Muslim Militants shoot Christian leader
By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent
ABUJA, NIGERIA (Worthy News)– A Nigerian Christian leader was killed Wednesday after armed militants burst into his home, according to BNL news service.
Two members of the Islamist Boko Haram sect shot Pentecostal Pastor Faye Pama Mysa, who was the secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria; the shooting followed President Goodluck Jonathan’s announcement of a state of emergency after a series of incessant attacks by Haram’s Muslim membership.
Jonathan called the state of emergency to address the “systematic effort by insurgents and terrorists to destabilize the Nigerian state and test our collective resolve”.
Mysa’s murder comes as tensions between Christians and Muslims were already severely strained after southern militants threatened a “crusade” against Haram, whose members killed 185 people last month alone.
The crusaders are a coalition of armed groups composed of political and religious activists, including “eco terrorists” who waged an insurgency in the heart of Nigeria’s oil producing province in 2005.
Christians have been especially targeted by Boko Haram, which translates as “Western education is sacrilege”. Hundreds of churches have been destroyed after Haram’s Islamists launched an insurgency from the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria in 2009.