By Sandra Elliot
01/27/2017 Nigeria (International Christian Concern) – There are now 800 Nigerian Christians with no place to worship. Within a matter of hours the Government Development Control Agency in Jigawa State, Nigeria, turned two churches with more than 25 years of operation into two mounts of dusty rubble.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God and The Lord’s Chosen Church in Dutse, Nigeria, were both destroyed on January 11, 2017 by the State Urban Development Agency after being deemed illegal building structures.
“They didn’t serve us any demolition notice,” Pastor Tobi Olukowajo of Redeemed Christian Church told International Christian Concern (ICC), “We only heard afterwards that copies of a demolition notice were given to the Security Agencies since December 2016.”
With no prior knowledge of the demolition plans, church leaders were unable to recover any items from the building including books, valuables, and personal property. Within two hours, the Redeemed Christian Church of God was leveled to the ground by bulldozers. This same fate befell The Lord’s Chosen Church at noon that same day.
Though the Nigerian constitution guarantees religious freedom to all citizens, Christians in Jigawa State are suffering increasing persecution and discrimination from their Muslim counterparts and local leaders.
Jigawa is among 12 Nigerian states that adopted Sharia law in the 2000s. While the implementation of Sharia law has weakened over time, many in authority are still hell-bent on enforcing restrictive laws on Christians. These church demolitions are just one example in the bigger picture of systemic persecution in these regions.
Christians in Jigawa live as second class citizens, often marginalized in the educational system, the workforce, and their access to healthcare. The disposition of government leaders is similar to that of the Muslim traditional leaders in these areas.
“Both political leaders and traditional rulers have the same plan to wipe our churches in the state,” the Christian Association of Nigeria explained, “We have about 40 churches but the government has refused to grant them certificates of occupancy or approve building permits for them.”
It is for lack of such building permits that security agencies like that of Jigawa’s state capital justify the demolition of Christian property. In February 2016, an Anglican church was demolished by a government agency in Gusau, Zamfara State, Northwest Nigeria under the guise that it was an illegal structure. A Fellowship Centre of the Nigerian Christian Fellowship in the same town was bulldozed the same day, as well as part of the school fence of the Catholic church.
This type of persecution has become a favored practice by local and religious authorities in the Muslim-dominated northwestern states of Nigeria.
“We gave no less than three notices to the affected churches to stop development because they failed to obtain permit from the relevant agency of government,” Governor Badaru Abubakar said after the most recent incident.
Both the Redeemed Christian Church of God and The Lord’s Chosen Church had applied for such permits multiple times in their years of operation. The corrupted bureaucracy of the local government all but ensured that these permits not be granted to excuse the decision to destroy the buildings.
“There’s no church here that has any government approval papers because they don’t give it,” Pastor Tobi Olukowajo told ICC, “We’ve been trying to see the Emir and the government agency but didn’t succeed.”
According to the Christian Association of Nigeria, the permit requests are passed back and forth between the Muslim authority and the government agencies to no end, allowing the applications to get lost in a pile of government papers. The result, as we well know, is to lose everything.
“It was a terrible experience, with so many Christian[s] who witnessed the demolition crying,” Reverend Musa told WWM, “I felt so bitter because we were in a situation where you have been cheated and you cannot talk.”
After the destruction of these two churches, the local authorities earmarked six more churches for demolition on the basis of not having a building permit. Which churches and the dates of demolition have not yet been announced.