The Nigerian armed forces on July 30 had launched a full-scale military onslaught on followers of the Boko Haram group, which says it represents Islam and is seeking the strict imposition of Muslim religious laws.
Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua has ordered an inquiry into the circumstances of the death of the leader of the group, Mohammed Yusuf. Police say he was killed in a gunfight, but a senior army officer said the Boko Haram leader had been alive when he was captured and turned over to authorities.
The national secretary of CAN, Samuel Salifu, speaking to journalists in the Nigerian capital Abuja, accused the governor of Northern Nigeria’s Borno State, Ali Modu Sheriff, of covering up the death of Yusuf and that of alleged group supporter, Alhaji Buji Fai, a former state commissioner for religious affairs.
“CAN is of the opinion that Yusuf and Fai should not have been silenced in a hurry,” said Salifu, suggesting that Governor Sheriff had links with the two men, and that they had been killed before they could divulge information about their supporters.
“We are not saying that he [Yusuf] should live, having destroyed over 900 lives, but we wanted to know exactly who were behind these things and there are more questions that are coming,” said Salifu.
The press director of the Borno State government, Usman Ciroma, however, dismissed the CAN allegations as baseless. “It is quite unfortunate that such a highly-respected organization could make flippant accusations like that. How would it serve our interest to kill our people?” Ciroma stated Members of the Islamic group, described by authorities as a sect, attacked
government buildings, police stations, schools, and churches in a series of rampages at the end of July. In the Hausa language spoken in Nigeria’s north, Boko Haram means, “Western education is sinful.”
The chairperson of the CAN in the northern region, the Rev. Yuguda Zubagai Ndurvuwa, said that the Boko Haram in Maiduguri, Borno State, burned down 20 churches and killed four Christian clerics during the attacks.
Nigeria is almost evenly divided between Christians and Muslims with the northern population being mainly followers of Islam and Christians being more numerous in the south. In a statement, the Geneva-based World Council of Churches urged the Nigerian government to ensure the safety of all citizens, noting that
violence between different communities had claimed the lives of more than 12,000 Nigerians over the past decade. “Reports from various sources confirmed the fact that the reasons for this violence are rooted in politics rather than religion. Widespread poverty, corruption, poor governance, and political instability continue to push the country towards violence and insecurity,” said WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia, a Methodist from Kenya.
