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In Gwoza, you will hardly find one Christian in all the settlements. Any Christian who goes home would see what happened there and run away. Many of them have moved out to Abuja and other cities. The villages are deserted; they have left even local government headquarters. A place like Chibok is predominantly Christian but people have left the villages around Chibok town as a result of series of attacks.
Where Rev. Andimi hails from is about six kilometres from where the last settlement is. Askia Uba is the last area north where Christians are. Right south you find Christians, but north there are no people.
There are two major armed Islamic jihadist groups terrorizing Nigeria and its defenseless citizens, particularly members of the Christian faith. Boko Haram was formed in as a ragtag violent group protesting local inequality, socio-economic downturn and failed political leadership in Borno. It was later hijacked and radicalized religiously by some Northern radical Islamists and criminals.
The terrorist and jihadist department of Herdsmen were created and are funded by extremist Northern politicians and security chiefs. The Fulani jihadists became devastatingly active immediately after the return to civil rule in late May They were formed and funded using the cover of existing Fulani rural cattle grazing in Nigeria. The mission of the terror group and its sponsors changed to jihadist Islamism in The change in its mission followed from the victory and emergence of Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, himself a Fulani Daji and a member of a conservative branch of the Muslim faith.
Buhari was a brutal dictator when Nigeria was under military rule.
He was elected as the sixth civilian president of Nigeria in late May Kefas recently interviewed some survivors of the highway abductions on Northern highways and they narrated their sad experiences while they were held captive by their abductors. Muslim farmers and their Mosques or homes are [never] attacked. This is important because a majority of farmers in Northern Nigeria are Muslims.
Apart from attacking Christian settlements in the North-Central, Northeast and some parts of the Northwest, Jihadist Herdsmen have also launched incessant attacks in the Southeast and South-south leading to death of no fewer than Christians since June That is sadly not the case. This lack of religious and ethnic security balance has fueled the untamed butcheries of Christians in Nigeria. This is because it is difficult to differentiate between the security forces and Boko Haram or Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and their genocidal activities. The Government of Nigeria and its security agencies have also come out boldly to defend the terrorist activities of Fulani Jihadists.
The Government also functions as their mouthpiece. The Government denies outright the casualty figures associated with Jihadist Herdsmen killings.
Or it mangles and minimizes the statistics. The Southeast is allocated a mere 29, square kilometers. The Army now has a strong economic interest in owning cattle, having Fulani herdsmen tend them, and expanding Fulani cattle grazing lands. This is a false narrative. There has been a steady influx of largely uneducated and religiously radicalized Northern Muslim youths into communities and cities in the Southeast and the South.
As at Dec , forests and bushlands of over Igbo communities, towns and hamlets have been forceably penetrated and occupied by violent Fulani Herdsmen. The Governor of Delta State, Mr. The killings took place on 16 Feb Several other instances point accusing fingers at Army or Police aiding the massacre of defenseless Christians or refusing to come to their rescue when they are under attack, only to emerge hours after such killings to arrest, detain and torture the same victim populations.
Summary Statistics: 11,, Christian Deaths since June Boko Haram killed Christians. A majority were Christians. Jihadist Fulani militias killed Christians between June and December Jihadist Fulani militias murdered 1, Christians in , 1, in and 2, in In , Jihadist Fulani militias killed between and Christians.
The Nigerian military and police have also accounted for 1, Christian deaths since June These included the killing of Christian Igbo citizens, Christian IDPs, over 50 Adamawa rural Christians, an estimated 70 Northeast Christian children and some Christian detainees who Amnesty International says were among the detainees starved to death at the Giwa Military Barracks in Borno State in The total Christian deaths at the hands of Fulani Jihadist militias since June is more than 7, Fulani Jihadists have replaced Boko Haram as the deadliest terrorists in the world.
This report is dedicated to victims of Islamic jihad in Nigeria. Emeka Umeagbalasi.
ICT Contacts:. Intersociety had monitored and documented killing of Christians in Nigeria since and spoken out against same using several dependable mainstream and online media platforms of local and international credibility. Also relied upon are reports from local and international rights and research organizations and credible Government accounts if any.
Massacres of Christians in Nigeria March 1 — April 2, The attacks took place between 11pm of Friday, 13th March and early hours of Saturday, 14th March In Southern Kaduna, a total of eleven Christians including a District Head and his brother were hacked to death by Jihadist Fulani militants. The killings took place between Thursday, 26th March and Tuesday, 31st March In one of the Jihadist Fulani militants attacks in the first week of March, no fewer than four Christians were hacked to death and three women raped including wife of a traditional ruler Tyoor Chado.
The killings by the jihadist Fulani militants have continued into the first and second day of April with burning to ashes and death on 1st April of at least seven senior citizens of Christian faith in Hulke and Nkiedoro communities located in Bassa Local Council Area of Plateau State. The killings were confirmed by the Zenger News. Those killed were all aged between 67 and In the carnage, at least 23 houses were burnt to ashes or destroyed. The herdsmen also in the early days of this month, April invaded Arimogija community in the Ose Local Government Area of Ondo State and killed a rice farmer, Jacob Odushe and his son, Adura as well as a teenager, Victor Ejeh, declared missing one week earlier.
The Major General made the claims widely believed to be officially scripted during his interview with the Sun Newspaper over the weekend.
These crimes a captured Christian must do in order not to be executed or beheaded by his or her jihadist captors. One of the reasons why Islamic jihadism persists around the world is because many Christians still hold on to the principle of pacifism. The Police twisted narrative immediately attracted supportive stance from the Presidency and some leftist Muslim bodies; thereby raising strong suspicion that the Government of Nigeria was behind the script.
Despite pressure from government officials for the Kaduna State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria Rev John Hayab to retract, the Christian Reverend refused and has maintained his stance that the captured terrorist is a Muslim, and is definitely not a Christian. When we started our journey in Kaduna, we met Maryam Ahmad. The year-old works for a non-governmental organisation NGO in Kaduna and uses the train service to visit her sister in Abuja on weekends. As she relaxes into her seat, she whips out her phone to take selfies and record videos with the cream-coloured interior of the train carriage in the background.
She will post them on Instagram, where she has thousands of followers.
It is a popular pursuit with many young travellers who document their train travel experience on their social media accounts. There is no e-ticketing facility, so you have to physically buy tickets. Furthermore, some passengers have accused train officials of hoarding tickets and selling them just before the train departs at inflated prices. It is fun travelling by train but the car parks are more accessible than the train station, both in Kaduna and Abuja.
For another passenger, Nafisa Abubakar, a year-old entrepreneur and resident of Abuja, the cost of the tickets is also a concern. It is better to pay 3, naira on the train than follow the road and be kidnapped. On the other side of the Kaduna-Abuja expressway at Rijana, we hail a Volkswagen van heading towards Abuja. There are seven other passengers cramped inside the vehicle. One takes us through the hills and farmland to the railway station, a journey of 10 minutes.
It is the peak of the rainy season and the road to the train station at Jere is waterlogged and inaccessible for vehicles larger than our motorbike. There is no sign of passengers waiting at the station; the only people here are the maize farmers tilling their nearby farmlands. The road to Jere station is waterlogged and inaccessible to larger vehicles at times during the rainy season. It will be the last train of the day, after which the station will close, so we decide to return to Kaduna. When the Kaduna-Abuja rail link was completed in , there was a buzz of anticipation amid hopes it would have a positive knock-on effect on the economies of satellite towns like Rijana and Jere.
Abdulaziz Halliru, a father of two in his 30s, lives in a new apartment 10 minutes from the Jere substation. He works as an estate agent and rears goats and sheep on the side. Halliru, who wears a pink Juventus shirt and grey tracksuit, says he has never used the train due to its limited schedule. But he still hopes it could bring positive economic developments to his town, especially in real estate.
Alternate seats are marked off with red masking tape, and the train conductors ensure passengers do not sit in them.
We squeeze into space at the end of the train between the luggage racks and the toilets and remain there for the hour-long journey to Rigasa station, the final stop in Kaduna.