Tag Archives: Country: Nigeria

CNSNews: As the State Department prepares to release its annual report on international religious freedom Monday, a key issue for many Americans concerned about religious persecution is whether it will blacklist a handful of particularly egregious violators – or, as in previous years, ignore the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Reuters: Suspected members of the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram armed with machineguns laid siege on the north-eastern town of Bama on Tuesday, freeing over 100 prison inmates and leaving 55 people dead, the military said.

LifeNews: Delegates from around the word are a the United Nations headquarters in New York City for the latest Commission on Population and Development. At that meeting, the international affiliate of the Planned Parenthood abortion business is threatening the representative from Nigeria.

Ongoing attacks and retaliations by Muslims and Christians in Nigeria’s violent, religiously-and-ethnically-mixed Middle Belt has left more than 100 dead and dozens of properties destroyed since March of this year.

AP: A look at recent major attacks attributed to the radical Islamic extremist network known as Boko Haram . . .

AP: Nigeria formed a panel that will create an amnesty program for Islamic extremists to try to quell a bloody guerrilla campaign . . .

Catholic Culture: The Boko Haram terrorist group has destroyed 50 of the 52 Catholic churches in Nigeria’s Borno state, according to a priest there.

Reuters: Suspected Islamist gunmen on motorbikes stormed a primary school in Nigeria’s main northern city of Kano on Tuesday and opened fire on teachers, wounding four of them, police said.

Charisma News: Christian churches and worship centers were completely shut down on Sunday in the central Nigerian town of Wukari following religious riots that broke out Saturday in the town between Muslims and Christians.

AP: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said Tuesday that Nigeria must do more to alleviate the extreme poverty across the nation’s predominantly Muslim north in order to halt the wave of bombings, shootings and kidnappings by Islamic extremists there.

Edwin Ekene at allAfrica.com: Actually, it was a debate between Erik Stanley, the head of the Pulpit Initiative for Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys in the United States, and Rev. Barry W. Lynn, the Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. The title of the debate, which was published in the Los Angeles Times of September 23, 2008, was, “Why Don’t Churches Pay Taxes?”

LifeSiteNews: The Nigerian government has put the Western world on notice that if the cost of accepting aid is to allow same-sex couples to “marry,” that’s a price the country is unwilling to pay.

AFP on Google: Ten Christians had their throats slit and militants killed two police officers during attacks on churches and border posts in a fresh wave of violence in northern Nigeria, officials reported Sunday.

CBC News: Twin suicide car bombs exploded Sunday at a church inside one of Nigeria’s top military bases, killing at least 11 people and wounding another 30 in an embarrassing attack showing the continued insecurity that haunts Africa’s most populous nation.

Christian Today: Christian Solidarity Worldwide has expressed fears for Christians in northern Nigeria after a family was killed in Kaduna State this week. The organisation reports that gunmen opened fire on the home of Yakubu Kayit in Madauchi-Zonkwa.

allAfrica.com: The House of Representatives Tuesday dared western nations and their donor agencies, advising them to keep their grants, aids and other financial assistance if the new condition for Nigeria to access such credit facilities was for the National Assembly to legalise same gender marriages.

ChannelsTV.com: The bill, which passed without a dissenting voice, had previously been passed by the senate. Speaking on the bill, lawmakers said the notion of same sex marriage is an alien culture that must be preventing from taking root in Nigeria.

CNN: A suicide bombing killed seven people and wounded more than 100 others Sunday at a Catholic church in Nigeria, an emergency management official said.

Washington Post: 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.

LifeSiteNews: The Association of Catholic Medical Practitioners of Nigeria (ACMPN) condemned a recent USAID initiative to provide more than $8 million to the country for the establishment of abortion clinics and human egg-harvesting centers in Nigeria.

Christian Post: Multiple sources have confirmed that about 25 to 30 Christian college students were massacred at a university in northeastern Nigeria late Monday night, causing Christians to pray for a “change of heart” among the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram to put a stop to the continued violence.

The Church Report: BAUCHI, Nigeria – A suicide car bomber blew himself up outside a Catholic church in a remote part of northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing himself and at least two other people and wounding several, a Reuters witness said.

Christian Today: Christian Gunmen have reportedly attacked a Catholic church in north-eastern Nigeria.

Raymond Ibrahim at the Middle East Forum: While the Obama administration continues to say that the Islamic group Boko Haram’s jihad against Nigeria’s Christians—which has seen countless churches destroyed, and thousands of Christians killed— has nothing to do with religion, the group once again made clear that it is all about religion.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Zainab Usman wrote a thoughtful article on the Gates’ contraception campaign for ThinkAfricaPress.com that got picked up by AllAfrica.com. Zainab is a Nigerian freelance writer currently working in Brussels and “a budding political economist and political scientist with a keen interest in Current Affairs: Nigerian, African and International affairs.”

The Nation: Gunmen suspected to be members of the Boko Haram sect on Monday evening killed an evangelist with a Pentecostal church in Maiduguri, Ali Samari.

The New American: Radical Islam, which is spreading everywhere in the world, has largely destroyed the once thriving Maronite Christian population of Lebanon (a land long called the “Switzerland of the Middle East” because of its high income, small government, and educated population). Nigeria has not escaped this onslaught.

AP: An army official says a mosque attack that killed two soldiers followed a deadly church attack in central Nigeria.

Christian Science Monitor: Christian leaders in Nigeria’s restive north say they may have to ‘rise up’ to protect themselves, and southern insurgents offer to cut off the north from food and other supplies.

AP: Gunmen fired on a worship service in a church in central Nigeria, killing at least 19 people – including the pastor – and wounding others in a nation often divided by religion, the military said Tuesday . . .

UPI: The Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram said it would not negotiate with the government, and called on the Nigerian president to resign and accept Islam.

Baptist Press: Voices from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are calling for the United States government to do more to protect Nigeria’s Christians from the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram.

WorldNetDaily: Fifty members of a northern Nigerian church were burned to death in their pastor’s house. The attack by armed gunmen was only the first in a 12-village spree of violence that left over 100 dead in northern Nigeria’s Plateau State, a region that had previously been outside Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram’s operational area and is the largely Muslim Fulani tribesmen’s homeland.

AP: Police in northeastern Nigeria say security forces and gunmen have clashed anew in a city wracked by violence.

AP: A radical Islamist sect claimed responsibility Tuesday for weekend attacks that have killed at least 58 people . . .

Christian Today: At least 58 people, including two lawmakers, were killed after suspected Muslim herdsmen attacked Christian villages near the city of Jos in central Nigeria over the weekend.

AllAfrica.com: Lt. Col Ishaq Rano, Assistant Director, Islamic Affairs of the Nigerian Army, says that killing and bombing of Churches by the Boko Haram sect is forbidden in Islam. Rano, who spoke during the special Juma’at prayer to commemorate the 2012 Nigerian army day celebration in Jos, said Boko Haram members were not “good Muslims” and termed their actions as “haram”.

One News Now: “The Christians, they don’t have confidence in the Nigerian authorities, especially the military, to protect them; this is because the military is dominated by Muslims,” he tells OneNewsNow. “That is why International Christian Concern would like to ask the international communities, particularly the United States, to put pressure on the government of Nigeria and to protect the Christians who are being persecuted.”

AllAfrica.com: “We are troubled each time there is an attack on any church and every mosque prays against Boko Haram because what they are doing is not Islamic as Islam views the killing of one person as the killing of humanity,” a representative of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) at the forum, Muazu Sani, said.

Christian Post: The Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram is allegedly planning to declare holy war on Southern Nigeria, where most Christians are concentrated, and might use food poisoning tactics to kill as many as possible, according to the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

AP: A rescue official says more than 98 people have died since Sunday after a trio of church bombings sparked reprisals in northern Nigeria.

The Church Report: Suicide bombers killed 21 people in attacks on three churches in Nigeria during Sunday services, exacerbating religious tensions in a West African nation that is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians

AP: A radical Islamist sect on Monday claimed responsibility for Sunday’s suicide attacks at two churches in the city of Zaria and another in the city of Kaduna that left 21 people dead, according to an initial count.

Christian Post: At least six people were killed and dozens injured after a suicide bomber allegedly from Islamist terror group Boko Haram detonated explosives outside a church, and gunmen from the same outfit opened fire at worshippers in another church on Sunday.

Catholic Culture: Archbishop Ayau Kaigama of Jos implored his people not to seek retribution, saying that acts of violence would play into the hands of the terrorists. “Most Muslims are against Boko Haram,” the archbishop said.

Persecution.org: “The suicide bomber came to the security check point of the Living Faith Church in Honda car. When he was approached by the security operatives for checking, he refused to stop; instead he ran and hit the security gate of the church and immediately the bomb he was carrying in his car detonated.”

StarAfrica.com: The attacks in Nigeria and Kenya on Sunday 29 April left over 20 worshippers dead and numerous injured. “These atrocious and barbaric massacres must stop. Defending freedom of religion is an absolute priority for Italy”, said Minister Terzi.

AP: No group immediately claimed responsibility, but the attacks bore similarities to others carried by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.

allAfrica.com: IS this a case of politics carried too far, genuine fear requiring explanation or could there be any merit to the claim that Rauf Aregbesola, governor of the State of Osun is bent on Islamising the State?

AP: Nigeria’s president is vowing that his government will rein in the threat from a radical Islamic sect that has waged an increasingly bloody sectarian fight in the country.

Christian Today: The Nigerian government must do more to protect Christians after another church was targeted over the weekend, an advocacy group has said.

AP: The leader of a radical Islamist sect in Nigeria has challenged the nation’s president, saying he could never destroy the group blamed for hundreds of killings this year alone, according to an online video posted Thursday.

OnIslam.net: Muslim lawyers are planning to sue the state government of Nigeria’s largest state of Lagos to reverse a ban on the wearing of hijab at schools.

AP: A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives Sunday morning on a busy road after apparently turning away from attacking Nigerian churches holding Easter services . . .

AP: Nigeria is facing a “high risk” of a terrorist attack over the Easter holiday, the United Kingdom warned its citizens Thursday . . .

Barnabas Fund: A second church in the central Nigerian city of Jos has been hit in a suicide bombing in the space of two weeks; at least ten people were killed in the blast and violent aftermath.

Catholic Culture: Suicide bombers attacked a Catholic parish in the central Nigerian city of Jos on March 11, killing at least ten people.

Voice of America: Following Sunday’s attack, Christian youths seeking revenge beat to death two Muslim men in Jos.

BBC: A suicide car bomber has killed at least three people at a church in the troubled central Nigerian city of Jos, sparking reprisals by Christian youths.

Christian Today: Suspected Islamic extremists detonated a bomb outside a church building Nigeria on Sunday, two months after Boko Haram Islamists killed 44 Christians and blinded seven in a church bombing in nearby Madalla.

Catholic World News: After a new rash of bombings in northern Nigeria, and a clash between Boko Haram terrorists and government troops, Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri, Nigeria, has asked for prayers for local Christians.

News from The Associated Press: Nigeria’s secret police say they are searching for an ex-soldier in connection with a Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic church that killed at least 44 people.

News from The Associated Press: Police say suspected Islamic insurgents have killed five people in attacks on security targets in Nigeria’s restive northeast.

News from The Associated Press: Police say suspected members of a radical sect have attacked two more police stations, leaving two people dead in a north Nigerian city where 185 people were killed just over a week ago.

The Daily Star: Fears of new violence hung over Muslims at Friday prayers in the Nigerian city of Kano after Islamists who killed at least 185 people there a week ago threatened to strike again.

News from The Associated Press: Nigeria’s Supreme Court says it has fired five governors who overstayed their tenures.

Voice of America: A series of bomb attacks by Nigeria’s radical Islamist sect Boko Haram is challenging President Goodluck Jonathan’s government. The pace of the bombings has picked up in recent weeks, with attacks on police stations in the northern city of Kano and a Christmas Day suicide bombing at a Catholic church near the capital, Abuja.

BBC News: Nigerian forces have arrested 158 suspected members of the Islamist Boko Haram organisation in dawn raids in the northern city of Kano.

ChristianNewsToday.com: First hand report of a native missionary ministry leader supported by Christian aid.

Persecution Blog: Hundreds of Nigerian Christians fled from Yobe State after incessant Boko Haram (a militant Islamist sect demanding the rule of strict Muslim law in Nigeria) attacks took refuge in Jos, the Plateau State capital. Fleeing is a bit like jumping “out of the frying pan into the fire.”

BBC News (includes video): The head of Nigeria’s Christian Association says he is actively pursuing dialogue with his Muslim counterparts in an attempt to ease religious tensions.

News from The Associated Press: Nigeria’s army says suspected members of a radical Muslim sect have killed two Christians in separate attacks despite an increased security presence in the area

Julian Mann at Christian Today: It would be better for Nigeria, and indeed the West, if Christianity wins against Islamic extremism.

Telegraph: Nigeria’s president has declared a state of emergency in areas of the country hit by a growing Islamist insurgency, amid escalating violence in Africa’s most populous nation.

Catholic Culture: Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja–Nigeria’s capital–is urging the nation’s Christians to ignore an ultimatum, reportedly issued the Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram, to leave the northern part of the nation within three days or face attack.