NIGERIA: Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo assumed emergency powers to govern the violence-torn central state of Plateau yesterday, saying recent killings there threatened to plunge the whole country into crisis.
About 1,000 people have been killed in two weeks of fighting between Christians and Muslims which began as a land dispute in Plateau but turned into a religious conflict as it spread north to Nigeria's second-largest city, Kano.
Mr Obasanjo said he had suspended Plateau state governor Mr Joshua Dariye for six months and had also suspended the state assembly.
He said Mr Dariye was "weak and incompetent", and accused him of fomenting the violence.
He appointed retired general Chris Alli, chief of army staff under the late dictator Sani Abacha, as interim administrator of the state.
"If allowed, the crisis will engulf the entire nation," Mr Obasanjo said in a national televised address.
The violence has had no impact on oil supplies from the world's seventh-largest exporter because it is hundreds of miles from the oilfields in the south.
The killing in early May of hundreds of Muslims by Christian militia in the remote farming town of Yelwa, in Plateau state, sparked reprisal riots in Kano last week in which Muslims slew hundreds of Christians.
More than 70,000 people have been displaced from their homes by the fighting in the last three months.
President Obasanjo said the violence threatened to spill over to other states including eastern Nigeria, which fought a bloody secessionist war in the 1960s.
Nigeria's population of 130 million is divided about equally between Muslims and Christians.
"Christians and Muslims that used to live together have become arch-enemies," Mr Obasanjo said.
Under the constitution, the president can declare a state of emergency if there is a breakdown of public order in any part of the country.
The proclamation must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the national assembly.
"The president has powers to appoint an administrator and take over the government of the state," said Mr Dele Adesina, secretary-general of the Nigerian Bar Association.
But some opponents of Mr Obasanjo said the former military ruler had overstepped his powers.
"The governor can only be removed through impeachment," said Mr Femi Falana, secretary-general of the African Bar Association.
Mr Obasanjo's election in 1999 marked Nigeria's return to democracy after 15 years of military rule. But more than 10,000 people have been killed in political, religious and ethnic violence in the last five years.