NOW HEAR THIS Africans in general Nigeria in particular and people all over the world. ” The fundamental question is – what are the benefits of sponsorship for the killings and destruction of Nigerians and Nigeria? “
NOW HEAR THIS – July 16th 2009, we ( Newstimeworldwide ) admonish them ” Prevention is better and Cheaper than Cure. ” They laughed, scoffed and mocked us to scorn. We told them ” laugh now but you will cry much later. ” It has come to pass. To Almighty GOD ALLAH JEHOVAH alone be all the glory. — Newstimeworldwide
NORTHERN NIGERIA, PLEASE SAVE NIGERIA FROM RELIGIOUS WAR By Abu-Taqiyah Zumo
There was a time when Northern Nigeria was the compass of this nation. The world looked to us to see how difference could coexist without collapsing. In the scholarly courts of Sokoto, law and morality were taught under one roof. In the great markets of Kano, an Igbo trader, a Yoruba artisan and a Hausa wholesaler could share one warehouse for 40 years without asking about creed. In the libraries of Borno, Kanuri scholars preserved manuscripts older than the Nigerian state. On the cool hills of Plateau, Berom, Anaguta, Afizere, Fulani and Hausa farmers planted on the same soil, drank from the same streams, and buried their dead in the same earth. We quarreled over water and land, yes. But we celebrated Sallah in each other’s compounds and Christmas in each other’s homes. We taught our children that Nigeria began at home. That North built the civil service, provided the military backbone, fed the nation, and gave Nigeria its moral bearing. That is the North we stand to lose.
Today, that same North is sending Nigeria its gravest warning. And it is coming from every direction, and too often, in the name of God. For two decades, Jos, Riyom, Mangu and Barkin Ladi have slipped from tourism brochures to casualty lists. The silence around the numbers has been as deadly as the violence.
From 2001 to 2023, over 6,000 people have been killed in Plateau conflicts, according to documented civil society and media reports. The truth that is rarely said out loud is that the dead have come from both faiths.
In March 2010, over 500 people were massacred in Dogo-Nahawa in a single night, and the victims included women and children from different communities. In June 2018, coordinated attacks in Barkin Ladi, Riyom and Jos South claimed over 200 lives. In those years, entire farming communities were targeted and wiped out. Homes were burnt, granaries destroyed, and families erased because of where they lived and who they prayed to.
The killing left the farms and moved to the highways. Innocent travelers have become targets because of how they look and what they believe. In August 2021, 22 travelers returning from a religious event were ambushed and killed on Rukuba Road in Jos North. In 2022, 8 traders were killed near Gashish. These were not clashes. They were executions.
What makes the tragedy worse is that community leaders on both sides, instead of calming nerves, have at times fanned the flames. Speeches that should have healed have deepened suspicion. Narratives of “indigene versus settler” and “defense versus invasion” have replaced the older truth that Plateau people intermarried, traded, and lived together for centuries. What is killing Plateau is not theology. It is politics dressed in religious cloth, and impunity dressed as self-defense.
In Sokoto, the seat of the Caliphate and the moral capital of Islam in Nigeria, the unthinkable is happening: Muslims are turning on Muslims. For sometimes, confrontations between Salafiyya groups and other Muslim communities in Sokoto, Gwadabawa and Illela have led to burnt mosques, killed clerics, and protests where young men chant takfir at each other. How did it get here? Salafiyya, with its own mode of interpretation, at its core, calls for adherence to Qur’an and Sunnah. But in Northern Nigeria, a vocal fringe has abandoned scholarship for outrage. Three forces made it volatile. First is doctrinal exclusivity, the teaching that only one group are “true Muslims.” Everyone else, including other Muslims, is labeled deviant. That erases the North’s 200-year tradition of Malikiyya tolerance and debate.
Second is social media amplification. A Friday sermon no longer ends at the mosque gate. A 60-second clip on TikTok or WhatsApp can mobilize anger across three states before the next prayer.
Third is poverty and patronage. Unemployed youths are recruited as “defenders of the faith” with cash, motorcycles, and a microphone. Theology becomes a job. Debate becomes assault. The blood followed.
In 2022, Deborah Samuel, a 200-level student, was beaten and burnt to death on a Sokoto campus over an alleged blasphemous WhatsApp post. In 2023, two men were killed in Sokoto metropolis after similar accusations. Kano, the city that taught Nigeria how to do business across faiths, is now teaching fear across faiths. In 2016, Mrs. Bridget Agbahime was killed in a Kano market. In 2022, a man was lynched in Sabon Gari over alleged blasphemy. Traders whisper. Students self-censor.
In Borno, after 15 years of Boko Haram, over 35,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million displaced. Boko Haram killed Muslims and Christians. The soldiers fighting them are Muslims and Christians. The people in IDP camps are Muslims and Christians. To reduce this to a religious war is to grant the terrorists their final victory.
At the center of this national fray, two voices from Plateau now echo in every WhatsApp group and TikTok feed. Sheikh Sani Yahaya Jingir was quoted as saying, “Nigeria is a Muslim country, and if you don’t want to accept a Muslim-Muslim ticket, you should leave Nigeria because it belongs to us.” Reverend Ezekiel Dachomo was quoted as saying, “We refuse to be Islamic… Allah is a demon… A Muslim-Muslim presidency is complete genocide to Christians.” One man claims ownership of 100 million citizens. The other insults the God of 130 million Nigerians. Both are wrong. Both are dangerous. Both are trading the Constitution of 1999 for the politics of conquest.
The hard truth we avoid is simple. Hunger in the North does not check your voter’s card. Bandits in Zamfara, Kebbi and Niger do not ask for your religion before they pull the trigger. The 10 million out-of-school children in the North, maternal deaths in Kebbi — these are Nigerian problems. They demand Nigerian solutions.
You cannot govern a country by telling half the people they are tenants. You cannot build a country by telling the other half their God is evil. Debate policy. Debate competence. Debate records. That is democracy. The moment you weaponize faith to claim ownership, you have left democracy and entered the road to civil war.
Northern Nigeria stands at a cliff. Behind us is a graveyard where farmers were wiped out in their fields and travelers were murdered on the road. Ahead of us are only two roads. There is no third. Behind us are over 6,000 dead in Plateau from both Christian and Muslim communities, entire villages erased, and leaders who should have built bridges choosing instead to dig trenches.
Ahead is Road One, the North we once were. Coordinated. Respected. Monolithic in purpose, diverse in faith. A North that exports grain, scholars, soldiers, and statesmen. A North that teaches Nigeria how to live together.
Or Road Two, a North that exports corpses, hashtags, and refugees. A North that lights a religious fire that will not stay in the North. It will burn markets in Lagos, schools in Enugu, churches in Port Harcourt, and mosques in Ibadan. It will consume Muslim and Christian, rich and poor, farmer and banker alike. If we take Road Two, there will be no Nigeria left to argue about tickets, quotas, or power. There will only be survivors telling stories of what we lost.
Imagine it. In five years, we will not be debating the economy. We will be counting displaced persons. We will not be arguing policy. We will be negotiating ceasefires in our own country. The children of today will not ask who won the election. They will ask who burned their school and who told their father that his neighbor was an enemy. That is the future we are buying with every hateful sermon and every shared clip of blood.
We must choose an alternative now, or else. To government at all levels, enforce the law without fear or favor. A sermon that says “leave Nigeria” or “your God is a demon” is not religious freedom. It is incitement and a threat to national security. Prosecute. Let the law be blind to turban and collar. Silence in the face of hate is complicity.
To scholars, imams, pastors and traditional rulers, reform the pulpit now. The Sultan, Emirs, CAN, Izala, Daring, Salafi councils and Christian bodies must meet and sign a binding code of conduct. No incitement. No takfir. No dehumanization. Preach justice for all victims, Muslim and Christian. If a cleric cannot preach peace, withdraw the microphone. The pulpit is a hospital, not an armory.
And finally to citizens, reject merchants of division. The man who tells you “they want to wipe you out” is usually the man profiting while you bury your brother. Verify before you forward. Mourn before you curse. Build before you break. If your religious leader cannot unite, find one who can.
The Nigerian flag carries no cross. It carries no crescent. It carries green and white — for our farms, for our peace, for all of us.
Northern Nigeria, the world is watching. Save Nigeria from religious war. Not tomorrow. Not after the next attack. Today. Because if we allow a few loud voices to define 230 million quiet Nigerians, we are not defending our faith. We are burying the North that once gave Nigeria its spine. And when the spine is gone, the body cannot stand.
In This Biography
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