The Hindu : Miss World pageant shifted to London

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 24, 2002

International

International

Miss World pageant shifted to London

Kaduna (Nigeria) Nov. 23. Organisers of the Miss World Pageant have decided to shift the venue of the event to London following large-scale violence which claimed over 100 lives.

However, the pageant would be held on Dec. 7 as scheduled. Officials said the beauty pageant was moving to London ``in the overall interests of Nigeria and the contestants.''

A brief statement released shortly after midnight in the capital, Abuja, did not elaborate further on reasons for the change. It was signed by Guy Murray-Bruce, the pageant's top official in Nigeria.

Islamic groups have complained for months that the scheduled beauty pageant promotes promiscuity.

The violence was worst in the northern city of Kaduna, where it started on Wednesday, but on Friday it spread to Abuja, the capital, where the beauty contest was to be held.

Red Cross officials said about 100 people had been killed and 500 injured in three days.

In Kaduna, many residents insisted the bloodletting continued.

Isolated pockets fighting were reported in several neighbourhoods. A few residents there seemed aware of the decision to cancel the pageant.

Muslim and Christian mobs armed with sticks and knives played cat-and-mouse games in the religiously mixed neighbourhood of Trikania, where police tried to disrupt the rioters using tear gas.

The riots were ignited by an article in a Nigerian newspaper allegedly denigrating Prophet Mohammad.

Clashes raged in Kaduna in the mainly Muslim north of the country, with eyewitnesses saying the fighting overnight largely involved attacks by civilians on Muslims in Christian-dominated areas. Scorched bodies lay in streets, dotted by burned houses and overturned cars. Shops were looted.

``I've heard of many deaths, but I saw only three bodies lying at the road junction this morning,'' said Tajudeen Tijanni Ajibade, a retired journalist in the majority-Christian area of Goni Gora.

Eyewitnesses said they saw four truckloads of army and police reinforcements arrive in Kaduna on Saturday. The Red Cross said 3,000 people had also been displaced and hundreds injured in the fighting.

The violence has involved the majority religious group in each respective area attacking the minority one, eyewitnesses said.

The violence erupted when rampaging Muslims burned the offices of the independent Lagos-based newspaper This Day.

Two years ago, thousands were killed in violence stemming from non-Muslim opposition to plans to introduce Islamic Sharia law in Kaduna, one of 36 Federal States.

Nigeria won the right to host this year's pageant after the Nigerian, Agbani Darego, was crowned Miss World 2001, the first black African to win the title. But Nigeria's plans to stage its biggest show business event ever have been hit by controversy, mainly over the case of Amina Lawal, who was sentenced to death by stoning under Islamic law for bearing a child out of wedlock.

Several contestants threatened to boycott the pageant over the case, but almost all turned up after the Government assured them there would be no stoning.

Editor held

Nigeria's secret police arrested a newspaper editor blamed for fomenting riots over the Miss World contest by publishing an allegedly blasphemous article.

This Day, which has apologised for the article, said the editor of its Saturday edition, Simon Kolawole, was arrested on Friday and had not been seen since.

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