An area of Kaduna state could signal the direction of the entire country.
By Michael Ireland, Chief Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net)
KADUNA, NIGERIA (ANS – Jan. 13, 2018) — At first the commercial motorcycle drivers needed clamored for his business, but when they found out he was going to Kwanti village, in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state, they all dispersed without haggling over prices.
Kwanti and its surrounding villages of large estates inhabited mostly by farmers have been taken over by armed bandits believed to be Muslim Fulani herdsmen and terrorists.
They are working in concert to terrorize local communities through kidnappings and thus force people from their lands, writes the Nigeria Correspondent in Commentary & Analysis for Morning Star News (www.morningstarnews.org). His name is being withheld for his protection.
“Even if you give me 1 million naira [USD$2,750], I will not take the risk to take you to Kwanti,” one of the drivers told him.
“Unable to convince one of them to be my guide to the area, I watched as they discussed in hushed tones among themselves in the Gbagyi language,” the correspondent said. “ approached them again with a Gbagyi greeting ‘Agife,’ and they engaged me in talk of how mine was a trip of no return. Finally one elderly fellow consented to take me there – at five times the usual charge.”
“If going to Kwanti will bring into the open our plight as a people, I am prepared to die for it so that my people can be rescued from kidnappers who have made our lives miserable,” the guide said.
On the one-hour drive to Kwanti, the Morning Star News correspondent did not meet a single soul on the roads. At every village he passed, the driver would stop and inquire how safe it was to proceed. The answer was always the same: “Watch out, but is the risk worth it?”
The “road” was a bush path that only vehicles fitted with special gears can negotiate. The guide was sweating profusely. Surrounded by forest, his eyes were roving from side to side checking for lurking kidnappers. To hi, they were traveling in the shadow of the valley of death, and the correspondent recited Psalm 23 to him, telling him that they were protected by the power above that is greater than that of the kidnappers.
“When we arrived Kwanti, we found a ghost village,” the correspondent said. There were four abandoned church buildings – Catholic, EKAS, Baptist, and Assemblies of God – and numerous houses deserted out of residents’ fear of kidnappers. “We met some few persons in the village who were moving their belongings out,” he writes.
Once inhabited by prosperous, large-scale commercial farmers, the village had been attacked by marauding kidnappers four times within one year, he learned. Many lives were lost, many people were kidnapped and millions of naira had been paid as ransom for mostly women victims.
The few people left in the village told him all the church leaders had left because all the residents had fled. He got a phone number of one of the pastors and called him. “He was shocked that I was in Kwanti. He urged me to leave the village immediately,” the correspondent said.
“The kidnappers are heartless,” the church leader said. “They can kidnap you if they spot you. They strike any time, and ransom must be paid before a victim can be released. Sometimes you may not be lucky to come out alive if they kidnap you. So please leave Kwanti now, and let me know if you’re out of the place safely.”
Other villages attacked within that triangular “axis of evil” include Ungwar Rimi, Bauta, Kunuko, Ronu, and Taso 2.
The correspondent continued: “On our way out, as a safety measure we took a different route out of the village, but like the road in, it had broken culverts that forced us to drive into stream water to find our way. My guide’s relief was palpable when we arrived back at Kaduna city, but even as we thanked God for journey mercies and protection, my heart was still with those in Kwanti struggling to move their belongings out.”
Surprisingly, the next morning some of the villagers phoned him to inquire whether he had safely reached Kaduna. They had been praying for his safe ride back.
The Morning Star News correspondent stated the federal and Kaduna state governments urgently need to investigate the extent of lawlessness in this triangular axis between Kajuru, Jere, and Sabon Wuse/Ganya. Officials need to take measures to end the kidnappings that have become dreaded monsters devouring innocent lives of our citizens.
Kidnappings are not just a menace in southern Kaduna state but are becoming a phenomenon pushing the country to the brink, the correspondent writes. Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church recently lamented that the whereabouts of three nuns kidnapped in Benin City, Edo state in southwest Nigeria, are still unknown after two months. They were abducted along with three student-nuns at a convent by armed gunmen on Nov. 13.
The Rev. Alfred Adewale Martins, archbishop of Lagos Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, told reporters on Jan. 1 of his sadness over the incessant invasion of churches, kidnappings of priests and pastors and attacks on Christian communities across the country.
“It is disheartening that the security agencies have not been able to get the sisters out, and one wonders why this is the case,” the archbishop said. “We still do hope that the security agencies would do much more than is being done now to ensure that the sisters are released.”
The reporter said Roseline Isiocha, Aloysius Ajayi and Frances Udi, along with the three nuns in training, were kidnapped at about 2 a.m. from a convent of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus (EHJ) Sisters, in Iguoriakhi village, near Benin City.
He concluded: “Unless drastic measures are adopted to curtail kidnapping, the practice threatens to spread into a dangerous conflagration.”
If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews.org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved.
Dan Wooding’s arrest in Nigeria
Dan Wooding, 77, is an award-winning winning author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, Alfred and Anne Wooding, and is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for more than 54 years. Wooding is the Founder of ASSIST Ministries and ASSIST News Service. The couple has two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK.
Dan is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS), and is the author of numerous books. He also has two TV shows and a radio show, all based in Southern California.
Wooding, who moved to the UK with his parents in 1942, has only made one visit back to Nigeria when, some years ago, he was arrested for his journalistic activities, put in a prison cell in Lagos, and then kicked out of the country with a soldier holding a rifle to his back as he was escorted to a join a flight back to London. “It was not the happiest of returns to the land of my birth,” he says.
Photo captions: 1) Roseline Isiocha, one of three nuns and three nuns in training kidnapped in southwest Nigeria. (Diocese). 2) Dan Wooding is seen in this prison photo with an African cell-mate. He managed to smuggled the picture out of Nigeria on his release. 3) Michael Ireland of ASSIST News Service.
About the Writer: Michael Ireland is a volunteer internet journalist serving as Chief Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, as well as an Ordained Minister, and an award-winning local cable-TV program host/producer who has served with ASSIST Ministries and written for ANS since its beginning in 1989. He has reported for ANS from Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Israel, Jordan, China, and Russia. You may follow Michael on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MichaelIrelandMediaMissionary , and on Twitter at @Michael_ASSIST. Please consider helping Michael cover his expenses in bringing news of the Persecuted Church, by logging-on to: https://actintl.givingfuel.com/ireland-michael
** ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net ), founded some 25 years ago by author, broadcaster and journalist Dan Wooding, exists to “give a voice to the voiceless” – our brothers and sisters in Christ who do not have a voice to tell the world of their suffering for Naming the Name of Christ at Work, at Home, or in the Marketplace. Would you consider a one-time or more frequent gift to help sponsor our unique News Service dedicated to providing news and feature stories about the Persecuted Church Around the World? Please help as you can, by going to www.assistnews.net and then scroll down to where it says DONATE TO ASSIST NEWS and then put in the figure you would like to donate towards our service. If you prefer a check, just make it out to ASSIST and mail it to PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609, USA, with a note in the memo section saying: ‘Where Needed Most.’ Thank you so much on behalf of the Persecuted Church.
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