(Morning Star News) – Islamic extremist
group Boko Haram released a video last
week showing the execution of two
Christian aid workers in Nigeria, sources
said.
Lawrence Duna Dacighir and Godfrey Ali
Shikagham, both members of the Church
of Christ in Nations (COCIN) in Plateau
state, are shown kneeling while three
masked, armed men stand behind them in
a video posted Sept. 22 on Boko Haram’s
Amaq news agency site. The two young
men, who had gone to Maiduguri to help
build shelters for people displaced by
Islamic extremist violence, are then shot
from behind.
Speaking in the Hausa language, the
middle one of the three terrorists says in
the video that they have vowed to kill every
Christian they capture in revenge for
Muslims killed in past religious conflicts in
Nigeria. Dacighir and Shikagham, originally
from Plateau state’s Mangu County, were
captured by Boko Haram, now called the
Islamic State in West Africa Province
(ISWAP), as they carried out their work in
displaced persons camps.
Ethnic and religious tensions resulted in
large-scale clashes between Muslims and
Christians in Jos in 2001 and 2008.
It is not clear from the video, temporarily
posted on YouTube, when the two men
were executed. Their identities were
confirmed by a relative, the Rev. John Pofi,
a COCIN pastor.
Pastor Pofi, a cousin of the two executed
Christians, told Morning Star News in a text
message statement also shared with others
that the two Plateau state natives had gone
to Maiduguri from Abuja.
“Lawrence and Godfrey left Abuja for
Maiduguri in search of opportunities to
utilize their skills for the betterment of
humanity and paid with their lives,” Pofi
said. “We will never get their corpses to
bury. The community will have to make do
with a makeshift memorial to these young
lives cut short so horrifically.”
If the federal government had created
economic opportunities for those tempted
to join extremist groups and had returned
security to the country, his cousins would
not be dead now, Pastor Pofi said.
“We must ask ourselves if this is the kind
of country we want where young men who
are earning an honest living are brutally
killed while those who abduct and kill
others are invited to dialogue with
government and paid handsomely,” he said.
In a letter last week to the United Nations
secretary general, attorney Emmanuel
Ogebe of the U.S.-Nigeria Law Group, a
legal consulting firm with an emphasis on
human rights, expressed concern that the
Nigerian government did not condemn the
killing of the two men even though they
were helping to provide shelter for
displaced Nigerians.
“Lawrence and Godfrey …were using their
skills to provide a basic human need of
shelter to others when they were killed,”
Ogebe stated. “Your excellency, we wish to
draw your urgent attention to the fact that
taken together with the execution of aid
worker Hauwa Liman (ICRC) this time last
year, the recorded number of aid workers
slaughtered by terrorists in Nigeria over the
past decade is now in excess of 40.”
Ogebe asserted in his letter that the killing
of the two Christians was Boko Haram’s
first execution on the basis of “ethnic
cleansing.” The two victims were from the
predominantly Christian Mwalghavul ethnic
group. Previous ethnic/religious clashes
took place between the predominantly
Muslim Hausa and Fulanis against the
predominantly Christian Berom, Irigwe,
Afizere, Tarok, Ngas and Mwalghavul
peoples.
Ogebe wrote that workers for international
aid group Action Against Hunger kidnapped
in July issued a distressed plea for
government help with no notable
administration response. On Wednesday
(Sept. 25), Action Against Hunger
announced that one of its workers being
held hostage had been executed.
“More executions of humanitarian workers
could yet occur,” Ogebe wrote to the U.N.
“Despite these humanitarian organizations’
resilience in still serving victims, the
Nigerian Government has since just last
week suspended Action Against Hunger
and Mercy Corp on dubious grounds.”
International aid agency Mercy Corps
suspended operations in Borno and Yobe
states in northeast Nigeria after the
Nigerian army closed four of its offices in
the region without explanation, the agency
announced on Wednesday (Sept. 25).
Ogebe urged the U.N. secretary general to
obtain an assurance from Nigerian
President Muhammadu Buhari that all
hostages will be released before the
country’s Independence Day on Tuesday
(Oct. 1).
“We also ask that you implore him to lift
the suspension on humanitarian groups
providing urgent services to victims,”
Ogebe wrote. “We urge the secretary
general to remind President Buhari of
Nigeria’s obligations under international
humanitarian law to negotiate the
protection of aid workers and non-
combatant civilians in its dialogue with BH/
ISWAP [Boko Haram/Islamic State in
Western Africa Province].
Nigeria ranked 12th on Open Doors’ 2019
World Watch List of countries where
Christians suffer the most persecution.
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