Nigeria’s iconic National Theatre rises out of the brackish swamps of Lagos near its islands, a massive concrete and marble structure that is a reminder of when the West African nation had seemingly endless oil dollars to spend.
Today, the theater and its surrounding marshlands have become known more as a good place to dump corpses than to catch the latest play.
Primate of the Church of Nigeria, (Anglican Communion), Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, yesterday stated that there was an evil force behind the Boko Haram sect.
Okoh said this in his sermon, titled “Alleluia! Christ is Risen”, at the Easter Sunday service of the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Life Camp, Gwarimpa, Abuja.
He said the dreaded group is challenged to the good fortunes of Nigeria., assuring that it shall soon become history.
A newly emerged militant sect in Nigeria said it killed seven foreign hostages, a claim the Greek and Italian foreign ministries confimed Sunday, as a violent campaign targeting Europeans across North and West Africa escalates.
Gunmen kidnapped seven foreigners and killed a security guard when they stormed the compound of Lebanese construction company Setraco in northern Nigeria’s Bauchi state early on Sunday, police said.
Read it all and please pray for their safe release and for peace in Nigeria.
Burkina Faso played wonderfully well with a great deal of heart.
My thanks to ESPN 3 for making it possible for me to watch my first ever Africa Cup of Nations final–KSH.
Update: There is a lot more there.
The Nigerian military says it has arrested a leader of the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram.
Mohammed Zangina was detained in the Government Reserved Area (GRA) of the north-eastern city of Maiduguri on Sunday afternoon, a statement said.
Mr Zangina, also known as Mallam Abdullahi and Alhaji Musa, was planning “deadly attacks” against civilians and security personnel there, it added.
Recently [in Nigeria] a new line of inhumanity was crossed. In October, armed attackers, presumed to be members of Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group with links to al Qaeda, invaded the Tudun Wada Wuro Patuje area, entering the off-campus housing of the Federal Polytechnic State University.
The attackers called students out of their rooms and asked for their names. Those with Christian names were shot dead or killed with knives. Students with traditionally Muslim names were told to quote Islamic scripture. The selektion completed, at least 26 bodies were left in lines outside the buildings.
The attack was a pogrom, the victims of which were African Christians, not European Jews. To be sure, it lacked the scale and scope of Hitler’s total war against the entire Jewish people. The Boko Haram seem content to burn churches and to maim and murder those””including other Muslims, but especially Christians, by the scores””who would stop the spread of their version of Shariah law in Nigeria alone.
A delegation of Nigerian Christians visited the Washington, DC offices of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) this past Wednesday, December 12, 2012. Led by Dr. Musa Asake, the general secretary of the ecumenical Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Nigerians were in the American capital in order to discuss persecution of Nigerian Christians by the Muslim terrorist group Boko Haram (BH, translated as “Western education is sin”). The delegation presented chilling accounts of life for Christians amidst Islamist terror and called for action lest the violence only grow, engulfing Nigeria.
Asake described BH’s murderous attacks on Christians in northern Nigeria, with the initial goal of eradicating a Christian presence there. The historic long-term Islamification of the once Christian Maghreb, meanwhile, shows just how far BH’s ambitions could reach. BH uses silent nighttime killings with knives as well as firearms to massacre Christians. Asake expressed the fear that “you cannot sleep with your eyes closed” in northern Nigeria. Churches there must now surround themselves with barriers in order to prevent vehicle-borne attacks. Moreover, now northern Nigeria’s “children see dead bodies,” a troubling assault on their innocence.
Military counterterrorism officials are seeking more capability to pursue extremist groups in Africa and elsewhere that they believe threaten the U.S., and the Obama administration is considering asking Congress to approve expanded authority to do it.
The move, according to administration and congressional officials, would be aimed at allowing U.S. military operations in Mali, Nigeria, Libya and possibly other countries where militants have loose or nonexistent ties to al Qaeda’s Pakistan headquarters. Depending on the request, congressional authorization could cover the use of armed drones and special operations teams across a region larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, the officials said.
In a spooky, dare I say, godly coincidence, two of the world’s important religions obtained new leaders in the past fortnight. What makes the coincidence seem so like divine providence is that both leaders started their vocational life not fired by the sacred but as industrialists.
The Coptic Church is now led by Pope Tawadros (Theodore) II, who ran a pharmaceutical factory until he saw the light. Former oil industry executive Justin Welby, meanwhile, was selected to be enthroned in March as the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Communion.
Both had late onset religious conversions….
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/godless-gross/a-tale-of-two-leaders-20121203-2apyg.html#ixzz2EbKcRdl9
Amid what is being termed as “genocide” of Christians by Boko Haram suicide bombers in Nigeria, Christians from this West African nation living in the U.S. have intensified their calls for the designation of the Islamist group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department.
Two bomb attacks have hit a church inside a military barracks in Kaduna state in northern Nigeria, killing and injuring several people, officials say.
A military spokesman told the BBC two vehicles were driven into the barracks in Jaji in what he described as “surprising and an embarrassment”.
It is not clear how many casualties there were or who was responsible.
Nigeria’s military is offering about $1.8 million in rewards for information leading to the arrest of top members of a radical Islamist sect that has killed hundreds of people in the country this year alone.
Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said in a statement Friday the bounty for Boko Haram sect leader Abubakar Shekau is $312,500.
The statement says information on four other named top sect officials would earn the informant $156,000 each. It then listed 14 “commanders” and each had a $62,500 bounty.
In a sustained follow-up operations on Wednesday afternoon, the combined troops of the Joint Task Force (JTF) Operation Restore Order, 333 Air Defence Regiment, the Department of State Security, supported by armoured personnel carriers (APCs) with helicopters conducted a major offensive operations, killing a high profile Boko Haram commander, Ibn Saleh Ibrahim.
Spokesman of the JTF, Lieutenant-Colonel Sagir Musa, in a statement on Wednesday, said the offensive operation against the insurgent terrorist took place at Nganaram, Bulabulin and Bayan Quarters areas of Maiduguri, Borno State.
According to reports, one of the issues raised by the government team was that one of the mediators had taken contrary position against the government-funded Joint Task Force (JTF), while another was said to have a son fighting alongside the Al-Qaeda in Islamic Magreb (AQIM) in Mali. Another member was said to have only recently been forgiven by the sect after an accusation of financial impropriety.
While such reports were still taken with a pinch of salt by many with the belief that the government and the sect would find a way through, the announcement by General Buhari last week appeared a huge stake. Buhari, while speaking at the Board of Trustees meeting of his party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) said he could not mediate for the sect.
The General said: “How can I represent people I do not know, that I do not believe in whatever their cause is? How can I work for a government that has failed to do the most important thing of protecting lives and property with all the military, with all the resources available? How do I work for them?”
The Anglican Bishop of Enugu North Diocese, [the] Rt Rev Sosthenes Eze has said high level of corruption in Nigeria is cause of the general instability in the country.
Addressing the church’s annual diocesan synod in Olo, Enugu State recently, the bishop noted that corruption has led to serious breakdown of law and order and lack of peaceful co-existence among Nigerians.
He advocated setting up of a National Solemn Assembly and repentance meetings across the nation as a way of dealing with corruption.
Dozens of young men have been shot dead in Nigeria by the military in Maiduguri, residents in the north-eastern city have told the BBC.
An imam told the BBC about 11 youths from his street alone were killed, including four of his own sons.
The alleged extrajudicial executions happened as Amnesty International accused the security forces of abuses in its crackdown on Islamist militants.
[Archbishop Nicholas] Okoh, who a fierce critic of the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, described the selection process for the new church leader as “politicised”.
The cleric said, “The Prime minister of Britain will have to appoint (the Archbishop of Canterbury), whether he is a member of the Church or not.
“When you consider the political involvement, you can see the point we are trying to make.
“In other words, we are trying to say the Anglican Communion should be separated from the politics of Great Britain.’’
At least seven people have been killed and dozens injured in a suicide bombing during Mass at a Catholic church in northern Nigeria, officials say.
An explosive-laden vehicle drove into the church and detonated its load, ripping a hole in the wall and roof.
The attack happened in Kaduna, which has been targeted by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the recent past.
Several Nigerian soldiers have been killed by suspected Islamist militants in the north-eastern town of Potiskum, an army source has told the BBC.
The town has seen days of violence, with 31 reported killed and hundreds of residents fleeing since Thursday.
Meanwhile, China has a diplomatic protest against the killing of a Chinese construction worker in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.
The Nigerian army says it has arrested a senior commander of Boko Haram, as attacks by suspected members of the Islamist group continue.
Shuaibu Muhammed Bama was detained at the home of a serving senator in the city of Maiduguri, the army said.
The senator – who has not been named – denies the army’s claim, which has fuelled suspicions that some politicians are helping the militants.
Nomadic Muslim herdsmen attacked a Christian village in central Nigeria over long-running land disputes, killing at least 30 people in their latest assault, police said Wednesday.
The attack in Benue state comes as a bomb exploded Wednesday in northeast Nigeria, apparently killing a police officer and sparking reprisal attacks by the military in the region, residents said.
In Benue state, the attack Sunday targeted a rural village of Christian Tiv people called Yogbo in the state, police spokesman Daniel Ezeala said. After the attack, those living there fled, community leader Daniel Tsenghul said.
Archbishop John Oneikan of Abuja in Nigeria, whose brother lives in the Diocese of Tucson, offered today’s reflection to begin our full day of interventions. He reflected on an experience of his early episcopacy when he went to visit death-row prisoners living in wretched situations, He saw many wearing a rosary around their necks, which bewildered him since half of Nigerians are Muslim. He asked them what led them to Jesus.
They said that when they saw Christians living alongside of them in awful conditions, less than human circumstances and heard the joy of their singing and how they were able to retain hope amid despairing situations, they said they wanted to become Christians to share in that joy. This is a powerful example of evangelization. He inspired all of us, reminding us of the power of witness to change hearts.
Nigeria, like too many places around the world today, has experienced much violence in places like the city of Jos, where religious tensions and conflicts have surfaced. During our discussions bishops have expressed some of the struggles, persecution, tensions and turmoil happening in their communities. Listening to one another from all over the world gathered in the synod makes all of us more deeply aware of some of these challenges being experienced in many parts of the world. We can share in those sufferings and pain. We can stand in solidarity with those being persecuted, living amid violence. We can join hands, standing up against injustice and advocating for peace.
Widespread and systematic murder and persecution by Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group in northern Nigeria, likely amount to crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Government security forces have also engaged in numerous abuses, including extrajudicial killings, Human Rights Watch said.
The 98-page report, “Spiraling Violence: Boko Haram Attacks and Security Force Abuses in Nigeria,” catalogues atrocities for which Boko Haram has claimed responsibility. It also explores the role of Nigeria’s security forces, whose own alleged abuses contravene international human rights law and might also constitute crimes against humanity. The violence, which first erupted in 2009, has claimed more than 2,800 lives.
Nigeria’s “robust” approach to neutralizing a threat posed by Islamist sect Boko Haram using military force, holding indirect talks with the group and improving education in the north is paying off, the Nigerian president said on Wednesday.
Boko Haram, which wants to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has been blamed for more than 1,000 deaths since its insurgency intensified in 2010. The United States has designated three of Boko Haram’s senior members as terrorists.
In an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders, President Goodluck Jonathan also played down the significance of the government forces’ killing of the sect’s spokesman, Abu Qaqa, in a gun battle in Kano on September 16.
A suicide car bomber blew himself up outside a Roman Catholic church in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing himself and at least two other people and wounding 46, police said.
Police cordoned off the area around St. John’s church after the blast, which caused minimal damage to the building but killed at least two people in a market area of Bauchi city.
A Reuters journalist saw emergency services bring out three bodies in the area, called Wunti, and police identified one as the occupant of the car that blew up.
The Archbishop Metropolitan and Primate of All Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Most Reverend Nicholas Okoh, on Thursday. said that the survival of the Nigerian nation and respect for human life were the two main factors restraining Christians from fighting Boko Haram which had thrown the country into an insecure state.
Primate Okoh also described the proposed bill for Fulani Commission in which government seeks to create permanent routes and reserves in all states for Fulani pastoralists as a recipe for endless crisis.
The cleric, who stated this in his primatial address during the official opening of the standing committee meeting of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion at the Cathedral Church of Emmanuel, Ado-Ekiti with the theme “…Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” called on President Goodluck Jonathan to act fast in tackling the prevailing insecurity in the nation before it gets out of hand.
Nonetheless, the question remains: Why haven’t these blatant acts of prejudice become a cause célèbre? I can think of at least three reasons.
First, some Christians may be hesitant to speak out because, in this instance, the prejudice is coming from Jews. Given the long and depressing history of anti-Judaism in Christianity, some Christians may, in their gut, be tempted to feel: “Yeah, this is disgusting, but in a way we’ve got it coming.”
Second, most Christians in the Holy Land are passionately pro-Palestinian, for the obvious reason that many are Palestinians themselves. Some Christians in the West sympathetic to Israel are therefore reluctant to take up their causes, however deserving in themselves, for fear of weakening the Israeli position.
Third, the travails of a handful of Trappist monks in Israel — or Dalit and tribal Christians in India, or Nigerian Christians menaced by the Boko Haram, or the 150,000 new Christian martyrs every year generally — simply have a hard time breaking through the media filter in the West, perhaps especially in the United States, where it’s now all 2012 elections all the time.
The Nigerian army says it has killed seven suspected members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in a gun battle in the north of the country.
A spokesman said a further 13 people were arrested after an attack on an army checkpoint in Maiduguri.
Earlier, Nigerian police said they would mount a 24-hour guard of mobile-phone installations following Boko Haram attacks on masts in the north.