2 years later, 'most feared terror group' still holds schoolgirls
Bishop: Boko Haram 'getting help from somewhere'
Published: 9 hours ago
276 mostly Christian schoolgirls were abducted by Boko Haram in late April 2014. More than 200 remain in captivity, their whereabouts unknown.
Nigerian Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah has what many have called the toughest job of any Catholic in Africa.
As bishop of Sokoto, he serves a four-state diocese within northwestern Nigeria that is 95 percent Muslim. Supporters of Boko Haram, which has declared its allegiance to the Islamic State and been called the “world’s most feared terrorist organization,” live among the Muslim community.
Marking the two-year anniversary of Boko Haram’s kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls, the Catholic Bishop was in the U.S. on speaking tour last week. He said Western governments have not done enough to help get the girls returned to their Christian homes.
Commenting on recent video images of the girls kidnapped in 2014, Kukah expressed relief that “the girls are still alive” and appeared to be healthy.
Amnesty International has said some of the girls have been forced to fight or carry out terror attacks.
Boko Haram has killed some 5,500 civilians in Nigeria since 2014.
First lady Michelle Obama led the #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign in May 2014.
image:
http://www.wnd.com/files/2016/05/Michele-Obama-bring-back-our-girls.jpgMichele Obama bring back our girls
But Kukah says “political intrigues” involving the U.S. and European governments have “relegated the fate of the girls to the chessboard of politics.”
Kukah spoke April 26 in New York as part of a U.S. speaking tour sponsored by Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic organization that helps persecuted Christians in the Middle East and Africa.
In a phone interview with WND, he said the Sokoto diocese includes an area where Catholics make up a small minority of 400,000 within a Muslim population of almost 20 million. Shariah is the law of the land, and Christians are treated as second-class citizens.
“We must not treat the fate of these girls in isolation or even Boko Haram’s strategy of abducting these girls,” the bishop said. “Our children remain at great risk in Nigeria, but especially girls who are often married off at young ages as reluctant brides.”
In northern Nigeria, he said it is not uncommon to find girls as young as 8 or 9 forced into marriages with men in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s or even older.
“Such practices have paved the way for exploitation by Boko Haram,” he said. “That’s why it is not enough to send these children to schools but to take additional steps to protect them while they are there.”
Militarily, the Nigerian government has racked up major victories against Boko Haram over the past six months, but they have yet to free the girls and there is fear that the terrorists could be regrouping in some other country, possibly neighboring Niger.
“We know they are getting support from some place,” Kukah told the Catholic news agency Crux. “Our experience in Nigeria is that if we were simply dealing with a local organization, the battle would have been over a long time ago. There’s been a tremendous mobilization of resources and personnel [for Boko Horam] that’s clearly beyond the capacity for the local Muslim community.”
Kukah said it’s difficult to pinpoint where the support is coming from, but Boko Haram has made a lot of money from kidnappings, drug running and human trafficking. And there is a possibility they could be using the kidnapped girls as a bargaining chip for some large payoff.
The city of Sokoto is the capital of the old Islamic caliphate that ruled northwest Africa for more than 100 years until it was overthrown by the British in 1903.
While freedom of worship is enshrined in the national constitution, and Nigeria is still at least 55 percent Christian, the north of the country is dominated by Islam and Shariah. The Christians there feel cut off not only from their brothers and sisters in the West but even from Christians in southern Nigeria.
“So the conditions for Christians are not good at all, but the good thing for those especially in the Catholic Church is we are not numerically strong but we do have some influence. We have 22 primary and secondary schools. The problem is that over a period of time the Muslims have come to associate Christianity with the West, since their caliphate was destroyed by the British they believe Christianity is a product of Western imperialism,” Kukah told WND.
This means Christians, while free to attend church and worship Christ in their homes, do not have the same rights as Muslims in northern Nigeria. They are largely prevented from having positions of authority in public schools or other government agencies.
“So some of the rights like access to land to build churches and schools, those are areas where we are having a lot of difficulties,” Kukah said. “The government refuses to sign the relevant papers. They won’t give the land directly to you for a church, so you have to have someone else buy and then lease.”
Often a bribe must be paid to the government official before he will authorize such a deal.
“It’s not uncommon for some prominent Christians to buy or even give away their ancestral land for a church,” the bishop said.
Kukah said Muslim elites in northern Nigeria have for years cultivated the anti-Christian environment that Boko Haram eventually came along and exploited.
“This is not really in doubt, but the point I am making is the Muslim elite is responsible for some of the policies and encourage what Boko Haram is doing,” he said. “If you decide to treat Christianity as a foreign religion, then you have created the conditions for people that whatever they do against Christians the politicians are going to look the other way.”
And this is what often happens when a church is burned or girls are kidnapped.
“This sets the table for Boko Haram,” he said. “So my argument is that really the only way to resolve this issue is for the Muslim elite to protect the rights of all citizens and encourage all children to complete school and provide the type of good government that people deserve. This will be the best antidote against the Boko Haram violence.”
He said Christianity is seen as an extension of Western imperialism, but also it is feared by the Muslim elites who see its appeal to the hearts of everyday Muslims. The Catholic Church is seeing its membership rolls grow despite its status as a persecuted minority, Kukah said.
“Just the outright hatred of Christians, those aspects exist, and many Muslims can see Christianity growing in their midst, churches are growing. They don’t like that,” he said.
“Yes, we are seeing Muslims converting,” he added. “They’re not flocking in numbers, but they are especially with the situation with Boko Haram and the way the church has responded through medical care and feeding. The reports we are getting are that a great deal of Muslims are beginning to see Christianity in a different light. They expected one thing only to be welcomed by Christians, and this is an opportunity to evangelize as Christian people are communicating the love of Christ.”
He said in northern Nigeria there are nearly 10 million children living on the street.
“We have 10 million kids on the streets, and that is partly the result of their religion, which encourages them at age 5 to leave the home for Quranic education. After they finish that, they are roaming the streets,” he said.
“As for Boko Horam, there is very little more they can do. The only thing I think is outstanding with Boko Haram is the fate of the abducted girls, which the government is negotiating. But beyond that, they have lost their capacity to hold any ground. So I feel like their days are numbered; the evidence is just so because they’ve been routed out of their territory and are no longer controlling any piece of land.”
While the growth of Christianity has empowered Christians to have a voice in the public square, it has also come up against a backlash from Boko Haram and its silent supporters.
Kukah told Crux that American and European Catholics haven’t done much to support his struggling churches. Unlike many evangelical denominations in Nigeria, he said “solidarity” is lacking among Catholics.
“I very much appreciate the invitation [to speak in the U.S.] from Aid to the Church in Need, but we require far greater solidarity from the American and European churches than is presently the case,” he told Crux. “On a monthly basis, Pentecostal pastors from the States are flooding into Nigeria, bringing money and other support for their congregations here. The evangelicals in Nigeria have received millions from their American counterparts to help survive the excesses of Boko Haram, but the Catholic Church doesn’t have the same commitment. Muslims, too, have resources pouring in from the outside, but often we Catholics find ourselves almost literally standing alone.”
And Boko Haram, in the bigger picture, is the tip of the iceberg.
“Boko Haram’s linkages with terrorist groups such as al-Shabab, al-Qaida, Ansaru, the Azawald National Liberation Movement, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, the Taliban and, of course, ISIS, all suggest that we have a long way to go,” he said.
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