Muslim Fulani Herdsmen Kill Pastor in Nasarawa State, Nigeria
ECWA leader attacked with machete blows
By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service, who was born in Nigeria
ZONKWA, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA (ANS -- July 5, 2016)
– A pastor in Nasarawa state killed last week in Obi was buried today
(Tuesday, July 5, 2015) in his hometown of Zonkwa, Kaduna state.
According to Morning Star News (http://morningstarnews.org),
Muslim Fulani herdsmen with machetes killed the Rev. Zakariya Joseph
Kurah of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) on Thursday (June 30,
2016) while he was working at his farm.
A
staff member of the ECWA District Church Council in Lafia, Nasarawa
told Morning Star News that he met with the council chairman and
relatives of Kurah at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital in Lafia,
where police and others brought the body from Obi.
“One
of them whom I don’t know but was together with the late pastor told us
that they were in the bush around 7-7:30 p.m.,” said the staff member,
identified only as Moses. “Two people came out and attacked them. Rev.
Kurah ran and hid, but they chased him and brutally murdered him with
their machetes.”
The assailants took only his phone handset before leaving, Moses said.
“We
asked what type of people carried out the murder of the pastor, and the
person said the killers were two Fulani Muslims,” he said.
A
spokesman for the Obi Local Government Council, Habila Adokwe, told
Morning Star News that the killing of the pastor was confirmed, but gave
no further details.
The
Rev. Silas Thomas, former secretary of the ECWA’s Lafia District Church
Council, confirmed that the pastor was murdered by Muslim Fulani
herdsmen while working at his farm, and that his funeral took place in
Zonkwa, Kaduna state today.
“He
was a pastor with peaceful disposition,” Thomas told Morning Star News.
“He was one of the pastors I worked with while I served as the
secretary of ECWA Lafia District Church Council.”
Kurah was a graduate of Jos ECWA Theological Seminary and obtained an M.A. Degree in Pastoral Studies.
A
user on Twitter who identified himself as Sam, a nephew of the pastor,
stated in a series of Tweets that Kurah was killed by Fulani herdsmen in
Obi LGA.
“No
one is saying anything about the clandestine killings by Fulani
herdsmen happening almost every day,” he said in one of the messages.
“Does a life of a Nigerian mean anything to our government?”
Morning
Star News went on to say that Muslim Fulani herdsmen from Nasarawa
state and Islamist mercenaries from outside Nigeria have attacked
villages in neighboring Benue state, killing five Christians in December
2014. The Fulani herdsmen from Nasarawa state, with mercenaries from
Chad and Niger, razed several villages, destroying homes and church
buildings in the predominantly Roman Catholic Agatu Local Government
Area and forcing hundreds of Christians to flee.
Photo
captions: The Rev. Zakariya Joseph Kurah. (ECWA). 2) Fulani herdsmen
attack a Christian village in Nigeria. 3) Dan Wooding with his mother,
Anne Wooding, shortly after birth at Vom Christian Hospital in Northern
Nigeria.
About
the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning winning author,
broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary
parents, Alfred and Anne Wooding, in December, 1940, and is now living
in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married
for some 53 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six
grandchildren who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder and
international director of the ASSIST News Service (ANS), and is also the
author of some 45 books. Besides running ANS, Dan has one radio program
and two TV shows all based in Southern California.
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