JOS, Nigeria: State governors in Nigeria on Friday moved to calm fears after clashes between pro-Biafra supporters and the military risked taking on a wider ethnic dimension.
In Jos, the capital of the central state of Plateau, Gov. Simon Lalong summoned leaders of the Hausa and Igbo communities for talks following skirmishes on Thursday.
At least two people were reported to have been killed in violence at two markets but police managed to restore control by firing warning shots into the air, eyewitnesses said.
Lalong, who called the clashes “avoidable and totally unnecessary,” imposed an indefinite dusk-to-dawn curfew in the city on Thursday.
Jos lies at the fault line of Nigeria’s religious divide between its mainly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south, and has been hit by violence in the past.
The Hausa are the dominant ethnic group in the north while the Igbo are mainly found in the southeast.
In June, Igbo people living in the northern city of Kaduna were told to leave, as separatist sentiment surged in different parts of the country.
In recent days, supporters of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement clashed with the security services in the southern city of Port Harcourt and southeastern state of Abia.
The military claims a build-up of troops in Abia and around the home of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu in the state capital, Umuahia, is part of an operation against violent crime.
But IPOB suspects it is designed to crackdown on its activities. The group wants the Igbos to secede and create an independent republic of Biafra. A unilateral declaration of independence in 1967 led to a brutal civil war that lasted 30 months and left more than 1 million people dead.
A Nigerian Army spokesman, Col. Sagir Musa, rejected as “baseless and mischievous” claims that troops invaded Kanu’s compound.
Kanu is currently on bail pending the resumption of his trial in the capital, Abuja, on charges of treasonable felony.
Eyewitnesses to the clashes in Jos said Igbos were accused of “killing Hausas in the southeast,” although there has been no official confirmation of such claims.
In Abia, state Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu said soldiers would be gradually withdrawn from the streets and he would raise the issue with President Muhammadu Buhari.
In the northwestern state of Niger, Gov. Abubakar Sani Bello warned citizens against “hate speeches, violent agitation, rumor and sentiment” as well as reprisal attacks.
“Niger state is very central in Nigeria’s evolution and has always been a melting pot of people from various parts of the world,” he said in a statement.
Calls for calm as tensions rise in Nigeria
Calls for calm as tensions rise in Nigeria
‘Keep dreaming’: NATO chief says Europe can’t defend itself without US
BRUSSELS: NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday Europe cannot defend itself without the United States, in the face of calls for the continent to stand on its own feet after tensions over Greenland.
US President Donald Trump roiled the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory — before backing off after talks with Rutte last week.
The diplomatic crisis sparked gave fresh momentum to those advocating for Europe to take a tougher line against Trump and break its military reliance on Washington.
“If anyone thinks here again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US — keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte told lawmakers at the European Parliament.
He said that EU countries would have to double defense spending from the five percent NATO target agreed last year to 10 percent and spend “billions and billions” on building nuclear arms.
“You would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the US nuclear umbrella,” Rutte said. “So hey, good luck.”
The former Dutch prime minister insisted that US commitment to NATO’s Article Five mutual defense clause remained “total,” but that the United States expected European countries to keep spending more on their militaries.
“They need a secure Euro-Atlantic, and they also need a secure Europe. So the US has every interest in NATO,” he said.
The NATO head reiterated his repeated praise for Trump for pressuring reluctant European allies to step up defense spending.
He also appeared to knock back a suggestion floated by the EU’s defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius earlier this month for a possible European defense force that could replace US troops on the continent.
“It will make things more complicated. I think Putin will love it. So think again,” Rutte said.
On Greenland, Rutte said he had agreed with Trump that NATO would “take more responsibility for the defense of the Arctic,” but it was up to Greenlandic and Danish authorities to negotiate over US presence on the island.
“I have no mandate to negotiate on behalf of Denmark, so I didn’t, and I will not,” he said.
Rutte reiterated that he had stressed to Trump the cost paid by NATO allies in Afghanistan after the US leader caused outrage by playing down their contribution.
“For every two American soldiers who paid the ultimate price, one soldier of an ally or a partner, a NATO ally or a partner country, did not return home,” he said.
“I know that America greatly appreciates all the efforts.”
