Nigeria’s Ambassador to Libya Has Been Recalled

Goodluck Jonathan - Responding to Gaddafi

The Nigerian government has taken steps to recall the country’s Ambassador to Libya. The decision came after President Muammar Gaddafi made a statement that Nigeria should be divided into two states with one being Christian and the other being Muslim. According to the country’s foreign ministry, the Libyan leader’s statement was found to be irresponsible. A Nigerian Senator recently called the Libyan leader a mad man. The Libyan President had suggested that the split would prevent any more bloodshed between rival groups in central Nigeria.

A lot of people have died in ethnic and religious violence around the Jos area of Nigeria’s Plateau State. Violence in Nigeria normally takes place between Muslim and Christian communities, but the underlying causes are a complex mix of political, social and economic grievances. The country is roughly divided between its largely Muslim north, and a Christian-dominated south. The foreign ministry said it was recalling its Tripoli ambassador for reasons of urgent negotiations because of the irresponsible utterances of the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi. The statement said “His theatrics and grandstanding at every auspicious occasion have become too numerous to recount.”

Gaddafi had remarked that the partition of India in 1947 was the kind of historic and radical solution that could benefit Nigeria. But dividing India in 1947 caused a breakdown of law and order in which at least 200,000 people died. Some estimates say one million people were killed. Over 12 million people were left homeless and thousands were raped and killed. When the Igbo people of south-eastern Nigeria attempted to secede in 1967 it sparked a violent war which left more than one million people dead.