More Christians were said to have been killed in Northern Nigeria last year than in the rest of the world combined according to Jubilee Campaign, a human rights organization.
The Executive Director, Ann Buwalda, of the Jubilee Campaign told The Christian Post that an estimated 1,200 Christians were killed for their faith in Northern Nigeria last year.
“We documented 1,200 Nigerian Christians in the North of Nigeria who were killed, some by Boko Haram, some by Fulani herdsmen. These two types of attacks are persistent within several of the Northern Nigerian states,” said Buwalda, a participant at a Panel sponsored by the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2013, where issue regarding Boko Haram and the persecution of Christians in Northern Nigeria was addressed.
Buwalda also noted that “Statistically, we are looking at approximately 60 percent of the world’s Christians that were killed for their faith last year was in Northern Nigeria.”
Other members of panel were Emmanuael Ogebe, an international human rights lawyer and Adamu Habila, a Nigerian Christian who miraculously survived a heinous attack perpetrated by the outlawed Boko Haram group.
Habila, who spoke about his experience when Boko Haram militants stomped his neighbourhood and massacred the Christian community and how he cheated death by divine providence. According to him, one of the militants asked if he would convert to Islam. When Habila refused, he was shot in the head at close range and was left presumably dead.
“I give thanks to God Almighty for keeping me alive up to this moment. I know if not because of God I am a dead man now. But because of His grace I am still alive in order to testify the goodness of God in my life and the work of God in my life.” Habila recounted.
The Boko Haram sect which has an anti-western stance and a similar group called Ansaru has been recently, officially designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) by U.S State Department.
According to the Jubilee Campaign, thus far this year 200 Christian martyrdoms have been recorded in Northern Nigeria. Hundreds of Christians and Muslims in Borogo, Bauchi State, held a special prayer session for peaceful co-existence in the country recently.
The Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Bogoro, Reverend Joshua Yakubu Tukur, was quoted to have said that prayer is the only solution left to solve the socio-economic challenges in the country.
Reverend Tukur also cautioned politicians to desist from overheating the nation’s polity, which he noted may portend a great danger and threat to peaceful co-existence in the country.
The security crisis in Nigeria has been raging since the deadly Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram began its insurgence in 2009. The Federal Government military approach in combating the numerous acts of violence perpetrated by this sect against the Christians, nominal Muslims and government institutions, has defied solution as the group is resolved to establish a separate Islamic state in Nigeria’s northern states.
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