Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria Remembers Victims of Boko Haram Crisis

Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria Remembers Victims of Boko Haram Crisis

By Success Kanayo Uchime

Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) an umbrella organization for all Nigerian Pentecostals is planning to host a church service in honor of the seven Pentecostals who died during the last Boko Haram crisis in Northern Nigeria.

In a statement by its National Secretary, Pastor Wale Adefarasin, who is also the General Overseer Guiding Light Assembly, Lagos, Nigeria, said the service would be held simultaneously in Abuja, Nigeria and London.

He noted that the idea of the simultaneous service is simply to honor these Christian heroes and also draw international attention to the systemic problem that has led to the death of adherents of Christian faith in Northern Nigeria.

Pastor Adefarasin pointed out that the service coming up on September 11, 2009, would also feature short exhortations, songs and citations for the seven identified Pentecostal Christians that lost their lives.

The PFN through its National President, Pastor Ayo Oritesjafor, had at the wake of the hostilities condemned the crisis in its strongest terms, while laying blames on the 17 southern governors for reacting lackadaisically to the killing of Christians and also called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to prosecute those culpable and responsible for the act.

Oritsejafor was quoted as saying: “I wonder why anybody should extend a purely Islamic matter to Christians and burn churches. I hold the southern governors responsible for their inability to defend Christians in the North. PFN has written a letter to all the southern governors on the need to engage their 19 northern counterparts in serious dialogue to forestall incessant sectarian killings in the North. “

It would be recalled that for a period of four days, the about 1,000 strong Boko Haram militant group engaged in fierce battles with police and military, thereby leaving more than 200 people dead in Bauchi, Borno, Kano and Yobe states.

The group, whose name is roughly translated as 'education is prohibited', were fighting for the extension of Sharia or Islamic law across Nigeria and their primary targets then were police stations and government buildings, while Christians and churches were within their sights.

We also recall that the violence erupted on July 26 when police arrested a group of Boko Haram leaders and that many of the militants were believed to have come from the neighboring Chad and Niger, with Maiduguri, Borno state, where the militants had their base as its main focus.

According to official reports about 103 people died in Maiduguri alone at the face of the violence, with the painful incidence of the death of one Yakubu Sabo, a father of seven and pastor of the Church of Christ congregation in Maiduguri, who was killed in a machete attack, while leaving about five churches razed to the ground.