Church warnings of vigilante violence in Nigeria

June 20, 2011
By George Conger

Church leaders in Nigeria have urged the government to act swiftly in combating terror attacks on Christians.

The murder campaign in the North waged by Islamist Boko Haram sect known as the Nigerian Taliban could ignite a sectarian war in the South with Christians seeking revenge against Muslims, the Anglican Bishop of Awka warned.

Last week, the fundamentalist sect bombed a Roman Catholic Church and a police station in Maiduguri, killing eleven people, while on June 7 a Church of Christ in Nigeria pastor the Rev. David Usman and the church secretary were gunned down by members of the cult. Last week’s murder follows a 2009 attack on Mr. Usman’s church by Boko Haram militants, who burned it to the ground and killed several members of the congregation.

Boko Aram, which is a Hausa phrase meaning “non-Islamic education is a sin,” is a militant Islamist group founded in 2002 in Maiduguri by Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf. In 2004 the group began an armed struggle against the government that culminated in a pitched battle with the security forces in July 2009 that left over 700 people dead. After the revolt, the police reported Yusuf had died in custody while resisting arrest. the rest