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A CATALOG OF NIGERIA’S ISLAMIC/ETHNIC TERRORISM: BIAFRA’S CASE FOR INDEPENDENCE

Updated on March 16, 2011

 

   

 On Saturday, the 8th of January 2011, a Luxury bus departed Maiduguri en route to Lagos.  As the bus approached the city of Jos from Bauchi, it was stopped at a roadblock.  Some Islamic gunmen entered the bus and ordered all Muslims off the bus.  The gunmen proceeded to set the bus ablaze with all remaining passengers inside.  Most of the victims in the bus were from the Middle Belt and Southern parts of Nigeria, the East and the West heading south. Looking at the burned bodies of the victims of the Maiduguri-Lagos bound bus one is moved to ask; What was their crime?  None!  Did they deserve this?  In the name of Allah they did! 

 

It must be recalled that the Islamic group that goes by such names as Boko Haram and Jama'atu ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'awati wal Jihad had made an open declaration of war on the 28th of December 2010 after several bombs were exploded in the city of Jos, along with various Islamic killings in Kano, Bauchi and Maiduguri on the Christmas Eve.  Abu Mohammed also known as Abubakar bin Mohammad Shekau the leader and spokesperson for the group said; 

“I want to tell the Muslims in this country and the whole world that they need to know that this is a war between Muslims and non-Muslims… this is not a tribal war, nor is it similar to the wars of the pre-Islamic era, it is not a war for financial gains, it is solely a religious war.  We did not start this war so it would not end in one week, or one month or one year.  Only when we are completely annihilated and nobody chooses to continue with our struggle may be that could be the end. Or we establish a system where [Islamic] religion has the final say or [Islamic] religion determines everything, that will be the end of this war…” He went further to boast that “We are ready for anyone willing to face us, whether it is a group of people or even the government because we know who supports us, God the Creator of the universe, Allahu Akbar.  Therefore, we are warning every Muslim who believes in the religion of Islam that he should never help a non-Muslim in this war.  If he helps any non-Muslim and in so doing, a fellow Muslim suffers due to that, he should know that he is a dead person.”

 

Since this declaration, more bombs had exploded in Abuja followed by some more in Jos with several Islamic killings, lootings and burnings. It should be noted here that in the midst of all of these atrocities, Nigerian government has used its energy more in trying to suppress the news rather than fighting to end the violence. The Nigerian state continues to carry out the suppression of truth and information from the general public by confiscating cameras from people who have tried to record these atrocities. News is controlled and doctored to suit what the government wants to get out in the name of trying to keep Nigeria as one country. The real number of casualty is never reported.  When numbers are given, they are always grossly under stated.

More than 200 people have been killed in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria in the past month in tit-for-tat clashes between rival ethnic and religious gangs, a US rights group, Human Rights Watch, said on Thursday.  

 

Many of the victims, including children, were hacked to death or burned alive in dawn reprisal attacks on villages in Plateau State, as reported by Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at the US-based human rights group. She told Reuters, "This terrible cycle of violence and impunity needs to stop.  . . . Both the state and federal governments have shown a disturbing lack of urgency in addressing the violence and the under-lying causes of these deadly outbreaks."

According to Corinne’s report, the tension is rooted in decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, and migrants and settlers from the Muslim north, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands and for economic and political power. There have been almost daily clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs in villages around Jos, the capital of Plateau State, since a series of bombs were detonated during Christmas Eve celebrations a month ago, killing scores of people. At least 12 people were killed in the latest attack on villages near Barkin Ladi, just outside Jos, the report goes on and on.

 

There comes a time when a country and its people must decide and determine what their destiny and the legacy to posterity and the rest of the world should be. Right now, the Nigerian state and the peoples within it have found themselves at this cross road.  They must decide if they are willing to accept and allow these Islamic/cultural and ethnic genocides to continue in the name of retaining a one-nigeria. 

 

Biafra’s independence was first declared on the 30th of May 1967 by Emeka Ojukwu the then governor of Eastern Region of Nigeria. The events leading up to the declaration were the terrible atrocities of genocide visited on the peoples of the Southeast who were resident outside of their original homeland.

 

By October 1st 1960 when Great Britain granted independence to the Nigerian state there were a number of fundamental structural defects with the new state. The fault lines along its constituent parts were unbridgeable and just like the tectonic plate within the Earth’s crust the constant rubbing would create enough friction that took less than six short years to cause an Earth shaking catastrophe of the magnitude that was never witnessed before on the African continent. No amount of artificial lubrication could have prevented the devastation that followed and has continued till this day.

 

And for a short three years of indiscriminate and uncontrolled killings, the combined forces of Nigeria, Great Britain, Soviet Union (Russia), the Arab League and Egypt had used more small arms and ammunition on Biafrans than all the arms used by the Allied Forces of World War II which lasted for six years. That accounted for the heavy Biafran civilian casualty within the three years.

 

The killings were so brutal and horrific that by the conclusion of the invasion of Biafra in 1970 over 3 million Biafrans had been killed from massive bombings, strafing, shelling, shootings and starving of civilians and non-combatant population. While the war lasted a new savage dimension of warfare was introduced to modern day war prosecution; starvation as a legitimate weapon on civilian populations.

 

Several times, as the war progressed, both Nigerian and British officials proclaimed publicly that starvation was a legitimate weapon of war. These officials; the Prime Minister of Great Britain Harold Wilson, Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo and Anthony Enahoro repeatedly emphasized the point and the world could not have missed it, they were so loud and clear. And they used the weapon very effectively such that at the height of the Biafran blocked 25,000 Biafran children were dying daily from hunger. Starvation or kwashiorkor; the disease resulting from malnutrition and protein deficiency which bedeviled Biafra’s children and adults became known as Harold Wilson syndrome in honor of the Great Britain’s Prime Minister who made sure every aspect of the Biafran War effort was successful by making available limitless access to arms and men and supplies to Nigeria.

 

From July 1966 till May 1967 the Igbo/Biafran population was being murdered all over Nigeria by the Nigerian state and its peoples. The wanton killings and property destruction were unwarranted. They were acts based on pure ethnic/Islamic hatred of non-believers. Within the period 100,000 defenseless Igbo and other Southeasterners who had been resident in the Northern and Western parts of Nigeria were killed and their properties looted.

 

The people were forced to retreat to the Eastern Region enclave where they believed would provide them security from persecution and death. After several attempts by the Eastern leaders failed to persuade the aggressors, the Nigerian state to stop the genocidal carnage, the people decided to declare a sovereign and independent republic which they called Biafra. The declaration was based on the fact that since they had been driven out of every other part of Nigeria that they could at least stay away and be left alone, safe.

 

They were however wrong. In six days of Biafra’s independence, Nigeria took the killings into the Biafran territory. It was the case of, we hate you as a people but we will not let you go, you must continue to serve as our cannon fodders and quarries for our gory Islamic orgy in blood. The methods used in the killings were so gruesome so the people were driven to defend themselves in every way they could.

 

They witnessed how their people were thrown into wet and dry wells, adults and children alike, until they got filled and stones were rolled over their mouths. The killers slashed the throats of their victims, beheaded some, disemboweled others, took out fetuses from the bellies of pregnant mothers and killed the babies before killing their mothers. People were burnt in their homes, some were skinned alive with broken bottles and fed with feces and urines. The atrocious devices that these macabre gleeful murderers employed were just endless and hideous.

 

By 1970 the Biafra War stopped with Nigeria insisting that Biafra’s territory must return to the union. Though there were no assurances from Nigeria that such genocides against a defenseless people would not happen again but it was implied. (It needs to be stated here that when it was claimed that the war ended there remained a lot of residual killings by the Nigerian armed forces). And by the middle of the 1970s another full cycle of ethnic/religious cleansing campaigns erupted again and has continued for several times in each year till the present time. The same methods of killings are still employed with the added dimension of bombings, a la al-Qaeda.

 

This is 2011, 41 years after the so-called end of the Biafra War which started because of those genocidal ethnic/Islamic cleansing of the 1960s on the Igbo and their other Southeastern brothers and sisters. Mere two months into this new year there have been more than ten reported different incidents of these killings involving hundreds of Igbo and other Southeasterners lives and property.

 

We are going to try to enumerate here just a few cases and any interested reader can pursue further studies of any individual incident or all of the listed incidents. They are verifiable records accessible to any patient individual or group willing to find out. It might be necessary to restate that what we have listed here is just a tip of the iceberg. On the average, no day has passed starting from 1970 till the present time, without about 12 Igbo persons and other Southeasterners getting killed in Nigeria in a very horrifying manner just for who they are rather than for any crime they committed. This is true without adding cases of innumerable hate-crimes against them by the Nigerian state and Nigerian citizens.

 

For the rest peoples in Nigeria it can be understood when they insist on maintaining the current colonial one-nigeria status quo; it is not their loved ones who are being killed or properties and means of livelihoods that are being destroyed to maintain Nigeria’s integrity. Rather they are the ones killing the Igbo and their kith and kin of Southeast origin and enriching themselves with the lootings of the victims. Moreover, the entire wealth that sustains the economy of the Nigerian state comes from the occupied territory of the Southeasterners. Going by this it is easy for them to continue to fight dirty in trying to maintain the false union at the detriment of justice, security, prosperity and progress.

 

But for the Igbo and the other Southeasterners who have been cowed or intimidated to accept one-nigeria as a norm, it is pathetic since this naïve acquiescence can only be rationalized in two ways; laziness and fear. Intellectual laziness; unwilling to exercise the mind to find solutions to complex problems. No one wants to task their mind beyond the simple things for the common good. The same laziness that affected the political leaders from this region in the mid twentieth century and made them to accept the colonialists’ political border creations without some critical considerations of the implications. They were also selfish because they were anxious to inherit the faulty readymade colonial status quo and felt that since they were in positions of power they would not lose out. They never cared about the long term effect of the unrealistic colonial arrangements on their people. Then today’s generation of the elite group are afraid of the temporary discomfort that change will bring. But they forget that such discomfort would only last for a while but will save the majority of their people the present heartache of perpetual death and destruction being visited on them. 

 

Usually, at the end of very terrible inhuman treatment of fellow humans by their neighbors people would suggest that monuments be built to constantly remind the people of the mistakes of past generation. That is good but we should also realize that building monuments after monuments does not prevent the reasons for the monuments. While monuments are being erected active steps should be taken and concrete walls of moral barricade must be erected to prevent another occurrence. In the process of this discussion we are going to suggest a few of those steps that must be taken to forestall anymore occurrences of this shame on the conscience of humanity within the region under consideration.

 

In the meanwhile and to begin with we must accept that every human social/political structure is supposed to be constructed to cater for the people’s benefit. It is never that the people’s blood will be used to maintain the borders or integrity of that society. Any state or society is a social contract binding on consenting members. But when membership of such society is coerced and maintained based on falsehood then it becomes unjust, even illegal. The current territorial borders in all of Black Africa, including Nigeria are those established arbitrarily by the European colonialists and can be said to fall within the last category; because the African political borders were set up by the Europeans without the consent or input of the indigenous peoples. They were set up for the convenience of the colonialists to ease their administrative processes and minimize running cost. The borders were not set up taking into consideration the cultural/religious differences of the indigenous peoples who are forced to stay in them against their will and contrary to the way the peoples had lived before the colonialists arrived.

 

These differences are so irreconcilable such that the peoples cannot co-exist within the same state boundaries and still attain the level of peace and stability that encourage security, social justice and social/economic progress. So the question today is what is the point in maintaining societies or states that will never know any peace, stability, equity, justice (rule of law) and security to life and property all of which lead to social and economic progress? Someone or group that insist on such status quo are usually extremely selfish because allowing change will usually affect their established avenues of personal gains. They are never concerned about the general good and the long term effect of their ephemeral self-centered decisions and actions.

 

The danger in such temporary selfish approach is that eventually everyone will be the loser. In the process of safeguarding of such selfishness, the society breaks down and public infrastructures decay so the elite and the underdog end up suffering almost alike. A state or society is supposed to exist in a continuum while generations start and end. Every current generation in a particular society must see themselves as mere temporary occupants who will leave the place for the next one and what will always matter is if they were able to leave the place better than they found it for the next people.

 

To leave a place better than you found it will always be through some conscious actions and bold decisions and real work. In the case of Nigeria and the rest of Black Africa, the bequeathed colonial political map needs to be redrawn now and that is where to start from. This is how to lay a structural foundation for an enabling state/social environment that will engender peace, stability, justice (rule of law or law and order), security to life and property, progress and prosperity. Laws and their enforcement do help to compel current generation to use (administer) the society or state in such a way that they will eventually leave it in a better shape than they found it but first things must be done first. The foundational structure must be right by taking cognizance of the local environment. Or else the edifice will be defective and eventually collapse.

 

The reason for the collapse of course is due to a fundamentally faulty structure which is incapable of producing the will in the operators to run such structure successfully. The lack of will is mainly as a result of nepotism and conflicting ethnic allegiance. And it makes no sense trying to discourage people from being patriotic to their ethnic group. Such patriotic display being asked from the people where they pretend that they had no ethnic root does not happen by mere appeals to emotions. They happen from collective experiences and events that took place to permanently cement or bond the people and their culture, usually over centuries of time. There must be a common story collectively shared that date back many generations. Preachment can do very little to nothing especially when coming from a clique who is reluctant to be honest and sincere in their personal life conduct. There may never be a perfect patriotism but there can never be one that is not based on passion and sincerity.

 

Currently some events are taking place around the world that point out clearly certain channels that can be used to achieve the restructuring of Black Africa’s political map starting with that of Nigeria. There are the India/Pakistan, Kosovo and Sudan/South Sudan paradigms. For obvious reasons we will give preference to the Sudan/South Sudan example here. The two places, Sudan and Nigeria have had very similar historical antecedents. Both were colonized by the British. They both have the same cultural differences of Traditional, Christian and Islamic religions. Arab/Islamic North and Indigenous/Traditional/Christianity South. In both places the Arab/Islamist North were imposed on the South by the colonialists. The North in both places has maintained hegemony over the South by violence to human lives, vandalism, looting and wanton destruction of properties. In both Nigeria and Sudan, the bulk of the wealth comes from the southern parts while no meaningful investment is done in the south. There has remained an endemic and irreconcilable conflict between the Northern Islamic faith and the Southern Traditional/Christian faiths in Nigeria and Sudan.

 

In Sudan it took more than three decades of war to finally arrive at the right decision where the North and the South decided to decouple from each other in a referendum. In Nigeria the war has raged on for nearly five decades with the death toll of nearly five million. Social and economic growth has been stunted as a result of the internecine war of cultures and ethnicities.

 

What is going on in Nigeria is a situation whereby the elite on all sides conspire to deny the people who are the victims of the conspiracy, access to existence and good life because the current arrangement only favors them. The present colonial structure is only constructed to benefit the elite class not minding which section they come from. The colonialists were the elites of their time and the structure was made for their benefit and convenience. This is why the existing structure can never work to benefit the ethnic masses wherever they may be found. The elite group can conveniently collude among themselves and share the largess and booties of the offices they occupy without thinking on how to benefit the masses. They can conveniently talk about patriotism or allegiance to the various false states and even mean it because the states are only serving their selfish, insensitive and callous social standing.

 

At this point we need to quickly disabuse the minds of those who may be wondering on why Black African states, including Nigeria cannot go the way of the so-called popular uprising taking place in many Arab countries today starting from Tunisia to Egypt, Bahrain, etc. Such spontaneous or organized general uprising cannot happen in Black Africa because none of the Black African states has a homogenous and unified national population. The colonial hodgepodge and subjugate structure is still very much in place and will not allow an all-embracive uprising. So there can never come a time when all the deeply divided parts will ever become united on any issues as they affect them because usually each ethnic group’s worldviews are worlds apart. Ethnic and cultural considerations will always, and rightly so, override each part’s ultimate decision.

 

For those who talk about ethnic and cultural uniqueness of the various groups with disdain and advocate that everyone must unite in diversity, that amounts to the same elitist dishonesty and intellectual trickery/gimmickry which has hitherto held this part of the world back. Such unity does not occur by mere momentary emotional wishful thinking as is being preached. Peoples with distinct and unique cultural/religious differences do not have to be forced into a space in order to make them relate cordially with one another. Staying apart does not make people enemies of one another, rather forcing them into a choking space will create anticipated tensions and inevitable conflicts.

 

Increasingly around the world people are waking up to that which has always been inherent in every human heart; this is the era of free-will or indigenous peoples right to self-determination. What that means is that the people everywhere, more and more are getting to hating it when you are not letting them to be free to make their choices in everything that concerns them in life including who to associate with and how they want to be governed. South Sudan has demonstrated that the lives and well-being of the human constituents of a state is more valuable than the preservation of the “prestige” of belonging to the largest country in Africa. They have shown that beauty (symmetry), cohesive society, security and progress should be preferred over and above big sizes such as being the most populous country in Black Africa. There is no prestige in such titles when the bloated population has no access to the basic good things that life can easily give within smaller but efficiently managed political spaces where people live in harmony and with very minimal friction.

 

Down through the years up to the present time various Islamic sects with jihadists slant have risen in the Northern, Middle Belt and Western regions of Nigeria and their attack targets have been consistent; Igbo/Southeasterners and other Christian ethnic groups. The group currently operating in these areas is known as Boko Haram. And in the last three months without relenting have attacked Igbo and other Christian groups in Jos, Maiduguri, Bauchi and Abuja in the same fashion killing hundreds of people, looting and burning millions of dollars of property of the victims.

 

In this list we have not followed any chronological order but the reader can choose to arrange the events to suite him or her since dates of their occurrences are provided. And though this is not an exhaustive list of all the destruction to lives and properties of Igbo and other Southeasterners but they are already enough reason why the present Nigerian political map must be redrawn as a matter of urgency to save the lives of children, women and men who inhabit the geo-space.

 

(1)   On January 19, 2010 Ahmed Saka of Associated Press reported that a 24-hour curfew had been imposed the city of Jos after 200 people were reported dead as another round of Islamic religious violence erupted. The rioting began Sunday after Muslim youths set a Catholic church ablaze. Witnesses said rioters armed with knives, homemade firearms and stones attacked passers-by and fought with security forces, leaving bodies in the street and stacked in local mosques. The Minister of Police Affairs, Ibrahim Yakubu Lame, issued a statement Tuesday blaming the violence on "some highly placed individuals in the society who were exploiting the ignorance and poverty of the people to cause mayhem in the name of religion."

 

(2)   January 11, 2010 no fewer than 30 persons were killed in a renewed clash between members of an Islamic sect called Kala-Koto and security personnel in the Zango area of Bauchi city in the early hours of Monday. The Kala-Koto sect is claiming to be the remains of the original 'Maitatsine' sect of the 80s. Among the victims who died were 15 children between the ages of three and seven. A cripple, Yusuf Abba, was said to have been slaughtered by the sect members. A number of houses in Zango area were set on fire by members of the sect who were demanding for the release of its leader who arrested by the authorities.

 

(3)   December 2009 There was palpable apprehension among citizens in Bauchi city because of an anticipated Islamic religious riot and all businesses in the city remained closed. Governor Isa Yuguda who had been criticized for his much travels was away in Britain. The Bauchi State Police Command PPRO, Mohammed Barau said the command has deployed a combined team of regular Policemen and Mobile Police to maintain law and order in the area.

 

(4)   Jan 5, 2010 – Report has it that Muslim Religious rioters killed hundreds of people in a violent uprising in Bauchi Northern Nigeria. For the third time in 2009, the 'Angel' of destruction once again passed through Bauchi in the name of Islamic religious crisis and claimed several hundreds of human lives

 

(5)   July 27 2009 Nigerian Tribune newspaper reported that at least 200 persons were killed and many others seriously injured in the early hours of Sunday, following a renewed Islamic religious crisis in northern Nigeria’s Bauchi State.

  

(6)   December 30, 2009, Bauchi, (Northern Nigeria) Radical Islamic sect Kala-Koto a branch of Maitasine attacked Christians and burned Churches; 70 people were killed.

 

(7)   July 26, 2009 Maiduguri, Yobe, Bauchi, Kano, (Northern Nigeria) radical Islamic fundamentalist sect, Boko Haram went on rampage burning churches, and looting homes belonging to Christians and murdering them. Three Christian pastors including George Orji (Igbo) were killed by beheading, the Islamic way. Officially 800 people were reported killed by the time the rioting died down.

 

(8)   2007, Adamawa (Northern Nigeria) Moslem jihadists invaded Christian community of Yugor, killing hundreds of Christians, looting and burning churches and Christians’ homes and property.

 

(10) 2006 Maiduguri, (Northern Nigeria) Islamic fundamentalists protesting cartoon of prophet Mohammed made by a Danish cartoonist in far away Europe killed hundreds of Christians, burned down scores of Churches, and looted shops and homes belonging to Christians. Similar riots by Islamic jihadists were held in many towns of Northern Nigeria – Katsina, Bauchi, Minna, Potiskum, Kano, Kontagora. Thousands of Christians were killed, scores of churches were looted and burned and personal homes and businesses of Christians were looted and burned. One week before the multiple-city Islamic riots Nigerian members of parliament had burned Danish and Norwegian flags in the premises of the parliament.

 

(12) June 28, 2006, it was reported that Nigeria’s federal government accused Kano State of Northern Nigeria of collaborating with foreign Islamic terrorist organizations to train 100 Muslim militants in “intelligence gathering” and the "practice of jihad" in Kano. Also in another development a news release quoted the then Nigeria’s Information Minister, Frank Nweke as saying that the "Hisbah" (an Islamic police force), a group employed by the Islamic state of Kano to enforce sharia law among the citizens, was "a parallel security outfit that poses a potential threat to national security".

 

(13) April 2003, Kano (Northern Nigeria) Islamic jihadists go on a rampage, a Christian pastor, Sunday Madumere (Igbo) and six of his family members were killed.

 

(14) April, 2003, Jos (Northern Nigeria) armed Muslim insurgents attacked a Christian Wereng village near Vom a suburb of Jos killing people, burning homes and looting people’s property.

 

(15) April, 2003, Langtang (Northern Nigeria) a group of armed Muslims attacked a village in Langtang killing people and burning down homes.

 

(16)2003 Gusau (Northern Nigeria) the governor of Zamfara state, Ahmed Sani visited the United States and promised during an interview with the Voice of America, VOA that sharia law will not apply to Christians in the state when he introduced the fundamentalist Islamic Sharia Law in Zamfara but in the same year gave orders that more than 20 Christian churches in the State be demolished. They were demolished promptly. No reasons were given.

 

(17) March, 2003 Jos (Northern Nigeria) Thousands of jihad warriors attacked the Christian town of Kardako in Wase Local Government Area shouting “Allahu Akbar” killing Christians and burning down homes.

 

(18)  February, 2003 Ibadan (Western Nigeria) Muslims jihadists from the National Council of Muslim Youth Organization NCMYO attacked Christian schools in Ibadan in an effort to force the schools to require women to wear Islamic head coverings. Hundreds of students and teachers were injured in the attack.

 

(19) December 26, 2002, Bauchi, (Northern Nigeria) Islamic jihadists attacked Christians concluding a Christmas celebration in Bauchi killing them, looting and burning churches and Christians’ homes.

 

(20) December 2002, Jos, (Northern Nigeria) Muslim Jihadists attack Christians. During the attack Rev. Bitrus Manjang, his son, daughter-in-law and their six-month old child were shot to death outside their home. The jihadists went on killing people looting and burning churches and Christians’ homes.

 

(21) November, 2002 Kano, Kaduna (2 Northern Nigeria cities) Muslim jihadists went on a rampage after an article in the This Day newspaper suggested that the prophet Muhammed would probably have married a contestant from the Miss World pageant scheduled to be held in Abuja. Muslim mobs ransacked the newspaper’s office, issued a fatwa on the author of the article, Miss Isioma. In the process the Islamists killed hundreds of Christians and burned down numerous churches.

 

(22) October 2002, Jos, (Northern Nigeria) Hundreds of Christians killed when a mob of several Muslims jihadists attacked the Christian town of Fajul in Plateau State. Islamic mercenaries or soldiers for hire from neighboring Chad and Niger were believed to be among the group, which burned down homes, churches, and raped several women killing people.

 

(23) September 11, 2002, Jos, (Northern Nigeria) A bomb exploded at the Church of Christ in the Laranto a suburb of Jos. No one was injured, but there was some structural damage to the church building.

 

(24) August 2002 Kano, (Northern Nigeria) The government of Kano State ordered half of the churches in Kano State closed because Muslims complained about “too many churches” in the state.

 

(25) June 2002, Jos, (Northern Nigeria) Several  Christian communities in Plateau state including Yelwa, Shendam, Wase, Barakin Ladi, Vom and Miango were invaded by Islamic jihadists who killed Christian people and burned down homes and churches.

 

(26) June, 2002, Minna, (Northern Nigeria) At least 75 Christians were arrested in Niger state for opposing the state’s introduction of Islamic sharia law.

 

(27) April 8-22, 2002, Kano (Northern Nigeria) At least seven churches in Kano State were destroyed by authorities. This was the growing trend in the 12 northern states that had adopted Sharia law to destroy Christian churches on the pretense that the churches had violated building codes. Christians believe it is a step toward wiping out the Christian faith in northern Nigeria.

 

(28) April 2002, Sokoto (Northern Nigeria) Two Christians in Zamfara State were tried on the charge of apostasy, converting from Islam to Christianity. According to Islamic law, the penalty for apostasy is death. However the two Christians, Lawali Yakubu and Ali Jafaru, claimed they were never Muslims to start with. The two belong to an ethnic group that had practiced Christianity for many years.

   

(29)February, 2002 Ilorin (Northern Nigeria) Muslims in Ilorin turned violent while celebrating Eid-el-Kabir and began attacking and killing Christians, burning their houses and businesses.  

 

(30)February 2002, Kano (Northern Nigeria) The Kano state government revealed that it had closed down 122 Christian schools for failing to meet state requirements. The requirement in question is the compulsory study of Islam. Christian schools had refused to allow Muslim clerics into their schools, thus risking closure.

 

(31)  February, 2002, Gombe, (Northern Nigeria) A Christian lady, Esther Bulus was kidnapped from her school by four Muslims who slit her throat and left her to die. Esther had refused to marry a Muslim politician in Gombe on grounds of religious differences. She was murdered because of this.

 

(32)December 30, 2001, Jos, (Northern Nigeria) Armed Muslim jihadists attacked the Christian community in southern Jos, killing Christians, looting and destroying property worth several million dollars.

 

(33) December 2001, Yola (Northern Nigeria) Muslim members of the Nigerian Army from the 23rd Armored 7th Brigade in Yola, burned a Christian church building, which was constructed in the army barracks. They justified the act by saying it was an illegal structure. However, the army officially allows both Islam and Christianity to be practiced in the barracks.

 

(34)December 10, 2001, Kano, (Northern Nigeria) A Christian truck driver Uche Nwama (Igbo) killed by Islamic jihadists for allowing the exhaust from his truck to drift into an open-air Islamic meeting. Islamic jihadists claimed the exhaust had desecrated the Quran.

 

(35)November 6, 2001, Ibadan (Western Nigeria) Islamic fundamentalists hold a massive rally in Ibadan in support of Osama Bin Laden and his attack and slaughter of thousands of Americans during the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York. They condemn the United States for attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan and vow to fight alongside Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists.

 

(36)November 2001 (Western and Northern Nigeria) Islamic jihadists hold massive rallies in Osogbo, Sokoto, Kano , Zaria , Kaduna , and other towns in Western and Northern Nigeria in support of Osama Bin Laden and his attacks and slaughter of thousands of Americans during 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York . They condemn the United States for attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan. They also vow to fight alongside Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists in a jihad against America.

 

(37) November 28, 2001 Enugu (Eastern Nigeria) Christians (Biafran Activists) organize a peaceful rally in Enugu in solidarity with and support of the government and people of the United States over the Islamic terrorist attack in New York on 9/11/2001 and in support of the United States action against the terrorists. During the peaceful demonstration Nigerian police brutalized the participants, disbanded the rally and arrested the leaders.

 

(38) October 14-18, 2001 Kano (Northern Nigeria) Massive anti-American protests in Kano by Islamic jihadists. Thousands of Christians are slaughtered and scores of churches are burned. Property of Christians worth billions of dollars are looted and destroyed.

 

(39)October 2001, Kaduna (Northern Nigeria) Islamic jihadists attack Christians in churches, on the street and in their homes. Thousands of Christians are slaughtered, scores of churches are burned and looted, and thousands of Christian homes are looted, and burned.

 

(40)September 2001, Kano (Northern Nigeria) Islamic jihadists attack Christians burning down churches slaughtering thousands of people, looting churches and private homes. Kano State government demolishes the few remaining Christian churches.

 

(41) September 2001, Jos (Northern Nigeria) In a well planned and highly coordinated program, Islamic jihadists attack Christians in the city of Jos, burning down churches, and private homes of Christians, looting the churches and private property of Christians. Hundreds of churches were burned and thousands of Christians were slaughtered some burned while worshipping in their churches.

   

(42)August 2001, Bauchi, (Northern Nigeria) The Bauchi state government is alleged to be using Muslim mercenaries to attack Christians in the Tafawa Balewa and Bogora districts. On several occasions vehicles loaded with Islamic jihadists were intercepted by vigilant Christians. Several hundred Christians were killed and houses, shops and churches looted, burned and destroyed.

 

(43)June 2001, Gawaram (Northern Nigeria) Islamic jihadists attack Christians, burn down dozens of churches and kill Christians.

 

(44)February 24-25, 2001, Gombe (Northern Nigeria) A visit to Gombe state by an Israeli ambassador sparked a riot by Islamic jihadists. During the riot the jihadists kill Christians, loot and burn down churches, loot and burn down Christian homes and render thousands of people homeless. The Calvary Baptist Church and the Bishara Baptist church are among those looted and burned.

   

(45)September 2000 Gombe (Northern Nigeria) In Bambam, Gombe State Islamic jihadists attack and kill Christians, burn down and loot churches and private homes and businesses of Christians.

 

(46)May 2000, Kaduna (Northern Nigeria) For several days Islamic jihadists attack and slaughter hundreds of Christian people in Kaduna. They loot thousands of Christian homes, churches, businesses and then burn them down. In the process thousands of Christians are mindlessly slaughtered and more than 200 churches are burned

 

(47)February 2000, Kaduna (Northern Nigeria) Islamic jihadists attack and slaughter Christians opposing the implementation of Sharia law in Kaduna state. Christian homes, businesses and churches are looted, and burned. Thousands of Christians are mercilessly slaughtered and property worth millions of dollars are looted and destroyed by the jihadists.

 

(48)2000 Damboa, Maiduguri (Northern Nigeria) Islamic jihadists attack and slaughter Christians, loot and burn Christian homes, businesses and churches. 

 

And to this endless list we can add; Kano, 1994; Ibadan, 1993; Lagos, 1993; Funtua, 1993; Zango Kataf 1992; Kano 1991; Katsina, 1991; Bauchi, 1991; Kafanchan, 1986; Kaduna, 1986; Gombe, 1985; Yola, 1984; Maiduguri, 1982; Kano, 1980. If you are interested you can go as far back as May/June; July/August; and September/October 1966 when the same Muslim jihadists slaughtered 100,000 Christian Igbo and other Easterners in Northern and Western Nigeria.

 

There are as many more Jihadists violence and killings against other ethnic groups and religions in Northern and Western Nigeria than are reported. Nigerian state use the law enforcement authorities like Police, Army, State and Local Government officials to suppress the news. Most of the time they succeed in covering from the world the killings, violence and burning of churches and Christians’ homes, place of business etc. in Northern, Western and Middle Belt of Nigeria.

 

With this endless list of shame, the rest of the world community would be failing a significant part of its membership which is suffering victimization and persecution from their stronger neighbors if they should continue to fail to act.  Nigeria’s present territorial borders have produced nothing but death and destruction for the Igbo ethnic people and the rest Southeasterners. Nigeria’s political map must be redrawn today to reflect the true national boundaries. We are therefore calling on all responsible members of the world community, be they individuals, groups, NGOs or nations to become pro-active in this urgent situation. Biafra must be freed from Nigeria.

 

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