Nigerian Christians refuse government aid
Recent Muslim attacks on Christians in Bauchi State, Nigeria, killed 14 people and forced 4500 to flee their homes. The state government waited five days before offering relief materials to internally displaced persons. That aid has now been refused and refugees are demanding that the governor pay them a personal visit.
Lamenting bitterly, the displaced people said the state government has failed them for not putting necessary measures in place to salvage the situation. They were shouting “we don’t need the food. Government should go with their food. We want to see the governor, Yuguda, who has not visited us since Saturday nor send any government official. We voted him into power but he has rejected us because we are Christians.“
A human rights group has castigated the Bauchi government for failing to fulfill its most fundamental responsibility: protection of lives and property.
[T]he League for Human Rights has condemned the recent violence in Bauchi State, describing the frequent destruction of lives and properties in parts of the country as a failure of governance at various levels of government.
“The North cannot progress politically, socially and economically when there is no peace and when the region has become an abattoir where people’s lives and peace are constantly destroyed,” the group said in a statement.
The Christian Association of Nigeria earlier blamed the bloodshed and destruction on political and religious leaders in Bauchi State who “always manipulate religion at the expense of national unity”.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports on the events leading up to the outbreak of rioting.
The violence erupted after the burning of a mosque in the Railway suburb during the early hours of Saturday 21 February that was blamed on Christians. It is now believed to have been the work of militants seeking a pretext for violence in retaliation for events in November 2008, when rioting Muslims were shot dead for defying a government-imposed curfew in Jos, the capital of Plateau State.
CSW has been informed by local sources that on 13 February, a COCIN (Church of Christ in Nigeria) Church in the Railway suburb of Bauchi Town had requested that worshippers at a nearby newly-erected mosque cease using the church’s premises as a car park. This angered the Muslims, who reportedly threatened to return in large numbers the following weekend “to avenge events in Jos”.
The Bauchi State government says it has no plans to set up an inquiry into the recent mayhem.
[...] RECENT MUSLIM ATTACKS on Christians in Bauchi State, Nigeria, killed 14 people and forced 4500 to flee their homes. The [...]