RLPB 296. Nigeria: Boko Haram to face regional force; polls postponed

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 296 | Wed 11 Feb 2015

NIGERIA: BOKO HARAM TO FACE REGIONAL FORCE; POLLS POSTPONED
By Elizabeth Kendal

Boko Haram mimics Islamic State in Syria and Iraq: seizing territory, declaring a Caliphate, taking 'infidel' women captive, telling Christians to convert to Islam or get out and rejecting borders imposed by former colonial powers. In Nigeria's north-east state of Borno, over 1.5 million Nigerians have fled Boko Haram terror. Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, now hosts over a million internally displaced persons (IDPs) more than doubling the population of the city, which is straining Maiduguri's facilities severely. There are more than 87,000 Nigerian refugees in Diffa, south-east Niger (one-sixth of the population); some 47,000 in north Cameroon's Maroua refugee camp; and when Boko Haram sacked Baga in January, killing 2,000 people, some 14,000 fled across Lake Chad into southern Chad. These IDPs and refugees are totally destitute and the communities hosting them are under immense strain.

CAMEROON: On Thursday 5 February some 800 Boko Haram militants attacked the town of Fotokal, burning mosques and churches, stealing livestock and shooting villagers. More than 90 people were killed and over 500 wounded. A spokesman for the Cameroon military, Colonel Didier Badjeck, reported that Boko Haram used civilians as human shields, making it exceedingly difficult for the army to respond. Eventually the jihadists were forced back across the border.
NIGER: On Friday 6 February Boko Haram jihadists attacked the towns of Bosso and Diffa in the south-eastern corner of Niger, firing mortars into the towns from the Doutchi bridge over the Yobe River (which forms the border). A stray mortar landed in Diffa's central market, killing a child and wounding 20 local residents, six critically. The jihadists also attempted to raid the Diffa prison before the Niger Army repelled them. According to the defence minister, the battle claimed the lives of 109 militants and four Niger soldiers.

REGIONAL FORCE BEING ASSEMBLED: On Saturday 7 February, the governments of Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin agreed to establish an 8,700 strong regional force to finally dismantle Boko Haram. France has sent a reconnaissance plane and ten military advisors to Niger to assist. The regional force is expected to be ready for deployment in March.

CAMEROON: On Sunday 8 February Boko Haram jihadists attacked the village of Kerawa (where they clashed with the Cameroon Army) and the nearby town of Kolofata (where they stole food and livestock). They also hijacked a bus near the border area of Koza, driving it back towards Nigeria with some 20 captives, 12 of whom were subsequently killed after the jihadists decided to keep only the young girls.
NIGER: Early on Sunday 8 February jihadists shelled Diffa again while battling Niger soldiers on the south-eastern edge of Diffa. On 9 February jihadists who had smuggled themselves into Differ the night before attacked the prison again. The Niger government has declared a state of emergency in Diffa, thereby increasing the powers of the security forces and allowing them to search homes.

screen grab from video

VIDEO: On 9 February Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a new video in which he mocked the plans for a regional force, saying Boko Haram would welcome the troops before picking them off one by one. Linking his jihad to the global jihad, Shekau ranted: 'We never rose up to fight Africa. We rose up to fight the world. We are going to fight the world on the principle that whoever does not obey Allah and the Prophet [must] either obey [convert] or die or become a slave [dhimmi].'

NIGERIAN POLLS POSTPONED: On Saturday 8 February Nigeria's National Security Advisor, Sambo Dasuki, urged Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to postpone the elections on the grounds the military could not provide nationwide election security while all available resources were being deployed to the north-east to fight Boko Haram. The INEC agreed and Nigeria's general elections will now be held on 28 March with gubernatorial polls on 11 April. Dasuki vowed there would be no further postponement as all known camps belonging to Boko Haram will be destroyed (supposedly) in the next six weeks. Dasuki's claim there was no political motive underlying his call for a delay has not stopped the Opposition accusing President Jonathan and the ruling PDP of postponing the polls to give themselves more time to counter the ascendency of northern Islamist presidential candidate Major General Muhammadu Buhari and their party. A legal challenge to Buhari's eligibility to contest the election will be heard in the Federal High Court in Abuja on 23 February. There is concern that northern Muslim opposition elements will use the postponement and the legal challenge as pretexts for rioting. Any insecurity can only benefit Boko Haram.


PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT:

* vulnerable Christian communities across Muslim majority northern Nigeria, south-east Niger and northern Cameroon, as well as throughout Nigeria's mixed and volatile Middle Belt, will know and experience God as their refuge and strength, their very present help in trouble. (Psalm 46)

* the Lord will extend grace and mercy to the innocents and captives trapped in Boko Haram-controlled territories as this conflict unfolds, for they will certainly be exploited as human shields and targeted for 'revenge'. Pray especially for Borno's exceedingly vulnerable Christian communities, for they will be gravely imperilled. (Psalm 46)

* President Goodluck Jonathan and all other Christian leaders and lay-people across the region and  throughout the world will fall to their knees and put their faith in the Lord of hosts who alone can ensure the success of this mission to finally dismantle Boko Haram.

'And David inquired of the Lord, "Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you give them into my hand?" And the Lord said to David, "Go up, for I will certainly give the Philistines into your hand."  And David came to Baal-perazim, and David defeated them there. And he said, "The Lord has broken through my enemies before me like a breaking flood." Therefore the name of that place is called Baal-perazim [the God who breaks through].' (From 2 Samuel 5:17-25 ESV)


SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE  
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BOKO HARAM TO FACE REGIONAL FORCE; NIGERIA'S POLLS POSTPONED

An 8,700-strong regional force is being formed to finally destroy Boko Haram. Comprising troops from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin, the force's expected deployment is in March. Boko Haram has driven some 1.5 million Nigerians from their homes, with around one million in Maiduguri (Borno capital) and some 155,000 in Niger, Chad and Cameroon where Boko Haram has escalated its attacks recently. The Nigerian elections have been postponed to 28 March and the Opposition is protesting vigorously. Concerns are that if opposition elements riot, then the insecurity will only benefit Boko Haram. Pray for the Church in Nigeria's mixed, volatile Middle Belt and for vulnerable Christian communities in the Muslim north. Please pray for the traumatised and devastated Christian communities across southern Niger and northern Cameroon. Prayer: Psalm 46.

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Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

RLPB 295. Nigeria: violence looms ahead of elections

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 295 | Wed 04 Feb 2015

NIGERIA: VIOLENCE LOOMS AHEAD OF ELECTIONS
By Elizabeth Kendal

Nigerians will go to the polls on Saturday 14 February [subsequently postponed to 28 March] to elect federal and state parliaments and a president. On 28 February, Nigerians in 29 (of 36) states will return to the polls to elect state governors. Unlike previous years, these elections will essentially be a contest between the People's Democratic Party (PDP), which has ruled Nigeria since its return to democracy in 1999, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), a new party formed in February 2013 when several PDP defectors joined a merger of four leading opposition parties. There is widespread expectation that this will be the closest contest to date, with a presidential run-off likely. It is also expected that violence could erupt along political lines and quickly evolve into a religious conflict.

Though actually a secular party, the PDP is widely regarded as a Christian alliance with a strong presence in the south. The PDP's manifesto enshrines the principle of 'zoning' or power-sharing, which sees the PDP rotate its presidential candidates between north and south every two terms. In 1999 and 2003 the PDP presidential candidate was a southern Christian. In 2007, when it was the north's turn to field the candidate, the Muslim former governor of Katsina in Nigeria's north won the presidency for PDP. When he died unexpectedly in May 2010 his Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian from the Niger Delta region, assumed the presidency. Jonathan was then elected president in 2011. The Nigerian constitution does not mandate 'zoning' and does allow for candidates to be elected twice. Therefore Jonathan is within his rights to stand for re-election with his current Vice President, Namadi Sambo (60), a Muslim from the volatile Middle Belt state of Kaduna, as his running mate. However, northern Muslims believe it is the north's turn to hold the presidency, not the least because the opposition is playing this card for political gain. Therefore this could see Jonathan and the PDP lose some support across the north.

The APC is widely regarded as a Muslim alliance with a strong presence in the north. While the APC accuses the PDP of pandering to Christians, the PDP accuses the APC of being a 'Muslim Brotherhood' or 'janjaweed' ticket. [The janjaweed are horse-borne militants.] The APC's presidential candidate is retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari (73), a former military dictator who has contested the presidency three times (in 2003, 2007 and 2011). Buhari is hugely popular in the north. In 2011 he campaigned on an Islamist platform, telling Muslims they should not vote for a Christian. Before the 2011 polls Buhari warned that rioting would ensue if he were cheated of his victory by the rigging of polls. Subsequently, 2011 saw the worst election violence in Nigeria's history, with some 800 lives lost over three days. In 2012 Buhari likened the struggle between the predominantly Muslim Hausi-Fulani north and the predominantly Christian Yoruba and Igbo south as a fight between a dog and baboon, warning: 'If what happened in 2011 should happen again in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.'


As in 2011 Buhari is attempting to 'launder' his image of being an Islamic fundamentalist by taking a southern Pentecostal Christian pastor as his running mate. Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (55), a Christian from Lagos State, served as that state's Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice from 1999 to 2007. He is also a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), the wealthiest and most popular Pentecostal church in Nigeria with some 23,880 parishes in Nigeria and a membership of 12 million.

While the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) have thrown their support behind the PDP and are endorsing Jonathan for president. Despite this, polls indicate that Buhari is gaining traction in the mostly Christian south. Pastors who support Buhari have been assuring believers that Nigeria simply cannot be Islamised as 'we are too educated'. 

Despite a peace pact between Jonathan and Buhari, hate-speech and incitement are widespread. Ibrahim Shema, the PDP Muslim governor of Katsina state, was filmed in November addressing a political rally in which he likened the opposition to 'cockroaches'. He then asks, 'If you see a cockroach in your house what do you do?' The crowd responds, 'You kill it,' to which Shema adds, 'crush them'. Goodluck Jonathan has poured vast sums of money into pacifying the Niger Delta region; now militants there are threatening to return to conflict if Jonathan is not returned to power. The PDP and APC are accusing each other of fuelling the Boko Haram insurgency, which brings us to the problem of insecurity across the north. How will Nigeria's well over a million displaced persons (IDPs) vote when the electoral law states that voters must vote where they are registered? How will voting take place in war-wracked Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states -- especially in Borno where Boko Haram either totally or partially controls 20 of 27 Local Government Areas? The nation is polarising, the stakes are high, the economy is struggling due to record low fuel prices and there is widespread disillusionment, disappointment and anger.

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT GOD WILL:

* draw his faithful believers close, that they may find their security, peace and comfort in him. Pray especially for Christians in the volatile Middle Belt states and for the exceedingly vulnerable minority Christians in the Sharia states of the north, especially if voting does not go the way Muslims want it to go. Please pray for the Church in Nigeria: Psalm 46.

* protect, preserve and provide for his people; may they stand firm in faith and not only endure but shine as lights for his glory. 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want ...' (Psalm 23).

* use his awesome strength to still 'the tumult of the peoples' (Psalm 65:7).

UPDATE: For election results see RLPB 307 (27 April 2015).
Buhari wins by 3.1 million votes. Jonathan's gracious concession and appeal for peace defuses a tense situation.


SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE  
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VIOLENCE LOOMS AHEAD OF ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA

Nigerians go to the polls on Saturday 14 February. These elections will be the closest fought yet and it is expected that violence could erupt along political lines and quickly evolve into a religious conflict. Northern Muslims are angry that Goodluck Jonathan (a southern Christian) is standing as the People's Democratic Party's candidate, resulting in Jonathan and the PDP losing support in the north. Meanwhile, the opposition All Progressives Congress's candidate, Muhammadu Buhari -- an Islamist hugely popular in the Muslim north -- has been gaining ground in the south, especially since he appointed a Pentecostal pastor as his running mate. Hate-speech is pervasive, as are threats of violence. Please pray for Nigeria, and especially for the Church in the volatile Middle Belt and in the Sharia states of the north.

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Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today 
(Deror Books, Dec 2012).