By: Apostle Michael Olowo
In a trending video in the social media, Apostle Michael Olowo dropped bombshell by reeling out deadly attacks and atrocities on Christians by terrorists in the Northern Nigeria for more than three decades.
Olowo who affirmed that he was a witness to all the atrocities against Christians faith in which no government ever set a panel of enquiry to try the suspects nor compensated the victims for the colossal losses inflicted on them, queried how can the people win the war when they are governed by terrorists sponsors.
Straightnews transcribed the speech and headlined the pathetic story: Tidal Wave of Attacks on Christians in Northern Nigeria to strike emotional resonance on what a set of people called Christians are passing through in their country deemed secular by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).
Excerpts:
Between 1992-93 in Kaduna, a crisis broke out which they called the Zangon-Kataf Riot. I was a young boy – very very young then. And people were killed in scores. If you were not an up-South person practising Muslim Islam, they killed you.
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Especially if you are from the Southern part of Kaduna, the tribes from the southern part of Kaduna, were massacred. It was called the Zangon-Kataf Riot. And they did was to burn churches, kill Christians, and then if they were done with that, then they focused on businesses- that is for Igbo people, Igbo owned businesses, and they destroyed them.
I grew up knowing that Christians are an endangered species in Nigeria. In 2000, when the Sharia riots broke out, hundreds or thousands of people were killed in Kaduna. I could remember vividly that we had to defend our house from people. They brought some Fulani boys and they faced our house. They were shooting arrows.
They were shouting and shooting arrows on us. Even though I was a Muslim, my father, a Muslim then, majority of the people in our compound were Christians. So, they were willing to destroy everyone of us because we were living with Christians. I could remember a particular church in Mando (for those that know Mando) in Kaduna, called Chapel of Redemption.
That church was destroyed. And so from that time, anytime there was a little hanky-panky in Nigeria, the first target are churches and Christians. And this has prevailed for a long time.
That even if there’s a problem with others in another country, the Muslims and the houses in Nigeria will rise up and begin to kill Christians. How many of you remember the Miss World Crisis in 2002, 2001, 2002? That somebody drew a picture of Mohammed or something in France, long away in France, and they began to fight in Nigeria. Are you following me? Christians are endangered species.
Now, let me give you details, and that’s how it has continued. Schools have been destroyed and they focused on regions where there was a mixture of both Christianity and Islam. If you look at state like Kaduna, state like Bauchi, state like Nasarawa, state like Taraba, state like Benue, state like Gombe, state like Borno, these were places where they focused on because they intended to eliminate every living Christian in those places.
Anybody knows that the war is a total, because I have gone and lived in the North. I’ve spent 80 to 80% of my life in the North. So, I understand this thing. Several times, I cannot forget the Sharia law.
We were running for our lives, even though we were Muslims. But we were still running, because as far as you are in North from another ethnic group, practising what they practise, you are a victim. You can be both alive. Many of us saw human beings – they were both alive, some roasted like yam.
And it has been going on for a long time- the genocide against the Christian faith. Are you with me? Many years ago, in Kano State, a man was beheaded, and they talk about blasphemy.
And guess who was the person that led it? The man called Lamido Sanusi was the one that led the massacre. They killed him, and they put his head on the stake, and they were using it to barricade the city.
You will understand of a woman also that was an evangelist. An evangelist that was preaching about 2016 or 2018 in Abuja was killed her. We can talk about a young girl called Deborah Samuel that was killed. And for years, the people have been massacring.
Riot breaking out every single time- the moment anything happens, the next people – the victims – are Christians. And it is unfortunate that all these years, the government has not been able to do anything about it.
But the agenda is deep. Are you with me this morning? Why am I sweating?- because I don’t want us to be ignorant people. If we are ignorant people, they will control the narrative.
And this is- let me tell you the truth. God will not come and fight for you. Remove that thing from your mind. If Christians don’t rise up, pray for more tomorrow.
God is not coming to fight for you. Are you with me? Now, in the year 2009, Boko Haram started. Boko Haram started because of a section. It was a political movement.
They created Boko Haram as a political talk to cause confusion in the government of Goodluck Jonathan. And to be able to, you know, destroy any opposition, starting from Borno State, under the watch of a man called Kashim Shettima, who is now the Vice President of Nigeria. Kashim Shettima and the other man, Ali Modu Sheriff..
These were the people who started the business of Boko Haram as political talks to be able to oppose their opponents. But after a time, the ideology grew and they began to destroy. Now, it became a problem and they began to destroy Boko Haram.
Between 2009-2010, a man left a meeting in Jos. Are you with me? He led a meeting that they were going to annihilate Christians within the localities of Plateau, Bauchi, Kaduna and Nasarawa. And he said they were going to perform Jihad.
They would bring Jihad and they are going to be there. If the Islamic leaders are not willing to lead them, he was ready to lead the movement. I have the minutes of that meeting in my phone at present.
Guess who is that person? Isa Pantami, who was the former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy under Buhari’s regime. And several times, these are people that are terrorist sympathizers. And that is why the Nigerian Army are not able to win the war against terrorism.
Because the terrorists have infiltrated the Nigerian ranks, the army ranks, so they cannot win the war. They said Osama Bin Laden was a better Muslim than he is. It was sad when Osama Bin Laden was killed.
And they have said it several times that Boko Haram should not be killed. They said they are their Muslim brothers. How do you win a war against terrorism when there are people high in government that are sympathizers to terrorism? How do you win that war? Now, there are four categories of insecurity or people causing insecurity.
Number one, you have Boko Haram. Number two, you have bandits. Number three, you have Fulani herdsmen.
Now I am going to show you how they are connected. Many people don’t know. The Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen have one mission. The mission is simple- Islamise Nigeria.
Come to a territory that is Christian dominated. Kill everybody there. Occupy their lands. Go to Benue, look for a community. Kill them there. Occupy their land. That is all it means.
Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen, have you noticed that Fulani herdsmen don’t kidnap, they kill. There is hardly a place you hear that Fulani herdsmen capture, that they say these are Fulani herdsmen. No. When they go, they kill. How do they kill? They kill with guns.
You must now ask yourself: how does a Fulani herdsman get AK-47? Do you know the cost of one AK-47? One AK-47 is over one thousand dollars. Where will a Fulani herdman be able to get one AK-47? Are you with me? And now, so you know that there are people that are sponsoring this movement. Then the Fulani, the Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen, they go about Christian dominated areas.
You will understand that when this terrorism started in Nigeria, that the only people that were killing were Christian churches. You will not hear that they kill anyone else- it is Christians and churches.
I remember in Kaduna then, that churches began to look for security men to guard their churches every Saturday. Otherwise, you could be in church and then the next day, boom, everybody died. And churches that didn’t have money to hire soldiers began to use some of their members.
I was a member of the security team in my church in Bupa Life in Kaduna in 2010. And we didn’t stay in the church. Once I came to the church in the morning, we stayed outside moving around patrolling because anybody could come and drop anything. So, when Boko Haram started, majority of Muslims, host of local Muslims were happy. I knew of people that were celebrating it.
If you see them crying today, I’ll tell you why. At the initial beginning of this thing, they were happy celebrating the killings of Christians. They said they were purging Nigeria- majority of Christians from Christian dominated areas.
But when it came to 2014, the man Buhari and APC that wanted to overthrow the government of Jonathan by all means, decided to employ mercenaries from Niger, from Chad, and those Fulanis from other African nations where there are Fulanis. And they brought them into Nigeria. What was their goal? The goal was that if Jonathan did not concede defeat in the election, they would rain hell on Nigeria.
So, they brought in those mercenaries, and equipped them with rifles. The El-rufais, the Buharis, are you with me? The El-rufasi, the Buharis, everyone of these people called APC, they brought in mercenaries and armed them in the bushes and told them to wait. The moment Jonathan did not concede defeat in the election, they were going to start.
Unfortunately for them, they could not know of their assignment. It got internal battle because the man said his ambition was not worth the blood of millions. So, the man conceded defeat and left.
And so they became APC winner. Now, you have already brought people from different parts to come and fight. But what they wanted to come and fight for, they did not achieve anymore.
So, they left those people in the bush. They left them with guns and ammunition in the bush. And when Buhari became the President, he abandoned them.
Instead of them to settle them and let them go back, they abandoned them. And the people saw Nigeria as a place that is good. And the people decided to remain in Nigeria. Those are the people that started banditry.
Before, we did not have anything like bandits. Banditry started under the watch of APC, under Buhari, because they were the ones that brought them in to be kidnapping because they needed to survive. So they started by kidnapping.
Over time, now, you understand that there are certain parts of this nation where there are mineral resources. Don’t be an ignorant person. Follow me. Don’t be in a nation where you don’t have understanding of what is happening.
Now, there are some parts of Nigeria where there are good resources. And so, and this has been illegally mined by elites, the military generals, the oligarchs, the people that are in the leadership of the land, they are mining these resources. And the money does not go into the Federal Government’s account. So what they do is that they employ the services of these bandits to create two things.
Number one to create diversion. So, when you go to Zamfara, that’s why you hear that they say there is killing in Zamfara now. It’s because of the gold mine.
There is gold in Zamfara that they are mining. And so these bandits that are already in the bush, some people collaborate with them, partner with them, and tell them to keep creating confusion, create chaos. When you keep creating chaos, the Nigerian state and the people of Nigeria will not be able to focus on the illegal mining.
They’ll be concerned about the insecurity. So the insecurity is created as a means of diversion in the North. Are you following me? It is created as a means of diverting the attention of the military and the Nigerian populace from being able to focus on the illegal mining of resources.
And any part of the North where there are resources, you find that there is insecurity there. Recently, it has started in Kwara. Because there is a great amount of lithium in Kakafu too, that they have discovered, and they are mining.
So, they partner the Chinese because the people that do this illegal mining are the Chinese. They partner the Chinese to be able to mine. So the bandits became the security men of the Chinese and all those people to protect them.
So while they are mining, they can begin to cause chaos. While the people are mining, they are causing chaos, nobody will be able to focus on what the Chinese are doing illegal mining. Every single day to this moment, I’m telling you, they are mining in those places.
And they will take it to an air field in the bush and fly it out of Nigeria. They are making billions of dollars from it every day while people are being killed. That is why in Nigeria, the Muslims are saying that they are killing Muslims too.
What you have here, it is what Buhari created. The APC-level administration created the banditry that is affecting the North now.
Because the people that plotted to come and kill in Nigeria in 2015 did not succeed because Goodluck relinquished power to them. And now the people have become thugs. They have become tools to be used in the hands of men that are using them to secure their illegal gold mines.
And that is why you hear that they say that they are killing Muslims. Now, the Christian persecution and genocide has been there. So, you find that the other party, the Muslims and the foreigners, keep going around killing in all those parts.
And the Christians and the churches have been silent for too long. This evil has prevailed in Nigeria because the righteous men have been too quiet. If we are ever going to win against insecurity in Nigeria, Nigeria must put two things.
Nigeria must do number one. Nigerian Sharia law must be completely abolished in Nigeria because Nigeria is not an Islamic state.
Why would Nigeria support the practice of Sharia? The law guarding them is a constitutional law. They believe that if somebody deserves to die, it is because he speaks against his God. Can a Muslim insult Jesus and I kill him for insulting Jesus? Does somebody believe that when you speak against Muhammad, you deserve to die? How do you live in a country that has that kind of mentality?
The military has become complicit. They have compromised. Nigerian military cannot win this war. I am telling you 20 years from today, this state of insecurity will not end because there are people that are enjoying it, benefiting from it, and reaping from it.
If Nigeria wants to win this war, partner with America. Let them come and annihilate it. I am not afraid of saying that in Kano yesterday, some people were protesting that they don’t want America to come.
What they have been told is that America is coming to kill Muslims. And Trump said he wants to come and kill terrorists. But they are protesting.
Anybody that is negotiating, people like Ahmed Gumi, Sheikh Gumi should be locked away. A terrorist sympathizer is a terrorist. A man that believes that you are not supposed to kill a terrorist is himself a terrorist.
A man that believes that we should go and negotiate, how do you go and negotiate with terrorists? Because you see, terrorists are not just criminals. They are working with the wrong ideology. A man that believes that killing has nothing to lose.
How do you negotiate with a man that believes that killing himself is super meat, and they are going to heaven to collect 72 virgins? How do you negotiate with such a person? A man like Sheikh Gumi should be locked away. A man like Ali Modu Sheriff should be arrested. If you want to win against terrorism, you must go brutal.
No nation will win against terrorism by pampering them. The custom is taking rice, seeding rice from Nigeria and taking it to terrorists in the bush, that they need to take care of them because they are human beings. No.
The moment you have become a terrorist and you see that taking the life of your fellow human being is nothing, is to please a God, then you don’t deserve to live. Children of God, I’m not going to ask you to pray with me because this is not a period of prayer.
This is a period of action. Everyone, don’t turn away Ezekiel from justice. The man has been speaking, I’ve paid attention.
Not for once have they invited the man for an interview because they don’t want to give the man any airtime. But you see, any little thing, they will call Gumi and give him a microphone.
Gumi, they are inviting Gumi up and down. The media are complicit. The Nigerian military is complicit.
You can’t win war with this Nigerian Army, not because they don’t have the capacity, but because they are compromised. War is created by banditry. People like Gumi and the rest of them are the people that facilitated the idea of Boko Haram.
And today, some of them are your leaders in government, most of them are moving forward. No one has been arrested. Kabiru Sokoto that bombed Nyanya in 2011, when they re-arrested him, guess where they got him? In the house of Shettima in Abuja.
What was he doing in the house of Shettima if he didn’t know him? But today Shettima is your Vice President. How do you win a war when terrorists are ruling you? When terrorists in Pantami are moving around? This is not a period to say we are praying. No! This is a period of wisdom.
This is a period of action. Churches in the South have no idea. They see that they are causing churches to be exemplary.
They don’t know what it means to be in the North. They don’t know what it means to be running for your life. Every Sunday in the church in Kaduna, when they open, everybody is praying with one eye open.
Because they don’t know a bomb might go off at any time in the church. The Nigerian church must rise up. There is an agenda.
And if you read the minutes of that meeting, you will not believe it. I have a recording of his messages. When he said, why are we killing their Muslim brothers: Referring to Boko Haram as their Muslim brothers.
How do you win with such people in government? And that guy was a Minister for eight years. Do you know why I am telling you this morning? You are in Nigeria. If you are not aware of what is happening around you, in a short time, one day, your calamity will just come.
You will not know how. Are you with me? The boundary tree that destroyed them in the North was created by the people who had the plot for mercenaries to destroy Nigeria in 2015 in case they did not win. Unfortunately, they won.
And those people were left without fight. And they began to use the weapons they had been provided for. These guys have cyphers.
They have no weapons. They move logistics, move money – dollars. Where do you think they are getting it from? You think it is from the sale of cow? No.
The Bible says, watch and pray. We have been praying. This is the time to do what? To watch!
