Nigeria - post-violence controversy

Yar'Adua orders investigation into uprising

Article published on the 2009-08-05 Latest update 2009-08-05 10:36 TU

Bodies lie in the streets of Maiduguri after religious clashes in northern Nigeria on 31 July, 2009
(Photo: Reuters/Aminuo Abubacar)

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua on Tuesday ordered a probe into last week’s uprising in the north of the country.

He said the killing of Mohammed Yusuf, the leader of the Islamic sect that instigated the violence, will also be investigated.

The Boko Haram leader died last Thursday following his arrest. The Nigerian army insisted on Wednesday that they had handed him over to police alive after questioning him. Police said he died in a shootout with security forces while trying to escape.

"I directed the national security advisor to carry out a post-mortem with the security agencies as a first step so that we can have a full report of what has happened during the crisis, including how the leader of the Boko Haram was killed,” Yar’Adua said.

Yar'Adua said he hoped a report would be available by the end of this week. He said that after receiving it, the government would determine what actions to take and “whether we need to carry out further investigation into the entire matter, because it is really a very serious issue.”

More than 800 people died in clashes between security forces and Boko Haram in several northern states. But Nigerian Minister of Police Affairs Dr Ibrahim Yakubu Lamé said on Tuesday that the situation had now been brought under control.

“The current situation here is we have achieved a very high degree of calm in all effected areas,” he told RFI’s Hausa service. “We have succeeded in crushing the insurgents.”

Lamé told RFI that the government had received reports from security forces detailing what took place in each of the effected areas. These included recommendations on how a similiar situation could be prevented from happening again.

He said he was unable to release details of the exact number of people who had died in the bloodshed.

“I cannot give you the final figure now because the government… has just started looking into the report. It would not be proper for me to give you the figures now without government taking a decision on what to do. You know, when people lose their lives, a lot of things need to be done before you make it public.”