deal decisively with hoodlums,
arsonists and terrorists wherever they are found in
the country," Abubakar said.
Seven of the policemen were killed on Thursday after
more than 100 fully armed Ijaw youths sprung on them
as they sheltered from the rain in a store, newspapers
in Port Harcourt, the largest town in the southeast,
quoted Bayelsa State police command spokesman Nyanaba
Agbozi as saying.
'The Guardian' newspaper reported on Wednesday that
Ijaw youths armed with machine guns and assault rifles
had reinforced their positions in Odi in anticipation
of a showdown with police.
Abubakar said official patience with the Delta youth was wearing thin because of their repeated wanton killings and destruction of property in the area, `The Guardian' reported. Another three policemen were killed on Monday by 1,000 rampaging youth in Odi, Abubakar added.
Agbozi told `The Guardian' the police had not yet decided to confront the Odi youths for fear that a direct assault would draw worldwide condemnation by democratic forces.
"If we have to invade Odi now and maybe we have one or two casualties, the whole world would be made to understand we only went in there to finish up the Niger Delta," he said. "We are trying to look at it philosophically, to see whether the government would do something about it. On our own, we have no other thing than accepting our fate."
A media source in Lagos told IRIN that, up to Wednesday afternoon, there were no reports that the police had moved in on Odi.
Rights groups remember Saro-Wiwa
A Nigerian advocacy group, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, has called for the trial of those linked to the hanging on 10 November 1995 of nine Ogoni rights activists condemned by a military tribunal and for the government to make a public apology.
In a statement on Tuesday, the NGO said Nigeria's new democracy would remain tainted "if the murderers" of the nine, among them rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, were not tried.
In a tribute to Saro-Wiwa, a London-based Nigerian rights group, the Southern Minorities Movement for Advancement, said he "etched on the consciousness of the world a living body of rational ideas about our rights, our environment and the simple most powerful gift of principles and courage in the face of calculating savagery".
Canada assures government of support
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien assured Nigeria on Wednesday that Ottawa would help Abuja recover stolen government money that has been placed in foreign banks. He said at a joint news conference with President Olusegun Obasanjo that Canada would continue to promote democracy and human rights in Nigeria, AFP reported.
Obasanjo said Canada had stood "firmly against tyranny, oppression and undemocratic and inhuman actions in Nigeria" when it was under a severe military dictatorship. He also said Canada had contributed to peace in Sierra Leone by giving the West African Peace Monitoring Group, ECOMOG, US $1 million this year.
Chretien added that Canada had cancelled at least US $1.3 billion of Nigeria's official development aid debt.
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Item: irin-english-1950
[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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