Release International

Spare a prayer for the Christians of Maiduguri, northern Nigeria. For the second time in recent years their community has been torn apart by violence.

First it was the Danish cartoon riots in 2006, when a mob burnt churches and killed more than 60. Now an Islamist movement wants to impose extreme Islamic law across Nigeria.

The media has been calling these militants Boko Haram. It means, roughly, ‘Western education is sin’. Others call them the Nigerian Taliban, and some see links with Al Qaeda. But irrespective of any label or organisation, what unites this movement is a common cause.

That cause is the establishment of an Islamist theocracy based on a brutal interpretation of Islamic, or sharia law.

And here’s the rub. In northern Nigeria, where these extremists have been running riot, sharia law has already been imposed.

It seems that religious law can never be extreme enough for extremists. As Pakistan found to its cost, when it briefly allowed its own self-styled Taliban to impose sharia law in Swat valley.

Moderate advocates of sharia have long argued that Islamic law would apply only to Muslims. But events in Nigeria and around the globe reveal a different picture.

Among the many dead in Maiduguri are Yakubu Sabo, a father of seven and Church of Christ pastor. He was hacked to death with machetes, while five churches were razed to the ground.

And the group that did this is said to be behind the violence in Bauchi where Christians were killed, driven from their homes and their churches destroyed.

Islamist violence is a global problem that a local war on terror in Afghanistan cannot solve. Rather, western intervention has united a new wave of radicals against a common enemy – ourselves – masking the bitter sectarian struggle for the heart of Islam taking place between moderates and militants.

So what can Christians do? Through the tears Hannatu Joseph has found a personal way to halt the spread of hatred. She lost three sons in 2006 when militants set fire to her home in Maiduguri and pushed her children back into the flames.

She told Release International: ‘I have forgiven them. It was very difficult, but Jesus did it for me. Jesus is my saviour, who came to this world to give his life for sinners… so that they can have eternal life.’ Hannatu and others in Nigeria are obeying Christ’s costly call to love their enemies. The hatred stops at the foot of the cross.

Release International is working with partners in Nigeria to support Christians caught up in the violence. Please help us to help them - and spare a prayer for the Christians of Maiduguri.

Andrew Boyd’s documentary on Maiduguri, The Remains of the Day, is available from www.releaseinternational.org

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