Nigeria Elections Put Christians in More Danger of Attacks

NIGERIA ELECTIONS PUT CHRISTIANS IN DANGER OF MORE MUSLIM ATTACKS

Boko Haram, radical Islamist allies, have destroyed 1,000 churches in past four years.

Muslim persecution of Christians is at a high tide — and there are grave fears of more sectarian bloodletting as millions of people in Nigeria, which is half Muslim and half Christian, vote for their national leaders next month.

These religious atrocities cry out for media attention and political awareness, said Raymond Ibrahim, author of the monthly report “Muslim Persecution of Christians,” which has chronicled attacks on Christians in dozens of countries since July 2011. Mainstream media rarely cover attacks on Christians, even though they happen “all around the Islamic world,” Mr. Ibrahim said Tuesday.

Muslim-on-Muslim attacks can get broad attention — such as the April kidnappings of some 230 Nigerian schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram. The mass abductions so alarmed the world that first lady Michelle Obama brought attention to the social media campaign BringBackOurGirls.

But from August to October, Boko Haram and its radical Islamist allies destroyed nearly 200 Christian churches as they rampaged through towns and villages in northeastern Nigeria, said Mr. Ibrahim, a fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His monthly report is published by Gatestone Institute, an international think tank led by John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

In just four years, he said, Boko Haram has destroyed around 1,000 churches.

Nigerians are scheduled to vote Feb. 14 from a slate of several presidential candidates, including Christian incumbent Goodluck Jonathan and Muslim challenger Mohammadu Buhari, to lead the nation’s 173 million people. An election for local leadership will be held Feb. 28.

In 2011, Mr. Jonathan’s victory over Mr. Buhari triggered terrible sectarian violence in the Muslim north. More than 700 churches were burned, hundreds of Christians were targeted and killed, and thousands of Christian businesses and homes were torched. That violence occurred at a time when Boko Haram was waging its “campaign of terror,” human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe said in his testimony Tuesday to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, global health, global human rights and international organizations.

“Boko Haram has never seen a live Christian male it liked,” Mr. Ogebe said. Depending on the election outcome, Feb. 14 could turn into “a Valentine’s Day massacre for the poor Christians in northern Nigeria.”

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