Boko Haram and Violence Against Christians

Churches are still being burnt and Christians are still being killed in Niger State, Southern Kaduna, Nasarawa State, Borno State, and other locales of the Muslim north of Nigeria by Boko Haram and their terror ilk.

Violence against Christians and their properties has been normalised. Conversions of Christian police officers to Islam are celebrated in Kano, the city known to infamy as the place where the Igbo Christian Gideon Akaluka was beheaded and his severed head paraded through the streets.

Recall that Boko Haram tells us they are the true and pre-eminent interpreters of the injunctions of their faith. So? We have clues today that, oh so, a religion really exists whose stated objective is the destruction of Christianity and every tenet and good emanating from the Christian faith thereof. This includes education as we know it. The means of achieving these destruction goals are achieved by massive killing, violence, sex slavery and everything dark art in the works.

Alas, the Church in Nigeria is oblivious to these facts and Christians in Nigeria are still going about pretty cozy ensconced in their belief that “just a few bad boys are out there as terrorists.” Christmastime attacks are rife now and getting bolder and larger in scale and the sequel to the Chibok Girls and Leah Sharibu snatch is the resultant “60,000 babies” that the Chief of Defence Staff recently referenced. Muslim northern governors have not done enough to protect Christians in their sates and now Nasarawa State is being overrun by Islamist Fulani terrorists whilst Governor Sule does zilch.

If sitting presidents (Goodluck Jonathan and Bola Tinubu) commit to striking at the operational base of terrorists, then Al-Jazeera, Amnesty International, and other “human rights” groups rear their heads to demonise Nigeria’s military. Now, the idea of “carry your cross and follow me” can be conceptualised outside the province of the figurative; the reality on ground here in Nigeria is tribulation.

Sunday Adole Jonah,

Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State