There is unrest at 3rd Avenue Gwarinpa, a community in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, due to a recent clash between Hausa and Gbagyi residents of the area.
A source who is privy to the incident told SaharaReporters that it all started when a gang of hoodlums, mostly ‘Keke’ (Tricycle) riders and drug dealers, attacked the home of a politician in the community to rob him.
This prompted some indigenous residents, the Gbagyi people of the community, to retaliate against the Keke riders and drug dealers, who are allegedly mainly Hausa.
The indigenes started chasing Hausa people away from the community.
The source said, “That was how the confrontation started and it led to the death of some of them before the military came and calmed everywhere down. But as I am talking to you know, military, I think they all left again, that was when this second phase started.
“The Hausa guys came from nowhere and started bashing cars. They bashed over 30 cars, like the windows and all.”
“After they did that was when the indigenes came out in large numbers; all of them had wounds on their hands. And as I am talking to you right now, they are moving up to the 2nd Avenue, that they are going to the market and chase out all the Hausa guys,” the source added.
Meanwhile, videos depicting the chaotic situation in the community have gone viral on social media, but SaharaReporters has yet to independently verify the number of casualties recorded as a result of the incident because all attempts to reach the FCT police spokesman, Josephine Adeh, for comment, were futile as her phone line was unavailable at press time.
However, a Twitter user, Gbemi Dennis while sharing the video of the situation in the community on Monday, said there had been several stories surrounding the incident.
He wrote: “As it is going in Gwarinpa Abuja… Different stories flying around, – hoodlums rioting on 3rd avenue, – fight between keke napep and residence/indegene on 3rd avenue, – drug dealers and boys are clashing on 3rd avenue… Nothing official at the moment, but it is evident that crisis has started over the weekend.
“Unfortunately, nothing notable has been done to calm the crisis. The peaceful Gwarimpa has been transformed into a den of wolves. A friend said he’s still watching from where he went to buy Bigi Drinks and pounded yam & can’t return to his office.”