Nigeria: Church Bleeds under Fulani Jihad
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin by Elizabeth Kendal, Special to ASSIST News Service
While
many abandoned cattle grazing and migrated into the cities in search of
work, others still lead their cattle south in search of food and water.
The situation has put immense strain on Nigeria's ethno-religious
“fault-line”, where Fulani Muslim “settlers” from the north and southern
Christian “indigenes” now compete for land, water, jobs and political
power.
For
decades, successive northern Muslim military dictators empowered the
Fulani. In today's democratic Nigeria, Muslim fundamentalists --
political leaders, military personnel and Islamic jihadists -- back the
Fulani and use them as proxies to expand Islamic territory at the
expense of local Christians, a record number of whom are now displaced.
The seemingly endless violence perpetrated by Muslim Fulani against
Christian indigenous communities across the “fault-line” and ever deeper
into the south needs to be understood in the context of predatory
migration, ethno-religious cleansing and classic imperialistic Islamic
jihad.
Kaduna
-- one of Nigeria’s twelve Sharia [Islamic Law] states -- sits in
Nigeria's volatile Middle Belt with Fulani Muslims in the north,
Christian tribes in the south and its divided capital straddling the
ethno-religious “fault-line”.
On
the evening of Sunday, November 13, 2016, Fulani herdsmen besieged and
attacked five villages -- Kigam, Kitakum, Unguwan Magaji, Unguwan Rimi
and Kizipi -- in Chawai Chiefdom in Kauru Local Government Area (LGA) in
Southern Kaduna, about 300 km [186 miles] south-east of the Kaduna
metropolis. Armed with guns, knives, machetes and explosives, the Fulani
killed 45 mostly women, children and elderly Christian residents while
wounding dozens more and displacing thousands. Numerous vehicles and
over 120 houses (including eight house-churches) were looted and
torched.

Frustrated
by the endless carnage, the Chairman of the Southern Kaduna Peoples
Union, Solomon Musa, reiterated calls for the establishment of a
military base in Southern Kaduna. “It has now become abundantly clear,”
he said, “to even the worst sceptics, that Southern Kaduna has become a
killing field where genocide is taking place unabated.”
Most
analysts would concur with Musa’s analysis that powerful people are
sponsoring terrorists to eliminate people. Church leaders accuse the
government of not giving enough attention to security. It is just as the
Reverend Zachariah Gado explains. He said that there is a “well-funded,
organised and executed campaign, to not only make life unbearable for
the entire Southern Kaduna territory through threats, intimidation and
psychological warfare, but also to occupy the land through what can only
be described as ethno-religious cleansing by Fulani herdsmen militia.”
Please Pray That the Lord Our God Will:
*
draw very near to the Christians in Southern Kaduna -- in particular
(at this time) those in and displaced from Kaura LGA -- as they struggle
against fear and despair, and against temptations to hate, to
retaliate, and to doubt; may the Lord draw them close and lift their
heads, that they will look to him for comfort, justice and security. May
the devil have no victory here! May divine grace prove effective as a
healer and as a witness.
“But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.” (Psalm 3:3 ESV)
*
influence the government of Nigeria, in particular President Muhammadu
Buhari and Kaduna Governor Nasir el-Rufai, convicting and energising
them to act decisively to:
* strengthen security in Christian regions;
* crack down on the illegal activities of the Fulani; and
*
smash the nexus between the Fulani cattle herders, the Islamic
militants, rogue Muslims in the military, and powerful Muslim
fundamentalist figures (clerics and politicians) with Islamic
imperialist ambitions.
Photo
captions: 1) Fulani herdsmen attacking Christians in Nigeria. 2)
Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) press conference on November 16th.
(World Watch Monitor). 3) An armed Fulani herdsman. 4) Elizabeth
Kendal.
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