METRO VOICE NEWS | Douglas Burton | May 6, 2019
Nigeria is on fire. Not that you would know that from the news coverage of the Western press, which rarely mentions the deadly killing sprees in this wealthiest nation of Africa.
In the first four months of the year more than 850 citizens have been murdered, 100 in the month of April alone, according to the International Society for Liberty and Rule of Law (Intersociety). Last year more than 6,000 Nigerian Christians lost their lives, leading John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, to call the killing “genocide against Christians by Fulani herdsmen aided by resurging Boko Haram terrorists,” according to the Baptist Press.
The killings take place on a broad swath of territory stretching across the nation’s northern states, or on its border with neighboring Benin, or Cameroun, and although the grim phenomenon has been building for years, the atrocities appear to be approaching tsunami strength.
Who’s killing who? In some cases the killers are so-called armed bandits who swoop down on lightly defended villages on motorcycles as they did on Thursday in Gobira and Sabawa villages in Katsina, a northern state bordering Niger. In that tragedy, at least 10 were killed by the bandits until they were chased away by police, according to Mark Lipdo, head of the Nigeria-based Stefanos Foundation. Or they may be hapless drivers caught by large gangs of kidnappers who halt traffic on the national highway from the capital of Abuja to the state capital of Kaduna an hour’s drive away. Drivers or passengers who resist capture are shot on the spot. Kidnapping gangs operate with impunity across the country. As a result, commuters are obliged to take standing room only on trains out of Abuja rather than risk the highway.