ICC Note: New Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has talked tough against Boko Haram and even mentioned the violence in Nigeria’s “middle-belt” by Fulani herders in his inauguration address. Buhari’s rhetoric is causing some Nigerian Christians to gain confidence that he will actually play a role in lessening Christian persecution in the north. If a Fulani Muslim, Buhari, were to accomplish this, it would represent a significant shift with the way that Christian minorities in the north have been treated by Muslim extremists in the last couple years.
6/15/15 Sokoto, Nigeria (Information Nigeria) – Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Kukah has expressed hope that President Muhammadu Buhari will address the challenges being faced by the Church in Northern Nigeria where Christians are “treated with so much contempt and tolerated like nuisance”.
Reacting to President Buhari’s inaugural speech, Bishop Kukah noted that “He said things that had never been said before. And I hope that he will have the ability and capacity to deal with some of those issues.
“The issues demand salient questions. For example, why is it that churches are treated with so much contempt and tolerated like nuisance in Northern Nigeria? Why is it they have become subject of attacks? Why is it that despite the provisions of the constitution, the right of worship is being frustrated in the North? I don’t think that there is a single governor in far Northern Nigeria that can proudly say that he has signed a certificate of occupancy allocating land to Christians to build churches? Most of the lands that Christians have are lands that were given by the colonial administrations. This is totally unacceptable. And Christians have to buy land to build churches,” he told Vanguard in an interview.
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