The worsening communal clashes in Jos yesterday prompted Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to order the army to move in and restore order, following reports that hundreds of lives had been lost since the riots broke out on Sunday.

National Security Adviser General Abdullahi Sarki Mukhtar (rtd) announced the Vice President's marching orders to the army after emerging from a meeting between Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and security chiefs. He said "at the moment the military have moved in, in concert with the police, to normalise the situation".
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The troop deployment to Jos marked the first time that Vice President Jonathan assumed the Commander-in-Chief's powers since President Umaru Musa Yarádua left the country for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia last November.

General Mukhtar said the vice president also ordered top security chiefs including the Police Inspector General and the Director of Operations of the State Security Service to go to Jos and assess the situation.

Jonathan's media assistant Mr. Niboro issued a statement last night, saying, "Once again, there has been an eruption in Jos, the Plateau State capital, accompanied by a most regrettable loss of lives and property. This is one crisis too many, and the Federal Government finds it most unacceptable, retrogressive, and capable of further sundering the bonds of unity in our country.

"The country cannot afford these constant eruptions, and while the situation has been brought under control by the security agencies, government is determined to find a permanent solution to the Jos crisis. Today, the Vice President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, convened a meeting of security chiefs to review the situation and initiate forward processes to reign in the violence. This is in addition to the initial orders for the urgent containment of the crisis. He has further directed an urgent meeting of all key stakeholders, towards achieving lasting peace in the area.

"Today, he also directed the Inspector General of Police and the top hierarchy of the security services, to proceed to Jos immediately to assess the situation and advise on further steps. They are also to put in place comprehensive security strategies to ensure that these constant eruptions do not happen again."

Contrary to the Plateau State Police Commissioner Gregory Anyanting's earlier claim that the Jos crisis was sparked off when some Muslim youths attacked Christians during a Sunday church service, Mukhtar said yesterday that the government was yet to ascertain the cause of the crisis.

"As at yesterday, the situation seemed to have normalised but for reasons we can't explain yet, but which we are going to find out now, the VP has directed that the IGP, the director of operation of the SSS, and other officers connected with the situation should immediately move to Jos, assess the situation and return back... There have been very conflicting reports from different media and different sources and to have a clear picture we have to send the team, so any statement I am going to make now, will be presumptuous. Let them come back and we will have a fair assessment of the situation that will form the basis of the statement we are going to make", he said.

Daily Trust reported yesterday that the crisis apparently began at Dutse Uku on Sunday morning when some Christian community youth known as Yan Kasa tried to prevent Alhaji Kabir Muhammad from renovating his house that was sacked in the November 2008 riots in Jos. Alhaji Kabir, who gave a detailed account of what happened, said the youth told him that no Muslim should return to that part of Jos. He however said even while soldiers were trying to settle the row, some men came running to the scene, blood all over their cloth, saying they were attacked by thugs at a nearby location.