The General Overseer of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye leads protest against worsening insecurity in Nigeria on 2 Feb, 2020. COURTESY PHOTO
Today, Sunday, 2nd of February, 2020, Christian leaders in Nigeria including Pastor E.A Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God embarked on a prayer walk aimed at offering prayers and supplications unto God to save Nigeria from being consumed by insurgents, terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers, militants and ritualists in all the states.
Nigeria has over the years registered several cases of Christian Persecution, and a recent report by the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART) found that around 1,000 believers were killed by Islamic militants during 2019 alone.
Less than three weeks back, Pastor Lawan Andimi, a leading person in the Christian Association of Nigeria, was abducted and beheaded by the Boko Haram terror group, as reported by Uganda Christian News.
Away from that, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), an offshoot of the Boko Haram terrorist group, released a video on 20 January, 2020 showing the execution of a 22 year-old Nigerian Christian student from Plateau State.
Moving on, extremists in Nigeria interrupted a church choir practice on 18 May 2019, and abducted 17 Christians including a pastor and his daughter. The Christian Association of Nigeria reported that the kidnappers demanded N30 million ($83,100) in ransom.
Reports how that the religious violence in Nigeria is dominated by the Boko Haram insurgency, which aims to impose Sharia on the entire nation.
Right now, Nigeria is half Christians and half Muslims. Christians dominate the south, while Muslims make up the majority of the north and middle belt.
Speaking out on the prayer walk conducted after a 3-day national fast, Pastor Adeboye observed: “We carried and displayed several placards saying ‘No’ to further killings and demanding that the Federal and State governments should rise up to their civic responsibility of securing the lives and properties of her citizens,”
“In addition to this, we suggest that the security infrastructure in our nation be overhauled and improved drastically. It is our prayer and burning desire that peace will reign in our land. It is our heart-cry that our current security challenges will be a thing of the past,” he added.
Open Doors USA ranks Nigeria as 12th on its annual list of countries to watch, lamenting in its report that Christians outside the southern sector “are treated as second-class citizens” and subjected to “physical injury, loss of property and pressure to give up Christianity.”
