In Nigeria,the war in the north against Christians continues to widen, with Christian girls kidnapped (and some used as sex slaves), Christian villages and churches destroyed, and Christians killed, by both the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram, which is largely made up of Hausa tribesmen, and by Fulani (Muslim) herdsmen. Recently Vice President Yemi Osinbajo called on Muslims and Christians to unite against “radical Islamist terrorism,” stressing that it was a common enemy of all faiths. It was the usual hopeful hopeless call for the “real” Muslims to join forces with Christians against those Muslims who follow a “twisted creed”:
Osinbajo urged Christians and Muslims to unite against fanatics committed to a twisted creed, which exploited the tenets of Islam, poverty, and exclusion “to recruit men and women and use children to perpetuate the most heinous atrocities.”
The vice president spoke at the 2019 Nigerian Army Day Celebration and Combat Support Arms Training Week held at the Ikeja Cantonment, in Lagos. He said terrorists did not have responsible grievances and, therefore, no terms of reference for peace.
According to him, radical Islamic terrorism “is an evil that must be seen as the common enemy of all faiths, including Islam. As the president said, and I paraphrase, anyone who says Allahu Akbar and goes on to kill is either insane or dangerously ignorant of the tenets of Islam.”
Perhaps Osinbajo really believes that what is driving Muslim terrorists is not Islam but, rather, a “twisted creed” — that is, a distorted version of the real and peaceful Islam — derived from “tenets of Islam, poverty, and exclusion.” Let’s take those claims in reverse order. What “exclusion” is he referring to? Don’t Muslims in Nigeria participate fully in the political and economic life of the country? Some would argue that, given their numbers — Muslims are 48.3%, and Christians 49.2%, of the population, they are over-represented in the military and in the political class. Many of the upper officer corps are Muslims. Far from being “excluded” from political life, most of Nigeria’s presidents have been Muslims. It is true that Boko Haram discourages its members from engaging in politics, believing that any political system not based on Sharia should be rejected, but the vast majority of Muslims participate eagerly, hoping always to retain greater power for the Muslim half of the population.
As to poverty helping to explain Muslim terrorism, this is the same claim that used to be made about Muslim terrorists elsewhere — that “poverty” was a root cause of Islamic terrorism — but then researchers examining the data on captured and killed Jihadis discovered that the terrorists were both better educated, and better off economically, than the average Muslim. Bin Laden, the son of a Saudi billionaire, had a private fortune of tens of millions of dollars. Ayman Al-Zawihiri, his second in command, was a surgeon and scion of one of Egypt’s most prominent families. His grand-uncle was Azzam Pasha, the first Secretary-General of the Arab League. Mohamed “Mike” Hawash was earning $300,000 a year as an Intel engineer, living with his American wife and children, when he tried to travel to Asia to join up with Taliban terrorists. Major Nidal Hasan was earning $90,000 a year as an army doctor when he killed 13 of his fellow soldiers in a terrorist attack. Among the Muslims flocking to ISIS from Europe there have been many professionals — engineers, doctors, lawyers, computer specialists. The most famous of Nigerian would-be terrorists was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the “Undeerwear Bomber,” whose father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, was described by The Times in 2009 as being “one of the richest men in Africa.”
Which brings us to the “tenets of Islam” that have been distorted into a “twisted creed.” The Vice-President doesn’t tell us which “tenets of Islam” have been “twisted.” It is difficult to believe that he doesn’t know perfectly well what is in the Qur’an. In Nigeria, Christians in positions of power need to understand the Muslim belief system. He surely has read many of the 109 Qur’anic verses commanding Muslims to wage violent jihad, that is, to “kill” and to “fight” and to “smite at the necks of” and to “strike terror in the hearts of” non-Muslims. He also must know the verses describing non-Muslims as “the most vile of created beings” while Muslims are “the best of peoples.” But he prefers to look away, to choose to believe that Muslims themselves don’t believe these verses, that to take them seriously is to accept a “twisted creed” rather than the “real Islam.” For if Yemi Osinbajo were to be quite honest about the texts, and to recognize that many Qur’anic verses command terror attacks on Christians and other non-Muslims, could he dare to admit it openly? He would only enrage Muslims for telling the truth, and terrify many Christians, who would be left only with the prospect of endless warfare, to defend themselves against the Jihadis. It’s understandable that this Nigerian politician, like so many political and media figures in the West, cannot allow himself to face the horrifying truth about Islam’s texts and teachings.
But he is whistling in the dark. And he is choosing to forget that there is a history here, that goes back half a century in Nigeria. It’s the history of a previous Jihad by northern Muslims, determined in 1967 to snuff out the young life of the newly-declared independent state of Biafra, where the Christians in southern Nigeria hoped to be free from Muslim persecution and pogroms. They lost their war for independence. That first Biafra War, and a possible second Biafra War, will be taken up tomorrow.
mortimer says
Since the 1990s about 1,000 Nigerian Christians were murdered by Muslims every year. Since, Boko Haram came onto the scene, about 2,000 Nigerian Christians are being murdered every year. Coincidence?
This is the definition of genocide. A separatist Islamic ‘government’ is prosecuting genocide in northeastern Nigeria, while the national government is not stopping them or playing at it. The Muslim members of Nigeria’s government are allowing the genocide to happen.
cornelius says
I was very young, but I remember reading all the justifications for the atrocities of the Nigerian Federal government….how Africa’s colonial borders were sacrosanct, that otherwise, the entire Continent would descend into an orgy of tribal slaughter….how the Federal President, Gen. Gowan, was Nigeria’s Abraham Lincoln, holding the country together against the secessionists…..how the entire “international community” (I know how you love that phrase, Hugh) sided with the Federal government, a rare occasion when Soviet and British arms and diplomatic support went to the same side.Yes indeed, Biafra was alone.
But mostly, I remember the footage of the massive refugee camps of the Ibo and all the starving children with distended bellies….in such condition because of the blockade imposed by the Federal government. The USA took a passive position….mostly because we had other priorities, mired as we were in Vietnam. And so the world looked the other way at the horror….and celebrated the failure to upend the ‘sanctity of colonial borders’ canard….(no such red-line prevented Sudan from being successfully carved in two 40 years later).
It was ugly. Truly ugly.
mortimer says
Christian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is rightfully trying to be conciliatory and diplomatic. He tries to depict jihadism as an offshoot of Islam. Probably, Vice President Osinbajo doesn’t know that jihadism is the ‘original religion’ of Islam … that’s what Mohammed said and Mohammed is the authority on Islam.
“Narrated Abdullah ibn Umar:
I heard the Apostle of Allah say: When you enter into the inah transaction (become businessmen), hold the tails of oxen (become cattlemen), are pleased with agriculture (become farmers), and give up conducting jihad, Allah will make disgrace prevail over you, and will not withdraw it until you return to your ORIGINAL RELIGION.” – Sunan Abu Dawud Book 23, Number 3455
Islam is JIHAD and JIHAD is Islam.
If Muslims reject jihadism, most will not know that they are rejecting what Mohammed called their ‘original religion’.
11B40 says
Greetings:
Hadn’t heard about Biafra in a long, long time but I do have a bit of personal history with the place even though I’ve never actually been there.
Back in 1969, on of my Uncles sent me on an all-expense-paid tour of somewhat sunny Southeast Asia. I didn’t enjoy myself much and over the course of a year or so, I lost a fair amount of mu body weight, probably more than 20 pounds.
When I returned to the bosom of my family, my mother in particular was, well, let’s just say, pleased, as evidenced by her way of referring to my situation as, “I gave them my son and they sent me back a Biafran.”
kangi_yotaka says
In 2006 one of *my* uncles sent me on an all-expense-paid tour of very sunny Southwest Asia, and over the course of 15 months, I lost quite a lot of weight too.
My mother, who worked for that uncle in the early 70s, no kidding, said “…Did you vacation in Biafra?”
Must’ve been A Thing.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Biafra dominated the news back in the 70s. Was Islam every mentioned as a factor in the mass killing?
gravenimage says
Not that I can recall. I followed the news closely as a child, and cannot recall Islam ever being mentoned.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Same here. As a young boy I read every article, and did so with the feeling that the coverage was good. This included such august publications as Time and Newsweek augmented by the three network news channels. I felt the coverage was good cuz I hadn’t yet turned into the hard-bitten cynic that I am now, made so after many discoveries that what had been told me wasn’t quite the truth, or at least not the whole truth. Trump needs to refine his definition of Fake News to include leaving important stuff out, the fancy term for which is elision.
The question i had as a boy was “why would they kill all those Biafrans? I found out later. That was good for me, but 99% of Americans still don’t know. The elision continues.
gravenimage says
At the time, I just had a vague sense that it was violence in the Third World. I had no idea it was connected to the attacks on Israel and the constant hijackings at the time.
Angemon says
Same here.
CRUSADER says
Former Biafran forces had Nigerian motto of “No-victor, No-vanquished”
prior to surrender….
CRUSADER says
The international humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières originated in response to the suffering in Biafra.
During the crisis, French medical volunteers, in addition to Biafran health workers and hospitals, were subjected to attacks by the Nigerian army and witnessed civilians being murdered and starved by the blockading forces. French doctor Bernard Kouchner also witnessed these events, particularly the huge number of starving children, and, when he returned to France, he publicly criticised the Nigerian government and the Red Cross for their seemingly complicit behaviour.
With the help of other French doctors, Kouchner put Biafra in the media spotlight and called for an international response to the situation. These doctors, led by Kouchner, concluded that a new aid organisation was needed that would ignore political/religious boundaries and prioritise the welfare of victims.
11B40 says
Greetings, CRUSADER:
Not a fan of the MSF folks myself. As Eric Hoffer warned us, what starts off as a cause, becomes a business, and ends up as a racket. Having long ago been thoroughly “Long Marched” through, whatever good they now do is little more than a cover for their globalization ideology that seems bent on convincing the West to stay drunk on compassion and stupid about “human rights”.
I’d be interested in finding out whence comes their revenues and whither those go.
CRUSADER says
Hoffer’s “The True Believer” (1951) is an astounding read.
Applicable for today as well….
Yes, beware of any institutionalizing, bureaucracy….
Walter Sieruk says
This above ,top, main article starts out with the information that in Nigeria the Muslims viciously harm Christians and “Some Christian girls are kidnapped [and uses as sex slaves].” This heinous cruel behavior is very strongly condemned in the Bible. For in Exodus 21:16 it reads “Whoever steals someone to sell as a slave or to keep them for their own slave must be killed.” [E.R.V.]
The god of Islam may approve of kidnapping but the God of the Bible does not.
[Question] What is the god of Islam, anyway ? .
[Answer ] the god of Islam ,Allah ,is a pagan moon god. thus a false god.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
Not so fast. Holy Prophet Mohammed expropriated God and gave him a new name, explaining that the Jews and Christians not only didn’t get the religion right, they blew the name too. So he changed His name from Yahweh to Allah, who before that had started as the featured rock god in his uncle’s religious tourist trap, the Kaabah.
Walter Sieruk says
Those Muslim of Nigeria who kidnap Christian girls to use them as sex slaves is a heinous brutal ,cruel activity which is not a new evil then it come to Islam.
As for the Islamic world of female sex slaves, both girls and women, this brutal and callous affront, against all the is decent, good and right, started very early in the history of Islam with founder and prophet of Islam, Muhammad. As revealed in the book THE HISTORY OF JIHAD FROM MUHAMMAD TO ISIS by Robert Spencer. For after one of the early war victories of the followers of that specific time, the new religion of Islam, Muhammad received convenient revelation that his Muslim warriors have every right to own and use their female war captives. As page 32 of Mr. Spencer’s book reads “The Qur’an permitted them to have sexual intercourse with slaves girls captured in battle- ‘those captives whom your right hand possess.’ [4:24]” This book further explains and exposes on the exact same page that “The enslavement and rape women were taken for granted.” This Islamic wickedness of misogyny continued and still continues through time. As other scholars and authors on Islam do further expose that this horrific treatment of women into sexual slavery by their own families. Women are not viewed and equals in Islamic countries, they are thought of as property” and the “selling women and girls for prostitution is just the dehumanizing complement to forcing women and girls to cover their bodies and hair with veil.” [1]
Likewise, a former Muslim who is now a Christian also revealed information about Islam and females sex slaves. For is exposed that “Slavery is cherished in the Qu ‘ran and non -Muslim girls and women are used a sex slaves. Also there is no protection for women in Islam; they are exposed to every kind of abuse on one hand, but on the other hand they are responsible for the temptation which afflicts men.” [2] Wow, all this cruel Islamic misogyny and not regard for human rights has its origin in the founder prophet of Islam, Muhammad. As shown by two Christian writers who in their book inform the reader that “Muhammad endorsed enslavement of all types…he endorsed sex –slavery as a gift from Allah, and enjoyed offering sex slaves as gifts…” So since Muhammad is view by Muslim as the perfect man and a great example it’s not surprise that, in time, Islam is enslaved more people than any other culture.” [3]
[1] THEY MUST BE STOPPED by Brigitte Gabriel, pages 181,182.
[2] ISLAM AND THE SON OF GOD by Daniel Shayesteh , page 128
[3] JESUS AND THE JIHADIS by Craig A. Evens and Jeremiah J. Johnston, pages 124, 125
Walter Sieruk says
Kidnapping girls and then using them for sex slaves is part of the misogyny of Islam and is nothing new when it comes to Islam .
Furthermore, this is related to what Brigitte Gabriel, who is the founder and head of http://www.actforamerica.org , exposed in her book which is entitled “THEY MUST BE STOPPED for on page 717 it reads “Control of behavior and disregard for human life are key elements in Islamic ideology.” Further in that same book on page 182 in informs the reader that “Selling women and girls into prostitution is just dehumanizing complement to forcing women and girls to cover their bodies and hair with a veil.”
Indeed, they must be stopped!
CRUSADER says
Brigitte Gabriel on Saving Western Civilization….
(Why we fight — for freedom, rights, security!!!)
Brigitte Gabriel (national security expert) joins Dave Rubin to
discuss her mission to save Western civilization, the dangers
of the Muslim Brotherhood, why she supports of Israel,
George Soros’ influence on media, and her new book
‘Rise: In Defense of Judeo-Christian Values and Freedom.’
ACT FOR AMERICA
http://www.ACTforAmerica.org/issues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk81ZKqOX54
Angemon says
I wonder if the muslims in upper office give preference to coreligionism over personal merit…
gravenimage says
The Once and Future Biafra? (Part 1)
…………..
Christians in Nigeria have been suffering from Muslim savagery for a very long time.
janwog says
Islam is a twisted faith having Judeo Messianic roots.
gravenimage says
What hogwash. Muhammed appropriated Jewish prophets and Jesus, but Islam has *nothing* in common with the values of Judaism and Christianity.