A group of Muslim youths on Friday attacked St. Philip’s Catholic Parish, Baki Iku, few miles to Zuma Rock in Niger State claiming that Friday was Muslims day of prayer and that Christians Churches only had right to worship on Sundays. They invaded and destroyed the church and inflict severe injuries on worshipers inside the church.
The attack by Islamist youths have increased since President Buhari, a an alleged religious fundamentalist assumed office last year. This attack on a catholic church is coming just a few days after a woman, a Christian street preacher, was gruesomely murdered and her throat sliced by Muslims youths Kubwa in Abuja while doing her usual early morning gospel cry.
Preceding that by a few weeks was another murder of a Christian woman in Kano by a Muslim mob who claimed she blasphemed their religion. She refused to allow a Muslim man to wash his feets in front of her shop and the angered man alleged already stationed youths who stoned and sliced her throat.
There are various reports in Kaduna where a Christian nearly lost his life to another Muslim mob who accused him of eating during Ramadan fasting. Over 8 churches have been destroyed by over zealous Muslims youths who were embolden by the emergence of Buhari, as they are rest assured that they will never be prosecuted.
These are signposts of an approaching darkness. If one reads these seemingly isolated incidents together with the ongoing Fulani herdsmen conquest, it seems Nigeria is going down the slippery slope of an Islamist-inspired eclipse. And what annoys me is that some people would rather we play it down and make nothing of it so as not to excite religious sentiment.
Anyone who speaks out in indignation is branded “religious bigot” in a curious reverse-accusation and the perpetrators who are the real bigots get away free. And as has become tragically ‘normal’ in our country, Christians take hit after hit and remain ‘righteously’ complacent and politically correct.
Once it becomes dangerous for any citizen to publicly espouse any religion, then know that armageddon is just round the corner. I urge the Muslim elite (that is, those who are not extremists) to initiate far-reaching measures to re-indoctrinate their brethren because where the violent ones are more visible, it tells a lot on public perception of the religion. Once public perception is formed, stereotyping becomes inevitable.
And I don’t need to say that when the armageddon being promoted by these Muslim extremists come, it won’t spare anyone – orthodox or Pentecostal Christian, moderate or extremist Muslim, atheist or animist.
Blogger Comment
Facebook Comment