Update from Nigeria - December 2008

Dr. Sunday Agang, a CISF alumnus and Dean at Jos ECWA Theological Seminary (JETS) in Jos, Nigeria sent the following update on December 1st.

Please join us in prayer for Sunday and Drs. Rose and Bulus Galadima, two other CISF alumni who are part of the leadership at JETS, as they seek to be a force for peace and reconciliation amidst the violence in Nigeria.

 

Dear Evan and CISF Staff,

 

This is just to send you this information about Jos situation.

Jos Local Government Election Crisis Turned Religious

Violent anger and peace don't mix. On Friday, November 28, 2008, I walked up listening to two very inspiring songs on the radio. The first song was a Christian song that is usually sang during Christmas season. Its lyric song goes:

The second song, I suspect, was sang by a popular African musician, Bongo Ekwe. The lyric of the song emphasized the need for all African people to allow peace to reign. It goes like this:

           

These two songs though sang by different people have one thing in common: the priority of justice, love and peace in our world. The thesis of the first song is that God's justice through Jesus Christ makes it possible to enjoy freedom and love (agape): love can reign once more in a world of human brokenness, hate, destruction and decay. The second song's thesis is: we are to see each other as children of the same family. That is to say, the basic thesis for peace is to embrace the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity in spite of our differences. Peaceful world is a world where difference is not a threat but rather a cause for the celebration of God-given human diversity.

 

It was when I was trying to distill these lessons that I realized that the two songs are stressing the significance of justice, love and peace in our world. That realization became very crystallized in a morning when Jos city, the Plateau State capital was greeted with gunshots reminiscent of Chairmanship and Councillorship elections into the seventeen local government councils of the State.

 

The election was held On Thursday 27, 2008. Observers of how the election was conducted said that the election was generally peaceful. Plateau State is generally believed to be a State dominated by Christians. However, the Muslim community in one of the local government areas, Jos North Local Government Area, who claimed to be the majority in that Local Government Council, complained of late arrival of election materials to their polling sites. Given that they suspected the election result in the Local Government Area, though not yet announced then, not to be in their favor.  They complained of been politically sidelined by the non-Muslims in the State. Consequently, their youths, enraged by that assumption, went on rampage at 1:00Am on Friday morning. The rampage resulted in the burning of old automobile tires on the streets and main roads, setting Churches, schools and houses ablaze and disrupting classes, travels, businesses and commercial activities in the city of Jos that morning. Later in the early morning of Friday they started killing, murdering, maiming and setting ablaze the corpses of children, women, men, and anybody that they knew was not a Muslim. The non-Muslim youth, in a so-called self-defense, counteracted. They too started killing, murdering and maiming the Muslims and setting their mosques and houses ablaze. The police could not control the situation, not until soldiers were drafted in around 11:00 AM.

 

From 5:00AM when the counterattack started to 4:00PM on Friday, the sun and the sky were darkened by the smoke from the burning of houses, churches, mosques, schools, vehicles, gas stations and the corpses of those killed or murdered and set ablaze. The whole atmosphere at ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos (JETS) where I teach was filled with a thick black smoke from the burnings. People in JETS and the surrounding areas could hardly breathe because of the smoke.  It indeed caused ecological pollution that I believe will worsen the effect of global warming in the state. It also aggravated the food crisis, economic meltdown and other hardships already being experienced in the country.

I had scheduled a made-up graduate class that fateful morning but the class could not hold because only four students out of eleven make it to the class. Without the tension, I would not have mind continuing with the four students. The whole atmosphere was so tensed that I had to cancel the class indefinitely.

As I was writing this experience I heard nonstop gunshots. I went out of my study room and saw our students standing in groups watching the cloud of smoke as far as the eyes can see. I saw a young man running helter skater. Suspecting him to be a Muslim, some of our students pursued him and caught up with him only to discover that he was one of our neighbors. He told us that he was at a scene very close to our seminary where many people were been killed, burned and maimed by both the Muslim and the non-Muslim youths.

When the soldiers came in, the gunshots increased. The city of Jos was suddenly turned to a battle ground. As at Sunday morning the carnage left our streets filled with burned houses, churches, mosques, cars, gas stations, business premises and worse of all the ashes of children, youth, women, and men whose corpses were set ablaze by either the Muslims or the non-Muslims youths. Many people were trapped where they could not get food and water.

We are now left with the question: Why such disregard for the value of human life in Nigeria? The Christians claim to serve a God who asks, "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? Declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?" (Ezekiel 18:23)

We also serve a Savior who says, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God." (Matthew 5:9). You need to "Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and new spirit...." Says the Lord, (Ezekiel 18:31).

Why can Christian and Muslim youths control their anger? These questions led us at JETS to think of a better way of responding to the political violence that engulfed our city on Friday morning.

JETS Response to the crisis: Pray Peace

Human violent anger does not bring God's righteous outcome. If the energy of an angry person were to be extracted it will be enough to generate electric power. Anger is a force that deprives humans of their senses. What brings such energy back to their control is the power of prayer, love and forgiveness. As community, JETS realizes that whenever people pray peace and wish peace God makes it happens.

This was why JETS community responded to the crisis by praying peace for the city of Jos and its environs. Usually our chapel time ends on Thursdays. But because of what happened we had two chapel prayer sessions on Friday. The first was held at 12:00 noon and the second one at 5:00PM. In the first session we prayed for God's intervention and deliverance of the vulnerable: children, women, and innocent travelers. We also prayed for the protection of both the Christian and non-Christian communities. We prayed that God will give the Governor and his council the wisdom to handle the situation so that the killings and burnings will be abated. We also prayed that God will forgive the youth of our churches for taking vengeance in their hands.

Immediately we finished praying God answered our prayers in the following manner. First, the Governor of Plateau State, Mr. Jonah David Jang, imposed dusk to dawn curfew in the city of Jos and environs. Yet we walked up Saturday 29, 2008 morning only to be greeted with another morning of gunshots. One of our neighbors told me that in the night while people were sleeping the Muslim youths went on rampage and burned several churches but our seminary was protected. From my study room I could hear the Muslim youths singing war tune songs in a neighborhood that was closed to JETS.

The second thing that happened was that seven of our students were arrested by soldiers who stormed one of our hostels in search of perpetrators of the violence. The Provost, Dr. Bulus Galadima, and I went to the hostel and prayed with their wives. Two of the students were newly married couples. In the midst of the tension God granted us favor before the soldiers and we were able to trace the whereabouts of the students and got them released from the soldiers' custody.

 The third thing that happened was that the Muslims planned on attacking our seminary community on Saturday night but God thwarted their plans by using the Governor to The Governor to extend the curfew to 24/7. All these three things showed how God answered our prayers and the prayer of all of you our friends and supporters. Thank you so very much for partnering with us in prayer.

As of Monday morning the situation was still tensed in the city of Jos. The streets, main roads and joints that used to be crowded have been disserted. People are still trapped and missing. Our hospitals are filled with the wounded and our mortuaries are filled with corpses of those killed in the crisis. Our homes are filled with those who are bereaved of their beloved ones.

On Sunday, during the worship we were told of how Muslim massacred one of our pastors, the only son of his parents, and one of our elders. One of my relationships was also killed on Friday.

Peace eludes us. Yet the quest for peace, justice and love continue. Without peace nothing moves. In Nigeria, as in many other societies, it is believed that peace is the priority, the sin qua non for all other activities in society.  We must go back and meditate on Ekwe's song: "Whoever you are give peace a chance to reign." And to the anonymous singer, "Oh my Lord, you sent your Son to saves us; so that sin will not continue to enslave us: and so that love will once again reign." Anger and hate enslave but forgiveness and love frees! Pray that those who escaped the crisis will not behave like the people John describe in Revelation 9:20-21:

The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood-idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Finally, the solution to violence in Nigeria must include the search through political activity, religious education, community action, church action and personal witness that embrace justice, love, forgiveness and peace in all their truth. It must come with the realization that "Peace is a gift to be shared with other individuals as well as with the community." This is cited by Thomas A Shannon, in War or Peace? The Search for New Answers, (New York: Orbis Books, 1980, xiv.]).

On an encouraging note, a Muslim woman, with her nursing baby, traveled into the city of Jos on Saturday without knowing what was going on. She got trapped in the crisis and had to run to JETS for safety. She was taken to the Provost. On Sunday he brought her to our church to worship with us. That Sunday morning we could not hold a normal Sunday service. So when she was asked to stand in the midst of Christians she was emotionally and psychological disoriented. If she had fallen into the hands of the wrong group she and her child would have been murdered and burned to ashes. She probably remembered that that was why I saw her shading tears. I thanked God that our students at JETS have started putting into practice what we are teaching them. She was stranded both physically and financially. We assured her that it was well with her.

Although the pastor had said that he did not think it was wise to ask for offering that Sunday, because of the need of sending this Muslim woman back to her family and the need of other refugees, an offering was collected. This was my moment of joy: to see the church protecting the life of this Muslim woman and her child. This gives me great hope for reconciliation and peace in Nigeria. Pray that such love will bring her to a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ.

Sunday