Over the years, security concerns in Nigeria have taken a turn for the worse, as religious leaders have come under consistent attacks from gunmen in different parts of the country, despite Bible’s warning against such. While many religious leaders have been killed ‘in the line of duty,’ others have been kidnapped and maimed. PAUL OKAH in this report wonders why this has continued unabated.
The Bible is believed to be a moral compass directing Christians on how to live a life appealing to God. In most cases, religious leaders, including pastors, prophets, Imams, Reverend Fathers and the rest, are saddled with the responsibility of preaching the gospel to Christians and Muslims and winning souls for Christ or Muhammad.
Alarmingly, the same religious leaders have come under attacks from gunmen for varying reasons, despite the Bible warning in Psalm 105:15: “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm” and in 1 Chronicles 16:22: “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.”
Recent scenarios
Onn Thursday August 1, this year, a Reverend Father at St. James’ Greater Parish Catholic Church, Ugbawka, Enugu state, Paul Offu, was shot and killed on the Ihe-Agbudu Road in Awgu local government area (LGA) by unidentified gunmen.
The murder was barely five months after Rev. Fr. Clement Ugwu, the parish priest of St. Mark’s Catholic Church, Obinofia Ndiuno, in Ezeagu LGA of the state, was killed.
Fr. Ugwu, who was kidnapped on March 20, 2019, was found dead in a bush and had started decomposing after a one-week search by the parishioners.
Police, others react
The Commissioner of Police in Enugu state, Mr. Sulaiman Balarabe, on Sunday, August 4, said the police had been tracking some individuals suspected to be the killers of Rev. Fr. Offu.
Balarabe, while speaking on the efforts of the command to arrest the suspects, appealed to residents to assist security agencies with useful information that could help in apprehending the hoodlums.
According to him, “We are still tracking some individuals believed to be connected with the crime. However, soon, we will make arrest of some suspects.”
Not satisfied the police efforts and appeals, at least, 200 Catholic priests in the state marched round the major streets of Enugu metropolis on Friday, August 2, dressed in their cassocks, to protest the murder.
The clergymen took their protest to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who subsequently convened an emergency joint security meeting of the heads of security agencies in the state.
Decisions reached at the meeting included a joint aerial surveillance and patrol of forests in the state and thorough investigation of persons returning unauthorised firearms to the command within three days.
However, Fr. Offu was not the only one at the receiving end of the security lapse in the country, as victims have either been kidnapped or killed by gunmen in different parts of the nation.
Pastor killed, wife abducted
On Sunday, August 4, barely three days after the murder of Fr. Offu in Enugu, a resident pastor of the Living Faith Church in Romi New Extension, a suburb of Kaduna metropolis, Jeremiah Omolara, was killed by yet-to-be-identified gunmen.
The incident, which happened on the dreaded Kaduna-Abuja highway, when the pastor, his spouse and son were travelling to Abuja, had the cleric’s wife abducted.
According to different newspapers’ reports, the gunmen opened fire on their vehicle, killing the pastor on the spot and while whisking the wife away. However, the son was said to have escaped unhurt.
It was also reported that the abductors had contacted the family and demanded a ransom of N50 million.
Lady preacher murdered
Perhaps, the most gruesome of religious leaders killed ‘in the line of duty’ remains the death of Mrs. Eunice Olawale, a female preacher, who was murdered by suspected Muslim extremists in the early hours of July 9, 2016, while she was evangelising in Kubwa, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Eunice (born, July 23, 1974), from Ekiti state, a deaconess of the Divine Touch Parish of the Redeemed Christian Church of God and a mother of seven, was known to be leaving her home every morning at 5:00 a.m. before dawn to evangelise in the streets of the nation’s capital for many years.
According to online reports, several days before her gruesome murder, she overheard nearby Muslims commenting about her preaching, that she should be chased away. She also overheard another conversation from a mosque behind their home, which implied that her preaching wasn’t the truth about God.
After she informed her husband about what she heard, he advised her to be careful. After those incidents, Eunice suspended her daily morning evangelism for about a week after which she resumed, but was murdered between 5:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on July 9, 2016, after she left the house at the usual time to preach.
Accounts differ as to the exact manner she was murdered. Several reports stated that she was beheaded and stabbed. Other sources stated that she was stabbed multiple times in the stomach and the leg before bleeding to death. People heard her screaming Blood of Jesus! at about the time she was murdered, while her megaphone, Bible and mobile phone were left close to her body.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) gave the Nigerian police 14 days’ ultimatum to undergo further investigations pertaining to her murder and to bring the perpetrators to book. Six suspects were arrested in connection with the murder, but her death case remains unresolved.
Pastor, others kidnapped
While the murder of Fr. Offu was being carried out in Enugu on Thursday, August 1, five persons, hitherto, said to be pastors of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), but later proven to include the son of the late comedian, James Iroha (aka Giringori), a magistrate, a deaconess of the RCCG and two others were being kidnapped along Sagamu-Benin-Ore Expressway, on their way to the church’s congress in Mowe, Ogun state.
According to the Ogun state police command’s public relations officer (PPRO), Abimbola Oyeyemi, about ten hoodlums intercepted the commercial bus marked KW 230 XA in which the kidnapped victims were travelling from Abia state to Lagos.
Oyeyemi stated that the commercial bus, belonging to Abia Line Transport Company, was intercepted at the J3 area of Ogbere in Ijebu Waterside LGA of the state.
The police released the names of five victims kidnapped while on their way to the Redemption Camp to attend ministers’ conference to include: Chidioze Eluwa, Chiemela Iroha, Okoro Ohowukwe, Ndubuizi Owuabueze, and Ibeleji Chidinma (female).
He said the police had successfully “geolocated” the hideout of the kidnappers where the incident occurred, adding that the state’s Commissioner of Police (CP), Bashir Makama, had led a powerful police rescue team to the location to rescue the victims.
“Information at our disposal indicates that some people were travelling in a commercial bus from the East and at a particular spot some armed criminals came from the bush, forced the driver to stop and later abducted five of the passengers.
“Through surveillance, we have got to know their location but we don’t want to attack them (kidnappers) so that we won’t put the victims’ lives in danger. Their lives are more important to us,” he said.
Lucky victims
Fortunately, the five kidnap victims were later rescued by the police on Saturday, August 3. One of them, a lady, Chidimma Ibenegbu, narrated how God caused her to escape from the detention of the kidnappers.
Narrating her experience at the church’s conference ground on Saturday, she said their commercial bus ran into their abductors, whom she alleged to be herdsmen, who took them into a forest.
“I prayed to God to make them fall asleep and they fell asleep and continued to sleep until I began to make my way out of the bush. I was asking God for direction to the road,” she said.
Ibenegbu said she eventually came to a road and met a motorcyclist and narrated her story and the cyclist brought her to a police check-point.
She said she was interviewed by the police commissioner and her information led to the rescue of the other captives.
Possible reasons
Narrating his experience at the police officers mess in Abeokuta on Saturday, August 3, Mr Iroha said they were made to walk some 30 kilometres into the forest, that their captors said they were kidnapped to pay for the bullets expended on a high-profile target who eventually escaped.
He said their abductors humiliated and tortured them with any object they could lay their hands on, adding that he had no doubt their attackers were “Fulani herdsmen”, judging from their spoken language and appearance.
Iroha further said they were not given food or water throughout the three days they were held captive in both creeks and land, adding that respite, however, came when a police surveillance helicopter hovered over the area, even as he said the kidnappers became uncomfortable with the development and had no choice other than to abandon them and fled.
He said: “Well, it’s an experience I wouldn’t wish for my enemy because it looks nice for me to stand before you, but you needed to see me when I got rescued. I was manhandled, I was roughened up, I was tortured: name it. It’s horrible where this country is driving at. This gentlemen shot for like one hour on the road unit policemen and they ran away. They took us inside a forest and kept us there till this morning.
“The pressure the police put on them led to our release. If there was no pressure, they would have had a field day. We were held, put in a slum where we slept with insects and reptiles. We moved like 30 kilometres inside the jungle where nobody had treaded. From the language they spoke, they are pure Fulani herdsmen; there is no doubt about it.
“They don’t know me, I don’t know them either. In fact, they told us that they don’t have business with us, but the car they were shooting at drove away with bullets. The guy managed to go with two tyres and they turned back and descended on us. They picked us randomly. We never knew them from Adam. They just said their bullets will not go away. They needed someone to pay for them and they took us.”
What the police said
The Ogun state commissioner of police, Bashir Makama, speaking with journalists, said four suspects were already arrested in connection with the kidnapping of five people in Ogun.
“You will recall we had a situation where five persons were kidnapped precisely on 1st of August at about 3:30 along Shagamu -Ore, Ogun state, that is around Ogbere to be precise. Four male and one female were taken into captivity by kidnappers, who stopped them on the highway and diverted or took them into the forest, the search commenced that same day. There were massive deployment of policemen into the area and search commenced right into the forest.
“It didn’t work out first day, again the search continued. All the deployments we had were massively supported by the local vigilantes and hunters, the helicopter didn’t stop its work; we still had air surveillance that was massively and thoroughly conducted around the bush and geo-locations.
“Well, as God will have it this morning, the first victim which was the woman, was rescued very early this morning and she has since joined her family at the Redeemed Church of God. The remaining four men, the search continued for them, the pressure was mounted, the policemen lined up although, and as God will have it, they were equally rescued unhurt. That is to say the five persons that were kidnapped were all rescued unhurt.
“Arrests were made, in such cases, there might be no direct arrest, but soft targets — those who buy food, those who gave information, those that are suspected, that was why I said other things that happened at the forest is for investigation. I am not aware of ransom being paid, but they were rescued. Arrested so far in connection to this case were about three or four, because I was personally there.”
CAN reacts
In his reaction on Monday, August 5, the Kaduna state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Joseph Hayab, decried the increasing rate of abduction and killing of clergymen.
He further recalled that the parish priest of Kasuwan Magani, Kajuru local government area, was attacked by gunmen at his resident and a security guard was killed the previous week.
Hayab said they do not want a situation where they will be forced to think of how to protect themselves, adding that he believes that government is there to protect them.
Hayab told newsmen that, “The killing of the Pastor Omolara and the abduction of his wife is sad and devastating. We are just not safe anywhere and we are asking the same question we have been asking; where are our security agencies?
“Are we being told tactically that we should defend ourselves? If we start defending ourselves, it means that we no longer have security or we no longer have government. Or is this government only for those they love and they don’t care about others?
“We feel strongly that the federal government and the inspector-general of police should do something about Kaduna, since we have a governor who feels he knows everything.”
