Source:      www.compassdirect.org

Date:         April 23, 2007

Clerics unimpressed by Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, but his opponent was more hard-line.

by Obed Minchakpu

KATSINA, Nigeria, April 23 (Compass Direct News) – Christians fear that persecution especially in predominantly Islamic northern Nigeria will increase following the election on Saturday of Muslim Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as president.

As governor of Katsina state in northern Nigeria, Yar’Ardua imposed sharia (Islamic law) and presided over a system of deliberate denial of land for building churches, as well as government agencies that arbitrarily closed some churches, Christian leaders told Compass.

Major political parties in Nigeria nominated only Muslims from the north as part of an unwritten agreement among leaders that the presidency would alternate between north and south. Yar’Adua and his primary opponent, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People’s Party, are both Muslims from Katsina state.

The apparently fraud-tainted elections mark the first time a civilian leader has handed over power to another since independence from Britain in 1960. Democracy returned to Nigeria with President Olusegun Obasanjo’s election in 1999.

Obasanjo, a Christian, designated Yar’Adua of the ruling People’s Democratic Party to succeed him as the party’s candidate.

The Rev. Bulus Polit of the Evangelical Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) in Jos, told Compass that between the two Muslim presidential candidates, Buhari was the more hard-line Muslim who would have presented greater problems to Christians in the country.

Polit, pastor of an ECWA congregation at Angwan Jarawa in Jos, added that Yar’Adua “was imposed on the people by President Obasanjo. This is not democracy. He will not be different either. Christians will still face the problem of persecution.”

The election of Yar’Adua will aggravate the problems of Christians in northern Nigeria, Rev. Polit said. “Our fear is that under a Muslim president, religious liberty will be eroded.”

Along with 11 other Muslim governors, Yar’Adua adopted Islamic law in northern Nigeria seven years ago. The Rev. Canon Bala Williams, an Anglican priest with St. John’s Cathedral in Katsina, said Islamic law in Katsina state “has impinged on Christian liberty.”

“We have not been allowed to worship freely, as churches have been denied places of worship,” Williams told Compass. “In the GRA [Government Reservation Area], for example, it is not possible to get land for places of worship by Christians.”

The Anglican priest said churches in Katsina were built decades ago, long before religion became a prominent factor in Nigerian politics.

“Many times, churches have been threatened with eviction and relocation out of Katsina town, and it was only when Christian leaders protested that the implementation of this policy was suspended,” Williams explained.

Williams said the Anglican Diocese of Katsina has two churches in Charanchi and Bakori towns that were built over three years ago, but that the Katsina state government under Yar’Adua banned the use of the church buildings.

“We have a church in Charanchi town,” Williams said. “We built this church, but we have been forced to abandon it. So also, in Bakori town, we have built a church, but we have also been denied its use by the government.”

As a result, he said, members of the church in Charanchi have no place of worship, while those in Bakori now must travel to Funtua town to worship in an Anglican church there.

The Anglican Church in Katsina state has about 2,000 members with two indigenous priests from the Hausa ethnic group. The Hausa are predominantly Muslim.

Unresponsive to Christians

Alhassan Adamu, Secretary of the board of a high school owned by the ECWA in Katsina town, ECWA Secondary School, told Compass that as governor Yar’Adua was unresponsive to a plea to keep a state agency from halting completion of a sanctuary construction.

“We have this church sanctuary standing out there,” Adamu said. “We started this building a few years back, but the completion of this sanctuary has been stopped by the state government agency KUPDA. Our minister here, the Rev. Aliyu Auta, went to see Gov. Yar’Adua on this issue, and he promised he would do something about it, but we are now at the end of his tenure as governor and nothing has been done.”

Persecution of Christians has become commonplace in the state, Adamu said. He listed problems there: persecution of converts from Islam to Christianity, denial of land, destruction of churches, discrimination against Christians in public service, forcing of Christian students to abide by Islamic dress code and denial of admission to Christian students in public schools.

“We have a church in Dutsima town where the building was destroyed and the church taken to court,” Adamu said. “The church has been ordered to stop work.”

Last year, he added, the state government said it was relocating all churches out of Katsina town. “The case has just been suspended, and I am sure this policy will eventually be implemented,” he said. “It is just a matter of time and this will be done.”

While many Christian leaders are concerned, the Rev. Nevin Mshelia told Reuters Christians need not panic.

“There is no cause for alarm, because a reasonable Muslim president may even be better than a bad Christian president,” Rev. Mshelia, secretary general of the Christian Association of Nigeria’s branch in Maiduguri, told Reuters.

But the Rev. Dr. Kevin Aje, Roman Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, told Compass that he believes Christians will experience more difficulties, especially in northern Nigeria.

“Christians must be prepared to insist that hard-line Islam is not imposed on the country,” he said. “Let them [Muslims] not import hard-line Islam like the one being practiced in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, and bring it to Nigeria, because the people here come from diverse religious backgrounds.”

Bishop Aje said Islam must be practiced within the cultural context of Nigeria’s diverse people, as Christianity is. “Christianity encourages brotherhood and living in peace with each other,” he added.