Bella Ifasola
Lagos – The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Most Rev Matthew Kukah, has decried the unjust treatment of Christian faith in Nigeria, with the unimaginable persecution of Christians in the Northern region.
Bishop Kukah spoke on Friday in Lagos virtually at the Silver Jubilee Anniversary of the Order of the Knights of St Mulumba Nigeria Eko Subordinate Council.
“If you look at our country – Nigeria, the issue is that, in Northern Nigeria, Christians constitute some of the groups that you can kill without consequences. You can ask yourself; has anybody ever been charged for burning churches or for destroying Christian properties,” he questioned.
“The perpetrators are allowed to move freely without facing punishment.”
With the themed: ‘Christian Martyrdom in Nigeria…a Building Block or Stumbling Block to Salvation or Patriotism,’ the cleric lamented that despite all the atrocities committed against Christians in Northern Nigeria, not a single individual had been charged to court for the incidents.
“A pastor was slaughtered openly in Adamawa. People, priests were killed in Benue. Priests have been killed in Kaduna.
“It seems as if killing Christians is the only thing the world can do without consequences. That means that if you are serious as Christians, Catholics, what happens to the church in Ikwerre, what happens to the church in Sokoto, what happens to the church in Onitsha, what happens to the church everywhere in this country should affect us. Tragically, you know, Christianity has become largely subordinated to ethnicity.
“Many people today still have a caliphate mentality that those who are not part of us must be against us. And this is the fate of Christians and Christianity in many parts of Northern Nigeria today, where Christianity is being tolerated. Christians are being denied lands to build churches, and it is not seen as a problem. In a place like Kenya, I have a problem of that nature right now as we talk,” local newspaper, Vanguard quoted Kukah as saying.
He maintained that whether people listened or not the gospel must be preached.
The cleric said: “We must preach the gospel, welcome or unwelcome. Preaching the gospel has no political and ethnic boundaries. It is not about friendship. If it is about friendship, Jesus would have said to Peter, get behind me. When we are confronted, martyrdom is not just about being killed. Because, of course, in the end, you are killed for speaking the truth. I remember in the days of Abacha, many times people used to say to me, oh Bishop, if you don’t keep quiet, you will be killed for nothing.
“I am saying so because we now need to come to terms with the essence that every day of our lives as Christians, we are challenged to martyrdom. Martyrdom because a sword is dangling before us.
“Martyrdom because we have a country, we have a society, we have a world that is so morally broken that every day the whole question of what is right and what is wrong has been circumscribed by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. When martyrdom comes to us, we embrace it, we are not in retreat.
“The challenge, therefore, is for us to come to terms with these realities and how they can be addressed. Here in Sokoto, for example, I have lost a seminarian, I have lost a priest, my priests have been kidnapped, not once, not twice. But my immediate reaction is that in all of this, we are only inspired.
“People look at me and they say to me, why are you going back to Sokoto? I remember when Deborah was killed, I was out of Sokoto. People were saying to me, how are you going back to Sokoto? When my seminarian, my priest, was kidnapped and released last month, people asked if I was still going back to Sokoto.”
More than 300 Nigerians have been killed in relation to blasphemy allegations between 1999 and 2024, according to an available statistics.
Many of the perpetrators have not faced prosecution, prompting outrage and calls for justice from human rights activists and religious leaders across the globe.
Since 1999, thousands of people have been mobbed to death for allegedly committing blasphemy, while 5 persons were reportedly taken to court. Most of these incidents occurred in the northern states of the country, such as Kano, Bauchi, Sokoto, Kaduna, Gombe, and Jigawa.
Despite assurances from the Nigerian police about arresting the culprits, no arrests were made at the scene. Moreover, there is no documented instance in Nigeria of anyone being prosecuted or imprisoned for murders linked to accusations of blasphemy in the country.
Blasphemy is an offense under Islamic Sharia law, effective across Nigeria’s twelve majority Muslim northern states. Section 204 of the Nigerian criminal code stipulates a two-year imprisonment for “public insult on… religion.”
Nonetheless, charges of blasphemy are typically brought by Muslims against Christians or other Muslims. Blasphemy laws seem at odds with Sections 38 and 39 of the Nigerian Constitution which guarantee freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and expression.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has declared them, i.e., blasphemy laws, inconsistent with universal human rights.
While western governments and international nongovernmental organizations can apply pressure on the Nigerian government to abolish ‘blasphemy’ laws, such can achieve little across northern Nigerian states where, for good or ill, a deeply conservative and coercive interpretation of Islam continues to hold sway.
The grip of conservative Islam on northern Nigeria is tightened by poverty and illiteracy. According to the World Bank, 87 percent of all the poor people in Nigeria live in the northern part of the country.
Data from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) also show that illiteracy is concentrated in the north.
The northeastern state of Yobe has a “7.23 percent literacy level, the lowest in the country.” In 2017, President Buhari established the North-East Development Commission (NEDC) “to lead the reconstruction and development of Nigeria’s northeast.”
Blasphemy killings are seen as religious duty in Nigeria’s north, the attackers shout “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) while carrying out a killing for blasphemy.