Nigeria faces ‘sustained campaign to wipe out Christianity’ while government does nothing

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute (DHPI) Johan Viljoen has joined other leaders in stating that Nigeria is facing a “sustained campaign to wipe out Christianity,” and that the government is doing nothing to stop it, Crux reports. The DHPI is a part of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

Rights groups have long warned of a pending Christian genocide in Nigeria: according to the International Christian Concern non-profit advocacy organization, 43,000 Nigeria Christians were murdered and 18,500 abducted by Islamic militants between 2009-2021. “We are dealing here with a sustained campaign to wipe out Christianity in general and the Catholic church in particular. No Christian is safe,” DHPI director Viljoen accused in a statement to Crux after four Catholic nuns were abducted on August 21.

While Christians have been consistently targeted by well known Islamic terror groups such as Boko Haram, they have been most threatened by Fulani jihadists. One of the largest ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Fulani people are 99 percent Muslim and are mostly entirely peaceful. However, elements in this group have been radicalized and drawn into jihad to become the fourth most dangerous terror group in the world.
One of the major issues concerning rights groups is that Nigeria’s current president Muhammadu Buhari is also Fulani, and he has done next to nothing to stop the ongoing slaughter and terror of Christians in his country.

In his statement to Crux, Vilijoen pointed out: “[President Muhamadou Buhari] himself is the patron of Miyetti Allah, a Fulanis’ organization. No ‘armed gunmen’ are ever arrested or stand trial. His government has stood for the right of ‘cattle herders’ to occupy any land. Governors who have tried to rein them in face opposition from the federal government,” Viljoen said.

In a separate statement to Crux, Marcela Szymanski, head of advocacy for Aid to the Church in Need International, the Nigerian government does nothing as “Islamist extremists and criminals in Nigeria abduct the sole providers of social services to the most vulnerable, leaving thousands destitute and hungry… [the government] looks the other way, and the West calls them ‘preferred partners’ because they have oil and gas!”

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