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Leaders in Benue, Nigeria, are seeking to give Christian farmers AK-47s for self-defense after suspected militant herdsmen killed at least 70 Christians in several days of attacks there.
Militant herdsmen is such an odd moniker. Who actually are they?
“We are standing on our request for the federal government to give us a license for our Volunteer Guards to bear AK-47s and other sophisticated weapons,” Morning Star News on Oct. 25 quoted Anthony Ijohor, a spokesman for Benue Gov. Samuel Ortom. “The security agencies have been overstretched and, that being the case, our people have to defend themselves.”
They are requesting permission from a distant capital to defend themselves. For all of her troubles, America still has some things right.
Gabriel Suswam, an area senator and former Benue governor, also called on Christians to defend themselves.
“Since the federal government has gone to sleep and does not care about the security of the people,” Leadership Nigeria quoted Suswam Oct. 22, “it is time for them to rise up and defend themselves. We cannot continue to allow herdsmen terrorists to keep on killing these peasant farmers and destroying their property.”
“herdsmen terrorists?”
Ijohor and Suswam made the comments following days of attacks during the week of Oct. 16 by terrorists suspected to be militant Fulani herdsmen. More than 70 residents in majority Christian areas of Benue state were killed, more than 100 were injured and thousands were displaced, Morning Star reported.
In 2018, 6,000 Nigerian Christians, mostly women and children, were killed between January and June.
“In just two days, over 70 Christians were killed by Fulani militiamen in Gbeji community in our local government area,” Morning Star quoted Terumbur Kartyo, chairman of the Ukum Local Government Council in Benue. Udei and Yelewata villages were also attacked, Terumbur told Morning Star.
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Elsewhere in Nigeria, a mother and child were killed and others were injured during worship Oct. 16 at Celestial Church in Kogi state, International Christian Concern reported.
Two militants arrived on motorcycles, shot the woman and her daughter, and injured an unknown number of others, ICC said, attributing the report to Jerry Omodara and identifying him as Kogi’s top security official.
“It looked like it was organized against that particular church, because their altar was burned with petrol they went with,” ICC quoted Omodara.
Who would do that, random motorcycle terrorists?
In Nigeria, more Christians are killed for their faith than in any other nation, Christian persecution watchdog Open Doors said in its 2022 World Watch List report. An estimated 4,650 Christians were killed in the 2020-2021 reporting year, Open Doors said, compared to 3,530 the previous year.
Open Doors ranked Nigeria as the seventh most difficult nation for Christians to live.
The Voice of the Martyrs, in its 2022 Global Prayer Guide, designates Nigeria as a hostile nation.
Why won’t the article call them Muslims? Are they Islamo-fascists? Muslim Jehadists? The author and editor seem at pains to avoid calling this what it is. If you won’t directly confront the reality of what’s happening and who and what your enemy is, you will never defeat it.
Are those precious Christian souls being killed for their faith by enemies of Christ or not? Seems like these Christians need to start forming militias. And ChurchLeaders.com needs to hire some editors that are, ahem, Church Leaders.
While Christians are not called to take the world by force of arms, at the same time, we have a duty to God to protect life (Exodus 20:13), especially those weaker (Psalm 82:3, Exodus 22:22) and particularly of our own family (Exodus 20:12, 1 Timothy 5:8). For history and context, see this short post by Herschel on gun control in Nigeria and the rise of Boko Haram Muslim mass murderers.