The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has rejected claims by the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’’ad Abubakar, that Christians were not persecuted in Nigeria.
“He got it totally wrong,” a statement by CAN signed by its Director of Legal and Public Affairs, Samuel Kwankur, Samuel, has said.
Kwankur cited the murder of 11 Christians by Islamic State in West Africa Province.
He said the sultan, who is the President-General of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, should have kept quiet instead of contesting the facts.
“It was painful reading in the media that the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Sa’ad Abubakar III, said there was no case of Christian persecution in the country where Christians are being killed on a daily basis and their landed property confiscated.
“It would have been better if the Sultan had remained quiet the way he did when those killings were taking place,” Kwamkur said.
He said the Fulani herdsmen killed hundreds of Christians in Southern Kaduna, Benue, Plateau, Adamawa and Taraba states wondering why the sultan did not speak up against those killings.
He said, “According to a highly respected organisation, the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, a British non-profit organisation run by a member of the British House of Lords, Baroness Cox, no fewer than 1,000 Christians were killed by the Fulani herdsmen this year alone while about 6,000 have been killed since 2012 and 12,000 displaced. If this is not persecution, what is it?
“If those who were responsible for the genocide in the Middle Belt were Fulani atheists ‘whose main interest is to protect their cattle,’ what stopped him (Sultan) from condemning the unprecedented genocide?
“By the way, if Fulani atheists took it upon themselves to be killing Christians the way they did in Benue, Southern Kaduna and Plateau, will it still not be called Christian persecution? Do the Fulani atheists have the right to kill people the way they did and are still doing in some states?”
Kwamkur challenged the government to be fair to all Nigerians by addressing the various cases of religious persecution.
