Nigeria: Two Christians Murdered after call to Jihad

Yet another post about Christians being threatened or attached in Nigeria. Apparently, these two were attacked after a Muslim leader called on Muslims to wage Jihad against young Christians. The call for Jihad was made in a sermon broadcast on television during Ramadan:-

One man has been killed with a sword and another bludgeoned to death in this city in central northern Nigeria following Muslim leaders’ appeal to wage violent jihad against youthful Christians.

Muslim extremists on October 12 murdered Henry Emmanuel Ogbaje, a 24-year-old Christian, at an area known as Gamji Gate. The following day, church leaders said, a young Christian identified only as Basil was beaten to death with wooden clubs in the same area.

Ogbaje was a Sunday school teacher with the Military Protestant Church at Kotoko Barracks in Kaduna, while Basil, church leaders said, was a member of the Our Lady of Apostles Catholic Church. He was from Kagarko Local Government Area.

Elder Saidu Dogo, secretary of the northern Nigeria chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass that Islamic leader Sheik Gumi had urged Muslims to wage jihad against Christians during Tafsir, the reading and interpretation of the Quran, in televised broadcasts during the Islamic month-long observance of Ramadan.

“I saw Sheik Gumi on the television, NTA [Nigeria Television Authority], during that period preaching this inciting sermon – in fact, the same sermon was again broadcast by NTA Kaduna, on September 21 and 22,” Dogo told Compass. “He specifically called for a jihad, and that when they go killing they should not kill the elderly people, because the elderly have spent their years already, but that Muslims should kill young Christians.”

. . .

Both murders took place as Muslims were celebrating the Eid-El-Fatr festival marking the end of Ramadan. Noting that other Muslim leaders also preached attacks against Christians during Ramadan, Dogo raised a plea for the Nigerian government to act quickly to forestall what he and other Christian leaders said was a systematic effort to wipe out Christianity from northern Nigeria.

This is Sheikh Ahmed Gumi, son of the late Sheikh Abubaker Gumi, who was a noted Islamic scholar. The son, apparently, spends most of his time in Saudi Arabia and only visits Nigeria during Ramadan.