The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) says 32,000 Muslims were
killed within three years in Nigeria.
Ishaq Akintola, director of the organisation, said this on
Thursday at a media briefing in Lagos in reaction to the request by five US
senators for Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, to re-designate Nigeria
as a country of particular concern (CPC).
In December 2020, the US listed Nigeria among countries
blacklisted for “violating religious freedom” under the CPC designation.
However, in November 2021, Nigeria was removed from the
list.
Citing the attack on St Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo
state and the lynching of Deborah Samuel, a female student of Shehu Shagari
College of Education, Sokoto, the senators wrote to Blinken, saying there is no
“demonstrable improvement in the country’s religious freedom conditions”.
The senators who signed the letter are Josh Hawley, Marco
Rubio, Mike Braun, James Inhofe, and Tom Cotton.
Speaking on Thursday, Akintola accused the Christian
Association of Nigeria (CAN) of claiming that only Christians are being killed
in Nigeria and of lobbying US politicians until the five senators wrote to
Blinken.
He said to claim that the federal government is failing to
protect the religious freedom of Christian citizens is a “shameless attempt to
upturn the facts of history”, adding that millions of Muslims have faced
harassment in southern Nigeria.
“Boko Haram in particular has killed, maimed and displaced
more Muslims than Christians, more Muslim clerics and more Muslim traditional
rulers have been killed or kidnapped than Christians,” he said.
“Most importantly, more Muslim majority states are under
siege by these terrorists than Christian majority states while more Nigerian
Muslims have been impoverished by insecurity than Christians. Insecurity in
Nigeria has had greater impact on Muslims more than Christians but our
Christian neighbours are standing history on its head.
“The US should not encourage Nigerian Christians who are
entangled in a cobweb of entitlement syndrome. Christian leaders are taking
advantage of the precarious security situation in Nigeria which has been
compounded by the Libya factor.”
Akintola challenged the US senators to provide the source of
their claim that 4,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria as at 2021, adding
that Christian leaders are simply capitalising on the enormity of the security
challenge facing Nigeria.
“But the fact remains that 90% of the victims of Boko Haram
and ISWAP are Muslims and the operations of these terrorist groups are mainly
restricted to the North where Muslims are the majority. Therefore, Muslims
constitute majority of the victims of violence in Nigeria. No data can dispute
that even if it is from a satellite operating on Jupiter,” he said.
“Boko Haram killed 37,500 persons from 2015 to 2018. Of this
figure, 32,000 were Muslims, while 5,500 were Christians. This means that 85%
of those killed were Muslims. Mosques have been bombed or burned. Imams,
Shaykhs and emirs have been abducted and killed. But CAN still wants to deceive
the world by claiming that it is Christians alone who are being killed in
Nigeria. CAN has lost all credibility.
“The reason killing of Christians appear more pronounced is
due to difference in burial culture. Nigerian Christians display bodies of
their victims and may even delay their burial for days, if not months, while
Muslims bury their victims almost immediately without any fuss. It is photo
trick and camera magic that egg on emotions.
“Terrorists are
destroying mosques and killing the Muslim worshippers inside in their hundreds.
Yet Nigerian Christian leaders say only churches are being attacked. It is
absolutely absurd and incomprehensible.”
The MURIC director also said there have been reports of Christians
launching “premeditated and well-coordinated attacks on Muslims on several
occasions” and mentioned several examples including attacks on Fulani herders
in the south-east.
He, however, said there are still good Christians in Nigeria
and appealed to them to “disregard CAN’s false allegation and incitement”.
“It has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that CAN is a
lying cartel. If CAN has lied more than once, it can lie again,” he added.
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