{"id":24310,"date":"2020-02-05T09:02:22","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T08:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=24310"},"modified":"2020-02-05T09:02:22","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T08:02:22","slug":"opinion-buhari-pastor-andimis-faith-should-inspire-all-nigerians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=24310","title":{"rendered":"(Opinion) Buhari: Pastor Andimi\u2019s Faith Should Inspire All Nigerians"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Muhammadu Buhari<\/strong>
\nNigerians everywhere, those of belief and those of none, are mourning the death of pastor Lawan Andimi, taken from us by Boko Haram for his\u00a0refusal to denounce\u00a0his Christian faith.
\nI did not know Pastor Andimi personally. Yet Nigerians and I both know him and his church by their works: healing, caring, feeding and educating, particularly in the northeastern regions of my country\u2014in those areas threatened for too long by terrorists. Every day, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN) places itself there bravely where the brotherhood of man is most in need of sustenance.
\nPastor Andimi\u2019s ministry was located only 60 miles from the town of Chibok, from where in 2014 the world witnessed the shocking kidnapping of 267 schoolgirls. That even one individual\u2014this time a man of the church\u2014could still be taken by the terror group seven years later might be viewed as evidence the terrorists are fully functional, and undefeated. But it is not.
\nSince I was first elected to office in 2015, 107 of the Chibok girls have been\u00a0freed. Today we seek the others.\u00a0Boko Haram are no longer one, unified threat, but\u00a0fractured\u00a0into several rivals. These splinters are themselves degraded: reduced to criminal acts which\u2014nonetheless no less cruel\u2014target smaller and smaller numbers of the innocent. We owe thanks to the Nigerian defense forces, bolstered by our partnership with the British and American militaries, that we are winning this struggle in the field.
\nBut we may not, yet, be completely winning the battle for the truth. Christianity in Nigeria is not\u2014as some seem intent on believing\u2014contracting under pressure, but expanding and numbers about 45 percent of our population today. Nor is it the case that Boko Haram is primarily targeting Christians: not all of the Chibok schoolgirls were Christian; some were Muslim, and were so at the point at which they were taken by the terrorists. Indeed, it is the reality that some 90 percent of all Boko Haram\u2019s 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.
\nIt is a simple fact that these now-failing terrorists have targeted the vulnerable, the religious, the non-religious, the young, and the old without discrimination. And at this point, when they are fractured, we cannot allow them to divide good Christians and good Muslims from those things that bind us all in the sight of God: faith, family, forgiveness, fidelity, and friendship to each other.
\nYet sadly, there is a tiny, if vocal, minority of religious leaders\u2014both Muslim and Christian\u2014who appear more than prepared to take their bait and blame the opposite religious side. The terrorists today attempt to build invisible walls between us. They have failed in their territorial ambitions, so now instead they seek to divide our state of mind, by pulling us from one from another\u2014to set one religion seemingly implacably against the other.
\nTranslated into English,\u00a0boko haram means \u201cWestern teachings are sinful.\u201d They claim as \u201cproof\u201d passages of the Quran which state that Muslims should fight \u201cpagans\u201d to be justification for attacks on Christians and those Muslims who hold no truck with them. They are debased by their willful misreading of scripture\u2014at least those of them who are able to read at all.
\nOf course, there is much of Christianity and Islam\u2014both in teaching and practice\u2014that are not the same. Were that not so, there would be no need for the separateness of the two religions. Yet though these unread terrorists seem not to know it, there is much between our two faiths\u2014both the word and the scripture\u2014that run in parallel.
\nFor the Bible teaches, \u201cEach one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion\u201d (2 Cor. 9:7), while the Quran states: \u201cThere is no compulsion in religion\u201d (2:256). Similarly, the Bible states: \u201cFor if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror\u201d (James 1:23). The Quran concurs: \u201cThose who believe and do good works, theirs will be forgiveness and a great reward\u201d (35:7).
\nI call on Nigeria\u2019s faith leaders, and Nigerians everywhere, to take these words of concord\u2014and the many more that exist\u2014to their hearts and their deeds. Just as my government, and our international partners, quicken our campaign to defeat Boko Haram within and without our borders, we must turn our minds to the future. There is no place in Nigeria for those who seek to divide us by religion, who compel others to change their faith forcibly, or try to convince others that by so doing, they are doing good.
\nRather, we might all learn from the faith and works of Pastor Andimi. There seems little doubt he acted selflessly in so many regards\u2014giving alms and prayers to both Christians and Muslims who suffered at the hands of the terrorists. And he passed from us, rightly refusing to renounce his faith that was not for his captors to take, any more than his life. His belief and his deeds are a lesson and an inspiration to all of us.
\n\u25aaBuhari is president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. (This article was first published in Christianity Today <\/strong>on February 3, 2020)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Muhammadu Buhari Nigerians everywhere, those of belief and those of none, are mourning the death of pastor Lawan Andimi, taken from us by Boko Haram for his\u00a0refusal to denounce\u00a0his Christian faith. I did not know Pastor Andimi personally. Yet Nigerians and I both know him and his church by their works: healing, caring, feeding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":23947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5772,5777],"tags":[727,31,942],"class_list":["post-24310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-faith","category-features","tag-andimi","tag-buhari","tag-inspire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}