THE PLIGHTS, THE BLIGHTS AND THE PERILS OF THE HAUSA CHRISTIANS IN NIGERIA

The Non-Muslim Hausa have been victims of so many abuses and maltreatments since the emergence of Islamic system of ruling in Northern Nigeria. Hausa being a tribe and not a religion has lost its original meaning to mean different things to so many people locally and internationally. The word Hausa has been abused to be like another kind of Islamic Religion. Whenever the word Hausa is mentioned the first things that usually come to the minds of many people around the world are Islamic militants, jihadists, terrorists, persecutors of the Church in Nigeria, workers of iniquity and all sorts of things. Funny enough, whenever an Easterner, Southerner or Westerner becomes a Muslim and is living in the Northern Nigeria, such a person will be claiming to be a Hausa person. It is very common to see many people that are not Hausas to be referring to themselves as Hausas simply because they have become Muslims. And so, when the Southerners, Westerners, and Easterners will refer to the Muslims in the North they always call them Hausa People. Or whenever you hear them said Hausa People, what they actually meant to say is Northern Muslims. Interestingly, there are many indigenous northern tribes in the North apart from Hausa that are living in all the Northern States of Nigeria, but they are all also referred to as Hausa People not to mean that their tribe is Hausa but to mean that they are Muslims.

And so, terms like Hausa, Arewa and Hausa-Fulani are nothing but the impersonation of the Northern Muslims. In the long standing deception, buried are the freedoms and destinies of so many indigenous Northern Christians especially the Hausa Christians in Nigeria.

We have been turn down to worse than second class citizens in our country because we are Christians. We have endured all forms of slavery even in the 21st Century. Many are the afflictions of the Hausa Christians in Nigeria, but below are the most pronounced ones:

  1. A deliberate denial of the existence of the Hausa Christians in Northern Nigeria; deceiving the world that all Hausas are Muslims except a very few that practice paganism which they usually refer to as the Maguzawas. The claim that all Hausas are Muslims has caged and denied the identity, rights and privileges of the Hausa Christians in Nigeria. It has given birth to the genesis and the continuous slavery the Hausa and Northern Christians have been subjected to.

  1. Denying the Children of the Hausa Christians schools admission, Certificate of Indigenization and employment into all the public offices in the Country especially those with Christian or English Names.

  2. Use of slight opportunity to cause riots that always result in the burning of our houses, churches, looting of all our valuables, raping our women as well as killing our men and women.

  3. Intentional burning down of our Churches and deliberately refusing the Churches permission to be rebuilt by the government.

  4. Forceful kidnapping, raping and conversion our young Hausa Christians girls into Islam against their wish, denying their parents access to them, marry them and giving them out in marriage to whosoever they wish against the wish of their parents.

  5. The settlements of the Hausa Christians are incapacitated by bad roads; lack of healthcare facilities, electricity, portable drinking water and any form of social amenities as dividends of democracy from our governments.

  6. Denial of our people the right to participate in politics and governance by deliberately preventing our settlements from having polling units prevention of any Hausa Christian to hold any traditional or political office in the Northern states of Nigeria, even though we have highly educated people, but caged down by the unjust treatments of the Hausa Muslims in the Nigerian Government.

  7. A current trend that is engulfing the entire Hausa Christians Settlements is the issue of ceasing our farm lands and even our settlements that our people have stayed in for hundreds of years by these so-called Traditional rulers. Many of our people are losing their farm lands which are the major sources of the livelihood of the Hausa Christians.

  8. The Northern Christians have been forcefully silenced in a system called Arewa. A system or an Islamic agenda of using States and Federal Resources to advance the cause of Islam in Northern Nigeria to the detriment of all the Non-Muslims in northern Nigeria through the subduing of the indigenous Christians by the use of all forms of terror. This system is in a deep and strong anarchy with freedom. Arewa has forcefully become an Islamic region where the truth is very scarce and even telling the truth can cost a person his or her life.

  9. The security of our lives and properties are in complete shambles. The Hausa Christians are not only suffering from lack of basic social amenities like roads, portable water, electricity, schools, primary healthcare facilities but also lack of security of their lives and properties. Many of the Hausa Christians are always robbed by arm robbers, their men and wives kidnapped and released on huge ransom. The Hausa Christians are living like hopeless orphans in their own country with only God to help simply because they are Christians.

  10. Deliberate refusal of the Northern States Government to employ Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) Teachers in both the Primary and Secondary schools in Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Kebbi, Jigawa states and other states, while Islamic Religious Knowledge Teachers are employed and paid in all the schools by the same States Government. Denying the few Christian Students in the Government Boarding and day Schools the right to fellowship or do any Christian activities on Sundays and other days. Practical example is GGC Talatan Mafara.

  11. Refusing any Christian representatives that can protect the interest of the Indigenous Christians in the Ministry for Religious Affairs of States like Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa etc.

  12. Disconnection of electric power supply from all the Churches in Zamfara State and even denying the Church the bill to pay at the electric Authority offices. While the mosques receive power supply free of charge and without any disconnection. According to the Electric Supply Authority of the state, that it is now a new law to disconnect Churches from using the light. ECWA Church Damba and other churches are victims of this discrimination.

  13. The Christian Burial Ground (Cemetery) in Zamfara State that has been in existence for more than 40 years is now filled up, but the Government have refused to allocate more spaces to the Christians to bury their people. That’s how the Christians are still squeezing in those who died in that same cemetery.

  14. The Christians in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Katsina State and other states have been banned from airing any Christian Program in the Radio Station while the Muslims do that every day.

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