A man was burned alive this Saturday in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, by a mob of angry Muslims after a dispute with a religious who mobilized his faithful against the victim, security forces said.
According to a statement from the Abuja police, the incident occurred in the Lugbe neighborhood, after a security guard “argued with a Muslim religious official.”
The dispute degenerated and the religious mobilized his faithful, who attacked the guard, Ahmad Usman, and burned him alive, the police explained.
Despite this brutal murder, calm returned to the neighborhood a few hours later and the exact reasons for the dispute are unknown.
Security forces did not say whether it was due to an act of blasphemy, an issue that often leads to lynchings and other violent reactions in Africa’s most populous country, which is divided between a mostly Christian south and a Muslim north.
According to the sharia (Islamic law) that is applied in several regions of northern Nigeria, blasphemy can be punished with the death penalty.
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