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The history of persecution of Christians in Bauchi, Nigeria, continues.

While Muslim officials and others drove Christians to the outlying edges of the city of Bauchi decades ago, those areas later became the city center, from which Christians were again forced out and now live far from their worship sites, said the Rev. Abraham Damina Dumus, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Bauchi State, and a Baptist pastor.

While Muslim officials and others drove Christians to the outlying edges of the city of Bauchi decades ago, those areas later became the city center, from which Christians were again forced out and now live far from their worship sites, said the Rev. Abraham Damina Dumus, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Bauchi State, and a Baptist pastor.

He said those Christians have been faithful enough to return to church worship services and other programs.

Pastor Dumas stated that Christians in Bauchi have maintained their steadfastness and continued to use their places of worship despite Muslim authorities’ attempts to intimidate them. “Without the commitment of Christians, these worship places would have been shut down completely.”

No Christians live in the old city center of Bauchi, he said.

“Christians who were living inside the old city as Muslims chased out tenants,” he said. “They had to move out and live in the outskirts.”

The extremism of area Muslims is such that anti-Islamic events elsewhere, including across borders, lead them to vent their fury on local Christians, he said.

“Anytime these Muslims are provoked by events occurring elsewhere, Christians living in the suburbs become their targets of attacks,” Pastor Dumas said. For instance, Muslims will readily attack the Yelwa area. In this Christian suburb, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University and the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, are located whenever they feel angered by events taking place elsewhere, even when they know that Christians in Bauchi state have nothing to do with such events. These areas have been attacked numerous times over the years.”

As part of Nigeria’s northeastern geopolitical zone, where Islamic extremism took root in the early 1990s, Bauchi state has a history of bombed churches and assaults that continue to this day, he said.

“The persecution of Christians in Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area has remained a thorn in their flesh up to this very moment as I speak to you,” Pastor Dumas said. “From 1991 to date, there has been continuous bloodletting by Muslim terrorists targeted at Christians in that area.”

Bauchi State Gov. Bala Mohammed recently complained about a spike in attacks by terrorists, whom he said were coming from other states.

“Because of the federal government’s sustained war against bandits and terrorism in other zones of the country, the state is becoming a hiding place for the unscrupulous elements that are disturbing the peace of the citizens,” Mohammed told a meeting of traditional rulers in September. “We have established a Ministry of Internal Security that will partner with the federal government to address providing internal security.”

Armed terrorists cross state borders in their assaults. A police rescue effort in response to a kidnapping in Bauchi State’s Toro County on Nov. 29 resulted in the recovery later that evening of three others who had been kidnapped in neighboring Plateau state, a pastor and two other Christians.

Bauchi state, where sharia (Islamic law) has been instituted as the main body of civil and criminal law since 2001, is estimated to be about 85 percent Muslim. Christians comprise about 6 percent of the population, with traditional indigenous religions followed by 9 percent of the inhabitants.

The history of bombings of churches in Bauchi State hit a new level with the birth of the rebel Islamic extremist group Boko Haram in 2009, Pastor Dumas said.

“Also, in the southern part of Bauchi state, in places like Bauchi, Tafawa Balewa, and the rest, the situation was nasty to the church,” Pastor Dumas said. “It was like the church was going into extinction, as there were clear signs that Christians would not exist in Bauchi State.”

In the 2023 World Watch List of the countries where it is most challenging to be a Christian, Nigeria jumped to sixth place, its highest ranking ever, from No. 7 the previous year.

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