President Buhari stirs up anger with ‘90% of Boko Haram victims are Muslims’ comment

 

• CAN says comment false, provocative, unfounded
• Afenifere: Most of the mourning from Boko Haram killings are from Christians
• Ohanaeze: President should have been thinking of resigning
• JNI, ACF: President is right

 

BY OUR EDITOR

The President, Muhammadu Buhari, has literally set the country on fire with his comment that 90 percent of Boko Haram victims in Nigeria are Muslims, contrary to widespread perception that Christians were a major target of the terrorist group’s attack.

President Buhari’s latest comment is reminiscent of his popular 97% and 5% analysis of people who voted for and against him in 2015, when he was first elected as president.

Writing as a guest columnist in an international publication Christianity Today, the President made reference to the Chibok school girls abduction in 2014, shortly before he assumed office in 2015 and similar incident that saw the daylight abduction of 101 Dapchi school girls in Yobe State.

“Indeed, it is the reality that some 90 per cent of all Boko Haram’s victims have been Muslims: they include a copycat abduction of over 100 Muslim schoolgirls, along with their single Christian classmate; shootings inside mosques; and the murder of two prominent imams. Perhaps it makes for a better story should these truths, and more, be ignored in the telling,” President Buhari wrote.

All of the Muslim Dapchi school girls the President made reference to were returned barely 30 days after they were abducted while the only Christian girl, Leah Sharibu, remains in captivity two years on, because she refused to renounce Christianity.

In addition, no fewer than 112 Christian girls out of the about 276 Chibok school girls abducted since 2014, have remained in captivity in close to six years.

Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) reacts

Responding to the President’s assertion that 90 percent of Boko Haram victims were Muslims, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) accused President Buhari of playing international politics with lives of its citizens.

“The Christian Association of Nigeria notes with pains President Buhari’s unfounded, false, provocative and misleading assertion that 90% of Boko Haram victims are Muslims. On reading this misleading and provocative statement coming from the number one citizen of the country, one will hardly doubt that the President understands the difference between the real victims and perpetrators of the heinous crime against the Church and humanity.

“No wonder the Boko Haram is getting more attention from the FG in the name of rehabilitation and de-radicalisation than the victims who lost their lives, loved ones and living in the internally displaced persons’ camps,” CAN’s Director of Legal and Public Affairs, Kwamkur Samuel, told The PUNCH in an interview.

READ: ‘The game plan is to kill all Christians in northern Nigeria’

Samuel said it was disappointing to hear the President justify which of the two religions was suffering more from attacks of the terrorists.

He asked, “Are we into any competition with the number of the victims? Is there any life that should not be precious to Mr President?

“What is the source of the President’s records? He should bring out his records with figures and the Christians will present theirs! Is he calculating the figures brandished by security chiefs as victims killed by Boko Haram; killed during operations?

“We are so sure that even if the President combines the number of Muslim victims plus the number of the terrorists killed by the army, it cannot be up to half the number of the Christian victims of the insurgents.”

Samuel said Boko Haram from the outset did not hide their mission. “The sole purpose of Boko Haram is the killing of Christians and Islamisation of Nigeria,” he added.

JNI, ACF back the President

Both the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) and Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) agreed with the President that 90% of victims of Boko Haram are Muslims.

While the Secretary General of JNI Dr. Abubakar Khalid-Aliyu said claims by the President could not be disputed “because Muslims who engage in the pursuit of Western education are mostly their target” ACF, the apex Northern socio-political group said Boko Haram was not targeting Christians.

“The sect does not target only Christians but also Muslims whom they consider are not willing to adhere to their version of Islam.  We all know Boko Haram is not pursuing any jihad but in search of mundane things like political power,” Anthony Sani, Secretary-General of ACF said.

Afenifere, Ohaneze frown at President’s comparison

The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group Afenifere, did not mince words in responding to the President.

“From all empirical evidence, most of the mourning arising from Boko Haram killings are from Christians,” the group’s spokesman, Yinka Odumakin, said, controverting the President unequivocally.

Odumakin, who spoke to RELIABLESOURCENG.COM, added: “It’s most unfortunate that a President who took oath of office to protect all Nigerians could be giving the impression that the killings of Nigerians of a particular faith is (more) tolerable than others.

“The question to ask is whether the FG is doing census of the dead with their faiths on their foreheads or they are using Boko Haram diary?”

READ: FG, under Buhari, using Jihad to turn Nigeria into Sharia nation – Christian Elders

On its part, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, towed the path of the Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, saying that President Buhari should have been thinking of resigning instead of giving statistics of those killed by Boko Haram and their religions.

Its National Publicity Secretary, Prince Achi-Okpaga, in an interview with The PUNCH, asked, “Why is he giving us instances of those who have been killed? What we are saying is to stop the killings. The government has the capacity to stop them but the body language of the Federal Government is showing otherwise.”