By Yusuf Sarki Muhammad Kaduna, Nigeria

This morning, Friday, there is an uneasy calm in Kaduna, northern Nigeria.

Muslims will be taking part in Friday prayers this afternoon. People do not know what may happen in the hours ahead and most parents are not allowing their children to go to school.

On Thursday, in the few hours of rioting, churches in predominantly Muslim areas were torched, several properties and vehicles were burnt down by irate youths.

There was a lot of violence. Lots of lives were lost and lots of damage was inflicted on the city.

Most people stayed off the streets. Because of the curfew and the security situation it is risky to venture outside.

Blasphemy

The riot took place the day after thousands of Muslims staged a demonstration protesting against an article that was published by ThisDay newspaper, a national daily.

The demonstrators were angry over a comment made in the newspaper last weekend which they viewed as blasphemy against the prophet.

At least 100 people were killed in Kaduna

The demonstration was staged on several fronts.

Virtually every newspaper vendor that was on Kaduna's streets was stopped and every copy of the ThisDay newspaper was seized and burnt.

This went on for most of the morning.

Then another batch of demonstrators headed for the building housing the newspaper's office in Kaduna.

After smashing the doors and windows, the crowd set the building on fire.

Furniture, curtains, carpets and thousands of archive copies of the newspaper, accumulated over several years, served as fuel to make a huge bonfire of this once beautiful piece of architecture.

The state correspondent of the paper has gone underground and other staff are safe.

Retraction

On Wednesday, several mosques began drawing worshippers attention to the ThisDay newspaper, with some calling for a demonstration against the paper.

Indeed many people in Kaduna told me that their attention was drawn to the offending article in the paper, through text messages on their mobile phones.

The article in ThisDay newspaper said Nigerian Muslims were overreacting to the issue of the Miss World competition, being held in Nigeria, and said that if the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, were to witness the contest, he might wish to marry one of the contestants.

The paper retracted the article. But Muslims here see it as offensive and a blasphemy and demonstrated anyway.

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