The Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, inspecting St Francis Church in Owo after the attack, June 5 (photo @RotimiAkeredolu)
Lagos.— Three people killed in two attacks on churches in Kaduna yesterday are the latest of the many victims in a decades-long anti-Christian violence in northern Nigeria. But it is particularly worrying that one of the worst of such attacks on record occurred a fortnight earlier in Owo, a town in the south. The root causes are complex, but no one can deny that Christians are persecuted in Nigeria.
While Catholics world over were celebrating Pentecost on Sunday, with beautiful red vestments and beautifully adorned altars in red altar clothes, news filtered that in St Francis Catholic Church, located in a very quiet and peaceful village called Owo, in Ondo State, Nigeria was covered in red, not the red of decorations, but the blood of innocent men, women and children who were killed in Church.
This is no “murder in the cathedral”, this is a massacre that claimed 40 lives and left many more injured and traumatized and left the church drenching in blood –there was blood on the altar, blood on the floor, bodies on the pews, bibles and shoes soaked in blood. The massacre which occurred a few minutes after Mass ended, has left many asking what led to such an attack and who is responsible for the attack?
Government’s negligence
As of the time of writing the Federal Government accused Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) of being responsible for the attack, but the Governor of Ondo State, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, who incidentally is a native of Owo, faulted the Federal Government’s claim as been hasty and probably false as ISWAP members were known to take responsibility for their attacks. Consequently, little is known about the murderers and many have little trust in the Government’s quest and even capacity to apprehend them as the government has failed to find other perpetrators. Indeed, it’s common knowledge that the Government has failed in its primary duty of protecting lives and properties and they’ve become experts in releasing condemnation and condolence statements. With the Government’s incapacity, many Nigerians would not mind the 2nd Amendment.
The Government’s negligent attitude was well captured in the UK Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief report, “Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide?” The report stated that “another of the main drivers of the escalating violence is the Nigerian Government’s inability to provide security or justice to farmer or herder communities. Failure to prosecute past perpetrators of violence, or heed early warnings of impending attacks has facilitated the rise of armed militia which often form along ethnoreligious lines to protect community interests… The inability of the Nigerian Federal and State Governments to protect Christian farmers, and the lack of political will to respond adequately to warnings or to bring perpetrators of violence to justice, have fostered feelings of victimisation and persecution.”
The Parliamentary Group agrees with Amnesty International’s conclusion that failure to protect communities, as well as cases of direct military harassment or violence, combined with an unwillingness to instigate legitimate investigations into allegations of wrongdoing, demonstrate, at least, wilful negligence; at worst, complicity on the behalf of some in the Nigerian security forces.
Ethnic and religious factors
This incident in Owo is not isolated, for years now, there have been a series of attacks on places of worship, mostly churches, Christian religious leaders have been attacked, kidnapped and killed, and there have also been killings in the name of blasphemy. On the day of the Owo attack, there were also attacks on Christian clerics in other states. This attack comes exactly a week after the head of the Methodist Church in Nigeria was abducted, along with two other clerics in the south-east of the country, and freed after paying $240,000. Weeks earlier, two Catholic priests were kidnapped in Katsina and they have not been released.
No month passes without a report on an attack on a Christian cleric, faithful or property. It is now clear that religious identity is a factor in incidents of violence in Nigeria and the Christian communities are the worst hit, the frequency of the attacks has left many shaken and made people question, where in the country is safe if a Church a sacred place of worship isn’t?
“The northern Muslim elite has not developed a moral basis for adequate power-sharing with their Christian co-regionalists” (Bishop Matthew Kukah)
Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country and it’s roughly evenly divided between Muslims and Christians. The Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri ethnic groups are most prevalent in the predominantly Muslim North West and North East regions. Significant numbers of Christians, including some Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri, also reside in the North East and North West. Christians and Muslims reside in approximately equal numbers in the North Central and South West regions. In the South East and South-South region Christian groups constitute the majority.
Many have ascribed the continuous conflicts to the ethnic-religious hegemony and are campaigning for a split of the country along ethnic lines for the sake of peace but the Government has always been quick to dispel any insinuation of religion being the root of these attacks. No doubt, the root causes are often complex and they also relate to religious domination, competition over resources, and historical grievances but religious fanaticism and extremism, which have been left unchecked are a major cause of Nigeria’s security woes.
Discimnination
In a homily given at the funeral of Michael Nnadi, a Catholic seminary student killed by gang members in Kaduna State on January 31, 2020, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Matthew Kukah rightly captured the religious situation in the country. He said: “We are being told that this situation has nothing to do with Religion. Really? It is what happens when politicians use religion to extend the frontiers of their ambition and power. Are we to believe that simply because Boko Haram kills Muslims too, they wear no religious garb? Are we to deny the evidence before us, of kidnappers separating Muslims from infidels or compelling Christians to convert or die?”
Indeed, “the persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria is as old as the modern Nigerian state. Their experiences and fears of northern, Islamic domination are documented in the Willinks Commission Report way back in 1956.” Ever since, “the northern Muslim elite has not developed a moral basis for adequate power-sharing with their Christian co-regionalists.”
Specifically, “by denying Christians lands for places of worship across most of the northern states, ignoring the systematic destruction of churches all these years, denying Christians adequate recruitment, representation and promotions in the State civil services, denying their indigenous children’s scholarships, marrying Christian women or converting Christians while threatening Muslim women and prospective converts with death, they make building a harmonious community impossible. Nation-building cannot happen without adequate representation and a deliberate effort at creating for all members a sense, a feeling, of belonging, and freedom to make their contributions.”
According to Bishop Kukah, this is a defining moment for Christians and Christianity in Nigeria. “Christians must rise up and defend their faith with all the moral weapons they have. We must become more robust in presenting the values of Christianity, especially our message of love and non-violence to a violent society.”
The Nigerian government has been criticized by local and international NGOs and religious organizations for its inability or unwillingness to prevent or mitigate violence between Christian and Muslim communities, and if they fail to provide security, cycles of retaliatory violence are likely to increase. Amidst the persecution of Christians, there is a call for retaliation, for the return of the knights and crusades, but the Christian clerics are united in their proclamation of non-violence and prayers. Indeed, there is no lesson to learn from evil, but the Church has always matched evil with goodness. The Church has always confronted darkness with the light, and it will continue to be so.