A mosque and Islamic school were burnt in Benin City on Tuesday as five persons lost their lives in the nationwide protests against fuel subsidy removal in the Edo State capital.
“We have recorded five deaths so far on both sides, those that have been attacked and the attackers,” Secretary General of the Nigerian Red Cross in Edo State, Dan Enowoghomwenwa, told AFP.
“We have over 10,000 internally displaced persons in various places.”
The attacks started on Monday amid street protests against soaring fuel prices, when a crowd separated from the main demonstration and attacked a mosque and terrorised residents of mainly Hausa neighbourhoods.
The Police told the BBC that 10 people had been arrested.
A leader of the Hausa community in Benin told the BBC’s Hausa Service that 7,000 northerners were seeking refuge in police and army barracks in the city.
Meanwhile, no fewer than two persons have lost their lives in Osogbo, Osun State, following the crisis emanating from protests against Federal Government removal of fuel subsidy removal subsidy.
An Osobgo-based hip-hop musician, Mojeed Rahimi, popularly known as Apanpa, who suffered machete wounds during protests in Jaleyemi area of Osogbo, on Monday, gave up the ghost at 2am, on Tuesday.
Rahimi, a bachelor, who was survived by a mother, was one of the protesters at Jaleyemi area of Osogbo, who had barricaded the road in protest of fuel subsidy removal.
A resident of Osogbo, Lawrence Dada, attempted to pass through the barricade with his Toyota Camry car by removing the barricade on the road.
Subsequently, Rahimi challenged Dada and occupants of the car, who took offence of Rahimi’s action.
Dada popularly called ‘The Law’ fetched a machete from the boot of his car and dealt several machete cuts to Rahimi’s head before getting into his car and sped off.
The agitated crowd at the scene came to Rahimi aid by rescuing him from Dada’s grip even as the protesters broke the side glass of the car.
Rahimi, in a video interview by human right groups, on Monday, mentioned Dada as his assailant, stressing that Dada attacked him without provocation.
Rahimi said, “I did not do anything to warrant the attack. He just began to cut me on the head with his machete.”
