Fighting broke out on Saturday when bands of young men allegedly attacked some Ijaw youths at a funeral for one of their members. Figures for the number of dead are unknown. Lagos Police Commissioner Mike Okiro said five people had died, but the newspaper quoted independent sources as saying those were only the bodies seen. Others, they said, had been burnt beyond recognition. Obasanjo on the imposition of the Shar'ia in Zamfara Islamic laws, collectively known as the Shari'a, contradict Nigeria's federal constitution and its application in Zamfara State is likely to fail, President Olusegun Obasanjo told an audience last weekend at Harvard University in Boston, United States.
People have their own way of doing things.
The governmet of Zamfara last week imposed the Shari'a in the northern Nigerian state. In a resolution passed on Monday, the legislators said the federal government should ensure that oil resources of the Delta states are not used to implement the Shari'a in Zamfara. The United States proposed the ACRI several years ago to help increase the continent's capacity to end conflicts and conduct peacekeeping missions, USIA reported. Its long-term objective is to build in Africa a corps of some 12,000 military personnel trained in peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance. In West Africa, Benin, Ghana and Senegal have already taken part in various training exercises, USIA said.