{"id":17207,"date":"2016-08-31T08:23:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T08:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=17207"},"modified":"2016-08-31T08:23:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T08:23:07","slug":"nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/","title":{"rendered":"NIGERIA \u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d &#8211; ACN Malta"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>NIGERIA &#8211;\u00a0\u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bishop Charles Hammawa is the head of the Diocese of Jalingo, located in the eastern part of Nigeria&#8217;s so-called &#8220;Middle Belt.&#8221; The population of 2.3 million is about equally divided between Muslims and Christians, 450,000 of whom are Catholic, with 10 percent of the people belonging to traditional religions.<\/p>\n<p>The bishop expressed his concern about what he\u00a0labelled \u201csuspiciously persistent\u201d attacks by well-armed Muslim Fulani herdsmen on Christian farmers. He also\u00a0discussed the growing influx of Muslim settlers taking possession of land taken from these farmers.\u00a0During a recent visit to New York, he spoke about this with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ACN:<\/strong>\u00a0Boko Haram appears to be curtailed, and there are fewer attacks by the group. However, you have reported another manifestation of Islamic extremism in the form of these attacks by Fulani herdsmen on Christian farmers.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-17211\" src=\"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACN-20140528-09397-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"ACN-20140528-09397\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bishop Hammawa:<\/strong>\u00a0That is my suspicion \u2013 that jihad is taking a new course. It looks like a problem between herdsmen and farmers. In the past, things would settle down after a clash. But I have seen cases of herdsmen not just letting their cattle graze but taking over the land \u2013 and Muslim from the north coming in to settle there. It appears to be a strategy to deliberately populate areas with Muslims and, by the sheer weight of superior numbers, influence political decision-making in the region. It is not the extreme violence of Boko Haram, but another way of capturing Nigeria for Islam. And this crisis has been sustained for the past three years in our region. It\u2019s also suspicious that the herdsmen have access to sophisticated weaponry. There appears to be some financing of the Fulani aggression, which has left numerous dead, destroyed many communities and displaced thousands of people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ACN:<\/strong>\u00a0Are Muslims and Christians in competition in the \u201cMiddle Belt,\u201d where neither religion has the upper hand?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bishop Hammawa:<\/strong>\u00a0Both faiths are committed to gaining new followers. The difference lies in the approach. Christianity uses persuasion through preaching. For Islam, it can be the case of a kind of coercion \u2013 the understanding that if you want to get anywhere in government, you have to be a Muslim. For example, the office of traditional rulers is presented as belonging only to Muslims, which prompts some Christians eligible to the throne to convert to Islam.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ACN:<\/strong>\u00a0In this regard, how do you rate the policies of President Muhammadu Buhari \u2013 is he being fair to Christians?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bishop Hammawa:<\/strong>\u00a0I have some doubts. He is very cautious and a little bit slow in condemning the Fulani crisis, for example. I wish he would be stronger in making firm statements in this matter and take concrete action in combating Islamic extremism. My worry is that,\u00a0althoug<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-17213\" src=\"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/ACN-20140528-09398-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"ACN-20140528-09398\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/>h Boko Haram members have been killed or are awaiting trial, the organization is laying low, with members hiding out in various places. Violence could readily flare up again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ACN:<\/strong>\u00a0What is the solution, in your view, to putting a real stop to Islamic extremism?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bishop Hammawa:<\/strong>\u00a0We keep saying that dialogue must be the solution. But the parties do have to come to the table with a sincere willingness to live in peace. Also, it must be acknowledged that many of the rank-and-file of Boko Haram had been neglected by the Muslim elite in the north for a long time. These youth and adults have not been properly educated, because Western education has been rejected; they have been living in the margins of the society, with only a fundamentalist Islamic formation. They are filled with anger and they have nothing to lose. Meanwhile, the Muslim elite send their children to be educated abroad! No wonder, Boko Haram eventually targeted Muslim leaders as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ACN:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you and your priests use your homilies to address these issues?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bishop Hammawa:<\/strong>\u00a0We avoid inflaming hostilities; we preach peace and reconciliation; we urge Christian farmers not to retaliate\u2014at most, we encourage them to defend themselves; but we cannot tell them to go and fight\u2014that would violate the spirit of the Gospel. There definitely is a great fear of persecution among Christians, which brings some of them to compromise or hide their faith. Those who remain steadfast deserve our utmost support.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ACN:<\/strong>\u00a0Are local authorities, such as the police, of any help?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bishop Hammawa:<\/strong>\u00a0Unfortunately, corruption and bribery hamper security efforts. Corruption, of course, is rampant all across Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>ACN Malta<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NIGERIA &#8211;\u00a0\u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d &nbsp; Bishop Charles Hammawa is the head of the Diocese of Jalingo, located in the eastern part of Nigeria&#8217;s so-called &#8220;Middle Belt.&#8221; The population of 2.3 million is about equally divided between Muslims and Christians, 450,000 of whom are Catholic, with 10 percent of the people belonging&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NIGERIA \u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NIGERIA \u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NIGERIA &#8211;\u00a0\u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d &nbsp; Bishop Charles Hammawa is the head of the Diocese of Jalingo, located in the eastern part of Nigeria&#8217;s so-called &#8220;Middle Belt.&#8221; The population of 2.3 million is about equally divided between Muslims and Christians, 450,000 of whom are Catholic, with 10 percent of the people belonging...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-31T08:23:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ACN-V3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"342\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"513\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ACN Malta Media\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ACN Malta Media\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/\",\"name\":\"NIGERIA \u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ACN-V3.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-08-31T08:23:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-08-31T08:23:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/3c01ab68e03f1b76347f9f6ac439a9d2\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ACN-V3.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ACN-V3.jpg\",\"width\":342,\"height\":513},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"NIGERIA \u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d &#8211; 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Bishop Charles Hammawa is the head of the Diocese of Jalingo, located in the eastern part of Nigeria&#8217;s so-called &#8220;Middle Belt.&#8221; The population of 2.3 million is about equally divided between Muslims and Christians, 450,000 of whom are Catholic, with 10 percent of the people belonging...","og_url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/","og_site_name":"Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)","article_published_time":"2016-08-31T08:23:07+00:00","og_image":[{"width":342,"height":513,"url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ACN-V3.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"ACN Malta Media","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"ACN Malta Media","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/","url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/","name":"NIGERIA \u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d - ACN Malta - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ACN-V3.jpg","datePublished":"2016-08-31T08:23:07+00:00","dateModified":"2016-08-31T08:23:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/#\/schema\/person\/3c01ab68e03f1b76347f9f6ac439a9d2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ACN-V3.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ACN-V3.jpg","width":342,"height":513},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2016\/08\/31\/nigeria-islamic-aggression-takes-different-form-in-nigeria-acn-malta\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"NIGERIA \u201cIslamic aggression takes different form in Nigeria\u201d &#8211; 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