Brad Brandon, CEO of Across Nigeria, is pushing back on the media narrative surrounding Christian persecution in Nigeria, explaining the intricacies of the issue and clarifying key points.
“It is a persecution issue,” Brandon said. “I mean, you’ve got over 50,000 Christians that have been killed since 2009; 18,000 churches have been destroyed.”
Additionally, he said there are “internally displaced persons camps” with millions of people being housed there. The majority of these individuals are reportedly Christian.
“Their communities and their villages are being destroyed, and they have nowhere else to go,” Brandon said. “So there is an issue of Christian persecution going on, no doubt. Christians are being targeted. They are second-class citizens all throughout northern Nigeria.”
Brandon said there are a lot of complexities to the issue, though, and proceeded to explain some of the confounding and difficult elements.
“Some people cite, ‘Well, there’s a lot of Muslim on Muslim violence. And that’s absolutely true. Boko Haram will target Muslims just as fast … as anybody else,” he said. “We are very familiar with several schools, Islamic schools, who’ve had Muslim children kidnapped by Boko Haram. They end up holding them for ransom. These are Muslim children and holding them for ransom, and that’s a lot of times how Boko Haram will fund their operations.”
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