By Emmanuel Ogebe, US-Nigeria Law Group
It is highly traumatizing indeed for all of us who have seen this replay ad nauseam to learn of the brutal lynching and burning of Deborah Emmanuel, a 200 level student and Sisters Coordinator for the Fellowship of Christian Students at the College of Education Sokoto over a WhatsApp chat.
Before her, Bridget Agbahime, the wife of a pastor was lynched in Kano state simply for asking a Muslim man not to perform his ablution in front of her market stall (a purely hygienic matter) on June 2, 2015.
Similarly, Eunice Elisha, an evangelist and mother of seven was lynched in Abuja for preaching in July 2016.
Both high profile cases occurred under the current regime, the killers confessed but they were NEVER prosecuted. You can only imagine the trauma their families feel re these unrequited murders.
In Nigeria, we have no Christians in prison for blasphemy. We have Eunices, Bridgets, Akalukas and and now Deborahs – instantly martyred without due process and no chance for appeal.
Today, even the muslim and ex-Muslim “blasphemers/apostates” are in prison and were tried – not killed. No Christian is in prison for this. They never make it that far.
Because of technological advances, we have the killers on camera. They recorded themselves. They must be brought to book as the Sultan has said.
It is a disgrace that Sokoto which is one of only two states that did not produce any students this year for WASC is killing students. It appears Boko Haram has won these two states. If they won’t improve themselves, they should not kill those who wish to.
I call on Nigerian electorate and delegates not to vote for politicians from Sokoto for any national office if they cannot act to hold accountable Nigerian citizens killed in their states. Indeed officials of a state that cannot produce WASC candidates are failures and cannot produce impact in a federal position.
HISTORICAL LIST OF RELIGIOUS LYNCHINGS IN NORTHERN NIGERIA & FCT
Below is the list of some of the people that have been killed by a mob of Muslims in Northern Nigeria.
In 1995, a group of Muslims broke into the police station and dragged Gideon Akaluka out of his cell and beheaded him for blasphemy.
On 14 July 1999, in the village of Randali in Kebbi state, a Muslim mob beheaded Abdullahi Umaru. The mob accused Umaru of blasphemy against Mohammed.
In 2006, Florence Chuckwu, a school teacher in Bauchi was killed with other 20 Christians in the town because she told a student to stop reading the Quran in the class while she was teaching the class English language.
On 21 March 2007, a mob of Muslim students and neighbourhood extremists lynched Christianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin, a mother of two and a teacher at Government Secondary School of Gandu in the city of Gombe. A student complained that Oluwasesin, a Christian, had touched a bag which allegedly contained a Quran, and had thereby defiled the Quran.
On 28 September 2007, a Muslim mob rioted at Tudun Wada in Kano state. The mob killed nine Christians, burned several churches, and destroyed the homes and businesses of some non-Muslims. The Muslims complained that Christian students had drawn a picture of Mohammed. The Christians reported that the violence erupted after they had prevented one of their members from converting to Islam.
In October 2007, a sharia court convicted Sani Kabili, a Christian and a father of six, of the town of Kano, of blasphemy against Mohammed. The court sentenced Kabili to three years in prison. In February 2009, an appeal court overturned the conviction.
On 9 August 2008, a Muslim mob in Kano state beat to death a fifty-year-old Muslim man who allegedly blasphemed Mohammed
On 4 February 2008, a Muslim mob besieged a police station and set it on fire in the city of Yano in Bauchi state. The police station was the refuge of a Christian woman whom the mob accused of desecrating the Quran. One report said that the woman had spurned an offer of marriage from a Muslim man and that he and his companions had seized the opportunity to riot.
In 2016, 74 years old Bridget Agbahime was beheaded in Kano for refusing to allow a Muslim do ablution in front of her rented shop.
In 2016, Evangelist Eunice Olawale of Redeemed Christian Church of God was lynched by a group of Muslims in Abuja for preaching
Many non-Muslims have been killed in many Islamic riots in the core north.
No one is actually safe in the region where blasphemy is placed above common sense, free thought and logical reasoning.