There was a horrifying attack yesterday in Nigeria, 16
people were gunned down on Bayero University campus in northern Nigeria. They
have been attending religions services when small bombs went off inside the
church. This drew them outside where they were shot by armed gun men. Before
the police had time to respond the assailants had left the area on motorcycles.
Although no group has claimed the attacks, the tactics are similar to that of
the radical Islamist group, Boko Haram.
For years sectarian warfare has torn Nigeria apart, the
north is predominantly Muslim and the south is predominantly Christian. The
sectarian strife takes hundreds of lives every year as people fall victim to increasingly
radicalised groups. The rise in the number of Christians over the past half
century has helped as Islam is now contested as the prime religion of Nigeria,
the current president is a Christian. Nigeria’s democracy is weak and could
easily collapse if enough pressure was put on it.
Attacks are common from both sides of Nigeria, with churches
being the primary target. Unfortunately it marks a trend in the increase in
sectarian violence across Africa, we must help the Africans to overcome their
differences and try to adopt a Sierra Leone attitude continentally (Sierra
Leone has one of the highest levels of religious tolerance in the whole world).
International companies must try and re-invest in the communities whose
resources they are plundering, especially the oil companies.
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