{"id":5773,"date":"2017-11-09T05:52:41","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T05:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=5773"},"modified":"2017-11-09T05:52:41","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T05:52:41","slug":"decade-after-church-burnings-in-nigeria-officials-forbid-rebuilding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=5773","title":{"rendered":"Decade after Church Burnings in Nigeria, Officials Forbid Rebuilding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: www.morningstar.org<\/strong>
\nMuslims continue hostile environment for Christians.
\nBy Our Nigeria Correspondent.
\n\ufffcKANO,\u00a0Nigeria, November 8, 2017 (Morning Star News)
\n

\"\"
Kano State of Nigeria.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nA decade after Muslims attacked and displaced Christians in a town in northern Nigeria, Kano state officials have forbidden church buildings to be rebuilt there, sources said.
\n\u00a0
\nEight church buildings destroyed in late September 2007 in predominantly Muslim Tudun Wada Dankadai, Kano state, are still in ruins, a Morning Star News correspondent observed earlier this month.
\n\u00a0
\nThe buildings of St. Mary\u2019s Catholic, Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Baptist, Assemblies of God, Charismatic Renewal, Mountain of Fire and Miracle and Deeper Christian Life Bible churches, along with that of another church, have not been rebuilt because local Muslims have refused to allow it, Joseph Opeyemi Ibinkule, a 42-year-old a Christian resident of Tudun Wada Dankadai, told Morning Star News.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cChristians who have braved it and returned after the attacks in 2007 have no worship buildings up to today,\u201d Ibinkule said. \u201cThe reason is that the government of Kano state has banned us from rebuilding our churches.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nNo pastor lives in the town, he said, and only a few come to lead services to a smattering of church members in the hostile environment.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cThese are the ECWA pastor and the Catholic priest,\u201d he said. \u201cBoth of live in the city of Kano and only come to conduct services under trees for their members.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nKano state officials declined to comment to Morning Star News.
\n\u00a0
\nIbinkunle said the 2007 assault, in which at least nine Christians were killed, was ignited by Muslim students accusing high school Christians of blasphemy.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cThe Muslim students attacked Christian students, and soon they were joined by Muslims in this town,\u201d he said. \u201cAll eight churches were destroyed, Christians were displaced, and many Christians were also killed. I personally saw three corpses of members of the St. Mary\u2019s Catholic Church who were killed by the Muslim attackers.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nThe attack was premeditated, and then it led to further spontaneous violence, he said. Church buildings were burned, and houses and shops of Christians were looted and charred, he added.
\n\u00a0
\nAdvocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported in 2007 that the violence began after Muslim students stormed into a room shared by two Christian students at the Government Secondary School in Tudun Wada and began to assault them.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cWhen the Christian students asked what they had done wrong, their assailants initially told them to \u2018mind their own business,\u2019\u201d CSW reported. \u201cHowever, once the school principal arrived at the scene, the Christians were accused of drawing a picture of Muhammad on a mosque wall and of planning an assault on Muslim students.\u201d
\nLocal authorities appeared to limit access to the area to obscure inquiry into the extent of the casualties, according to CSW. Tudun Wada\u2019s chief of police sealed the area off, and local authorities transported Christians out of the area and removed all corpses. Those trying to help victims were denied access, CSW reported.
\n\u00a0
\nThree Mountain of Fire pastors in Kano City were temporarily detained when they attempted to evacuate members of their denomination, according to CSW.
\n\u201cAs a result of this enforced isolation of the area, the exact number of fatalities is difficult to determine,\u201d CSW reported. \u201cHowever, sources suspect that the toll is far higher than originally stated. One policeman was overheard complaining of being \u2018fed up of packing corpses.\u2019\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nThe son of an Apostolic Church pastor, Ibinkunle said he has been worshipping under a tree with the members of the ECWA congregation since the 2007 attack.
\n\u00a0
\nCourt Efforts<\/strong>
\nECWA leaders in Tudun Wada have taken the Kano state government to court for prohibiting them from reconstructing the church buildings.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cThe Kano state government stopped us from rebuilding the destroyed ECWA church in Tudun Wada, so we have taken the matter to court, and we hope we shall get justice at the end of the case,\u201d the Rev. Murtala Marti Dangora, vice chairman of the Kano State Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Morning Star News.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Rev. Ayuba Hassan, chairman of Tudun Wada chapter of CAN, said the ECWA is the only church trying to reestablish itself in Tudun Wada.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cWe currently worship under a tree and have continued to insist that we be allowed to rebuild our place of worship,\u201d Hassan said. \u201cThe government is not ready to allow us do so, as they claim that the Muslims in the town do not want to have any church there. We are waiting for the outcome of the case in court.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nOfficers at the police station at Tudun Wada confirmed that there is no church building standing in the town.
\n\u00a0
\nAsked where the ECWA church was located, an officer told Morning Star News, \u201cDo you see that tree over there? That\u2019s where the ECWA church is.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nNear the tree where the ECWA building once stood was part of its wall with an inscription by the Kano State Land and Survey agency warning against redevelopment of the land.
\n\u00a0
\nMorning Star News returned to the police station and remarked to the officer that only the ruins of the church building remained near the tree.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cDon\u2019t you know that there is no church in Tudun Wada Dankandai?\u201d he said.
\n\u00a0
\nAsked about the church pastor, he said, \u201cSorry, the pastor does not stay in this town; he comes from Kano on Sundays. I also worship with them under a tree you see there. That\u2019s where we worship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: www.morningstar.org Muslims continue hostile environment for Christians. By Our Nigeria Correspondent. \ufffcKANO,\u00a0Nigeria, November 8, 2017 (Morning Star News) A decade after Muslims attacked and displaced Christians in a town in northern Nigeria, Kano state officials have forbidden church buildings to be rebuilt there, sources said. \u00a0 Eight church buildings destroyed in late September 2007 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5772],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5773","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=5773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}