ILORIN, Nigeria, August 14 (Compass Direct News) – Blaming the death of their leader on Christian prayers, an Islamist group that launched a hate campaign in response to an evangelistic event in 2004 is reportedly attacking Christians in this Kwara state capital with renewed virulence, area Christians said.
At least three Christians have died and several others have been injured in attacks with machetes and other weapons since June, clergymen said. They said the attacks began after the death in May of Dr. Ali Olukade, head of a local group of Islamists called Tibliq, possibly patterned after the worldwide Tablighi Jamaat missionary movement.
Dr. Olukade was critically injured in an auto accident in 2006, and after extensive recovery efforts he succumbed to his injuries in May. His extremist followers, according to the Rev. Cornelius Fawenu, secretary of the Kwara chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), believe that his death was the result of prayers by Christians upset when Muslim threats cut short a major event by German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke in 2004.
Islamic uproar over the evangelistic event in Ilorin forced it to a venue outside the city, and Bonnke had to “abort” three days of the planned five-day event, Rev. Fawenu said.
When the local Tibliq leader was injured in the car crash in 2006, Rev. Fawenu said, “The members of his Muslim sect went on rampage, demonstrating against America and the state of Israel, over claims that it was the prayers of Christians over the aborting of the gospel event of 2004 that caused their leader to be involved in an auto crash. Dr. Olukade, the Muslim sect’s leader, died in May 2008, and since then Muslim fanatics have embarked in serial killings and attacks on Christians in the city.”
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