About 500 persons have been feared killed in a recent orgy of violence in Nigeria's southern state of Rivers, the official News Agency of Nigeria reported Saturday.

Addressing the Fourth Ijaw National Congress in the Bayelsa State capital Yenagoa on Saturday, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of Bayelsa, a neighboring state west of Rivers, was quoted as disclosing that about 500 persons lost their lives during the recent orgy of violence in Rivers.

According to Alamieyeseigha, more than 90 percent of the peoplekilled were of Izon (Ijaw) extraction, drawn from Tombia, Buguma and Okrika among others in Rivers.

"Violence is not a friend of development," he said. "While we quarrel and bicker over little things, those who understand the power of unity work hard to keep us disunited."

The governor told the participants at the meeting that "while we go for the crumbs, those who plunder our common wealth rejoice in our supposed foolishness. They sell guns and gun powder to us all and quietly encourage intra and inter communal warfare."

He warned that in the present situation, unstable and ungovernable regions risk the label of terrorism and that the situation called for vigilance from the people of the oil-rich region.

Alamieyeseigha advised that response to oppression against the Ijaws must not be allowed to take the form of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth because the oppressors of the Ijaws have nothing to lose."

As a multiethnic country in Africa, Nigeria has a growing population of over 130 million belonging to 373 ethnic groups. Since President Olusegun Obasanjo took office in 1999, ending 15 years of military rule, Nigeria has seen frequent eruption of ethnic, religious and political violence that killed more than 10,000 people.

Source: Xinhua