Nigeria calls for massacre inquiry

ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigeria's lower chamber voted to investigate last week's massacre of hundreds of civilians and demanded a judicial inquiry.

But members of the House of Representatives rejected a call on Tuesday for the army chief to be dismissed and for curbs on President Olusegun Obasanjo's use of soldiers to control domestic crises. Government soldiers have been widely blamed for the killings.

The episode has shocked the West African country and increased fears over a spiral of violence -- much of it ethnically or religiously motivated -- which has led to troops being deployed in half-a-dozen states to keep the peace.

Local people in the central state of Benue say soldiers carried out the killings in reprisal for the deaths of 19 comrades sent to help quell a long-running ethnic conflict between Tiv and Jukun.

The Tiv were blamed for their deaths.

The motion adopted on Tuesday was tabled by Gabriel Suswam, member for the area, whose residents say soldiers went on a three-day killing spree, rounding up and shooting male ethnic Tiv residents, destroying a town and five settlements and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing into the bush.

The House condemned the killings of both soldiers and civilians and called on Obasanjo to set up a judicial inquiry.

It also set up its own committee of investigation to report in two weeks on the circumstances and background to the deaths.

The motion said the federal government should improve its intelligence-gathering network to forestall similar crises in the future, saying the "police should be adequately equipped to handle communal clashes and sectarian violence."

But members rejected a section of Suswam's motion demanding the dismissal of army chief General Alexander Ogomudia, who has spoken out in defence of his troops.

It would require the approval of the Senate (upper house) for any future military deployment to control internal crises.

In the aftermath of the killings Suswam also called for the dismissal of Defence Minister Theophilus Danjuma, an ethnic Jukun, and for Obasanjo himself to be "cautioned."

A former military ruler, Obasanjo won respect for handing power back to civilians in 1979, although soldiers seized it back four years later.

His election in 1999 ended 15 years of military rule, but analysts and media commentators have expressed fear that the army is effectively gaining a foothold by its increasing deployment in troubled areas.

Ethnic and religious violence has spiralled since the end of military rule, killing thousands of people.

Some of the worst violence has been in the northern city of Kaduna, where fighting between Muslims and Christians over the planned introduction of Islamic sharia law early last year killed well over 1,000 people.

Kaduna's state government says it will implement sharia from this Friday, with modifications to accommodate residents in non-Muslim areas.