Nigeria: Muslims attack church, beat pastor, chase women away for praying on Friday
There is freedom of religion for Christians in some parts of Nigeria: the freedom to practice their religion on any other day aside Fridays.
Islamic adherents hold the special Jumat prayers on Fridays. It seems some of the Muslims near an area in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, want no “competition.”
That was the reason hoodlums believed to be Muslims attacked Saint Philip Catholic Church in Baki Ikun along Kaduna Road in Suleja on Friday.
“We were praying inside the church when some Muslim youths with dangerous weapons besieged us from nowhere, beating everyone in sight, including security guards attached to the church,” one of the church members said after the attack which left many injured.
“They kept shouting that it is only Muslims that have the right to pray on Friday. That was the reason they gave for attacking us.”
The Muslims youths, numbering about 200, damaged the church altar, instruments, and many other installations during the attack.
Church members said they could have been killed had they not been able to escape from the scene as the Muslim young men destroyed church properties.
“Sometime around 2pm, some Muslim youths in their hundreds left their mosque after their Friday Jumat prayer and rushed to the church premises, climbed the wall and destroyed everything in the church: the windows, the altar, musical instruments, the chapel,” Rev. Fr. Luka Sylvester Gopep, the Vicar-General of the Diocese said.
“The security man in the church premises was beaten to pulp. Some women who were holding a prayer meeting were chased away.
“The seminarian who is resident in the premises was also beaten up and chased away,” he said.
The area, although near Abuja, is under the jurisdiction of Niger State.
State police spokesperson Bala Elkana said he was relieved no one was killed in the attack.
He said the police saved the day by responding to the scene on time. But he didn’t say if any of the attackers was arrested.
The church attack came days after suspected Islamic extremists murdered Eunice Elisha, a Christian preacher, in Abuja.
President Muhammadu Buhari continues to play deaf to the attacks, a stance some Christian leaders say could be sending a wrong message to Nigerians.
After a woman was killed in Kano for allegedly insulting Islam’s holy prophet Mohammed, Buhari had addressed the nation calling on his countrymen to “let us respect each other’s religion”.
