"They were resisting the enforcement of the ban. Our soldiers monitored the situation and we succeeded in dousing the tension. All we did was to ensure that hoodlums did not hijack the protest," said Lieutenant Colonel Kingsley Umoh, without providing details.

Hundreds of irate motor-taxi riders poured on to the streets of Jos to protest the arrest of some of their colleagues who defied a recent government ban on their operation in the state capital and its environs.

The spokesman for the protesters' association, Babangida Shehu, told AFP that the Plateau State government did not take his members into confidence before enforcing the ban.

"We have written letters to the Plateau State government to provide alternatives instead of just rendering the commercial motorcycle operators redundant. We are not comfortable with government action (ban) at all," he said.

He said that more than 16,000 youths who are engaged in the business would be made jobless by the ban.

While he alleged that policemen shot and injured two of the protesters, some residents said that two policemen were killed by the mob.

Neither police authorities nor independent sources could confirm either of the two situations.

Jos and its environs have been plagued with sectarian clashes that left several hundred dead this year.

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