ABUJA, Nov 25 (AFP) - Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday
blamed an inflamatory newspaper article for the riots that drove the Miss
World beauty pageant out of his country.
   "Irresponsible journalism in Nigeria bears responsibility. What
happened  obviously could have happened at any time," he said on the US
news network CNN, blaming a Nigerian daily for stirring trouble with an
article on Miss World.
   Riots erupted in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna last week after
the  newspaper This Day defended Miss World against its Muslim detractors
and implied the Prophet Mohammed would have enjoyed the show.
   Calm returned to Kaduna on Monday, but not before 220 people had been
killed in clashes between Muslims, Christians and the security services and
the Miss World pageant had pulled out of Nigeria for London.
   The debacle has been greeted as a national humiliation by many Nigerian
commentators, but Obasanjo said he had no regrets about his country's
attempt to host the show.
   "I am sorry that they had to leave Nigeria," he said. "They were guests
within our gates and we did everything possible to show that we are good
hosts and hostesses in Nigeria."
   The immediate spark for the fighting in Kaduna -- and a brief violent
protest by Muslims in Abuja on Friday -- appears to have been the This Day
article, which many Nigerian Muslims found offensive.
   But Muslim leaders have also insisted that they found the very idea of
hosting a "parade of nudity" unacceptable, particularly as the beauty
queens arrived in Nigeria during the holy month of Ramadan.
   Some observers have also said that the riots were a disaster waiting to
happen because of increased tensions between Muslims and Christians since
12 northern states reintroduced Islamic Sharia law.
   In 2000 more than 2,000 people were killed in riots in Kaduna when
Christians reacted against the return of the controversial law code to the
religiously mixed state.
   But Obasanjo said that under Nigeria's federal constitution each state
had  a right to make its own laws, adding: "Anybody who tried to enforce a
unity form of government in this land would destroy it overnight."
   Internationally, the most controversial decision of Nigeria's Sharia
system  has been the sentencing to death by stoning of village housewife
Amina Lawal, who bore a child out of wedlock.
   Obasanjo reiterated his promise that Lawal would be cleared once she
appealed her case to the federal supreme court.
   The closing ceremony of Miss World 2002 will now be held on December 7
in  London.

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