LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigerian police sent reinforcements to the southwestern city of Ibadan on Tuesday ahead of the arrival of a fiery German preacher who set off bloody Muslim-Christian riots a decade ago during a visit to Nigeria.
Police spokesman Opeyemi Kujore said police were taking no chances after fears that a five-day missionary crusade by evangelist Reinhard Bonnke in the Oyo state capital might cause tempers to flare at a time when tensions between Nigeria's Muslims and Christians are already running high.
"We are ready in Oyo state and we are getting more men from some neighbouring states. We are planning to roll out between 2,000 and 2,500 security personnel," Kujore said by phone from Ibadan.
"The man (Bonnke) is going to come in to Ibadan today," he said. "The main programme is going to start tomorrow."
Nigeria's Muslims and Christians, already impoverished by the poor state of the economy, have been divided by the decision of more than a dozen states in the country's Muslim north to adopt the strict Islamic sharia legal code, and conflicting sentiments over U.S.-led air strikes against Afghanistan.
Muslim-Christian clashes have killed hundreds in the past two months in northern Kano city and the central city of Jos.
Bonnke is a controversial figure in Nigeria after his 1991 missionary crusade triggered riots which killed 300 people in the mostly-Muslim city of Kano.
Hundreds of Muslim youths marched in Ibadan on Monday ahead of Bonnke's arrival brandishing placards saying "Bin Laden is our hero" and vowing to avenge the deaths of innocent Afghans.
The protests came barely three days after Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo met U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington to pledge Nigeria's support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan aimed at flushing out Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
Despite Obasanjo's backing of the U.S.-led coalition, bin Laden has achieved icon status in the Muslim north and other pockets of the country where posters of his face are plastered on walls, buses and the back of taxis.
Copyright 2001 Reuters. All rights reserved.