Since the religious riot that claimed thousands of lives in Kaduna in 2000, scores of men and women have been killed in religious and sectarian violence that has ravaged the northern part of Nigeria. Although religious organisations, government agencies and other groups have doled out relief items to victims, the hopes, survival and educational development of the children whose parents were killed during these crises remain threatened. Most times, their houses and business outfits are set ablaze, prompting a non-governmental organisation, Stephen Centre, to offer help to more than 320 children whose parents were victims of religious persecution. ADEOLA OGUNLADE recently visited the centre in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Entering through the gates of Stephen Centre in Aregbe community, Obantoko area of Abeokuta, Ogun State, it looked quiet and homely. The children were warm as they welcomed the reporter.
Most of them had been orphaned as a result of the religious crises that have rocked the nation in the last couple of years, particularly the activities of the Boko Haram sect in the northern part of the country.
Some of the inmates relived the horrible circumstances in which they lost their parents to rampaging Islamist sects in the north before the centre came to their rescue.
One of them is Blessing Justin.an indigene of Anambra State, who was born in Kaduna State. She said: “As a result of the religious crisis going on in Nigeria, particularly the northern part, so many people have been killed because of their faith in Christ Jesus. Happy homes have been turned into homes full of sorrow and tears. I am a living testimony to this crisis.
“On February 21, 2000, we were all at home when it was announced that there would be a peaceful protest against the Sharia law that was being imposed. It started peacefully until the next day when houses were set on fire with people in them. Shops were burnt with people in them. Schools were burnt with students in them and people were being slaughtered like animals.
“On February 22, my father left the house early in the morning for early morning prayers in our church. He asked my mother to stay at home and watch over us the children. After he left, our house was attacked by the rioters. Car tyres with fire on them were thrown at the house, but with God’s intervention, only the roof of the building caught fire and it was quenched.
“We waited for our father till later that evening, but he was nowhere to be found. Later at night, my uncle who witnessed the killing came to relay the news of my father’s death to us.
“Being a man of God (pastor) with strong faith in the Lord, my father was asked to deny his faith in Christ Jesus in order to save his life, but he refused. He was tortured but he still refused to deny Christ Jesus. This got the rioters angry and they killed him. He was shot with a gun.
“His body was brought to us. There were so many injuries inflicted on him while he was being tortured.
“All hope seemed lost for us. Things became difficult. But as it is written in the Bible, Jesus is the father to the fatherless and the husband to the widows. He remembered us through the Voice of the Christian Martyrs (VOCM). I thank God for VOCM and the director of Stephen Center International Group of Schools, Rev. Isaac Oluwole Newton Wusu, for bringing me, three of my siblings and other people that have also lost one or two parents during the religious riots to Stephen Centre International/Stephen Children’s Home in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
“I came here in the year 2001. Then, I was just seven years old. I was given free education, free feeding, clothing and other basic needs of life.
“At first, I never wanted to stay because we had to manage everything. The water was not good. We slept in classrooms and so on. But it was better than going back to nothing. The director kept encouraging me and my colleagues to be strong. As the years went by, things began to change for the better. We now have buildings of our own, a secondary school and so many social amenities. Things are now great here at Stephen Centre International.
“To the glory of God and the help of Stephen Center International, I graduated from secondary school in 2010. Even though the road has being tough, God saw us through. The following year, 2011, I also got admission into the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) for a diploma course.
“I have been with Stephen Center International for 12 years now. This place is a home to me. It is not just where I stay but where I learn educationaly and morally.
“I thank God for VOCM and Rev. Isaac for giving me and the other children here a second chance to live a good life.”
Another inmate, 13-year-old Silas Victoria, an indigene of Enugu State, whose parents were killed in Jos in 2009, said: “I was brought here in April, 2012. My growing up in Gombe was very nice as I enjoyed the company of my friends. I spoke their language and ate good foods like nwake, tuwo and others. But it was like a joke when in 2011, Christians were told to leave within three days. It was on the fifth of January when we went to a revival service in Deeper Life BSGA.
“Around 7pm, there were shootings by some unknown gunmen. They shot my father, brother, and elder brother on his two laps and his spinal cord. I jumped from the window and I felt no pain after I saw my younger sister with bloodstains. It was very painful. After two days, daddy died. They shot me in the left side.
‘Ironically, we had good relationship with our Muslim neighbours who behaved like Christians. They wept when they heard that we were leaving. We trusted the Muslim brothers, their ways and culture so much. I will love to go back to Gombe. I only implore the religious fanatics to change because the end is near.”
Sunday James, a 15-year-old indigene of Plateau State, recalled that he was in primary 5 when at about 3 am, some religious fanatics set fire to their house. We came out to escape being burnt and then my brother and I fell down and they started cutting us with machetes so much so that I landed in the hospital where they later told me that my parents and brother were killed in the massacre.
“I feel bad whenever I remember the incident. I want to be a banker. I had thought of fighting back, but I stopped the idea and gave peace a chance.”
Racheal David, who was rescued in Maiduguri, said : “Since 2009, life was always boring as the Boko Haram sect made life unbearable for all of us.
“One day, they passed by our house and saw my younger brother, but they did not do anything. They came back to ask where he was. I was standing by the door when they came in, but he had gone to play.
“They started shooting into the air. They took my father and asked whether to shoot him in the back or in the stomach. He did not say a word. but kept praying. They shot him in the ear and the bullet got out through the other ear. His teeth and brains popped out and he died.’’
In a chat with the Executive Director of Stephen Centre, Mr. Isaac Nelson, on what led to the initiative, he said it all began sometime in 2000 while he was distributing relief materials donated by an international organisation, Voice of the Martyr, where he had served for more than 30 years, to victims of the Kaduna riots. He said he came across two women at the refugee camp who gave birth to two girls and both named them Mary
He said: “The circumstances leading to their birth was touching. By the time I went back to search for the two Marys, I discovered that one had died with the mother. The other Mary survived and I brought her with me to Abeokuta, Ogun State.
“Stephen Centre was not actually founded as a school. While we were in Lagos, the harassment during the Abacha regime was so terrible that my brother suggested that I move to his apartment in Abeokuta. Incidentally, we spent little time there since the situation in Nigeria was not conducive for our activities. We moved to Ghana.
“After the death of Abacha and Abiola, I decided to use the apartment I was given in Abeokuta as a computer school and Christian library. That is why the name of the school is called Stephen Centre.
“I first brought eight children from Kaduna and called them Kaduna Special Children. Without funding and support, we increased the number to 14, then to 40 and later to 50. We later brought children from Kano, Bauchi, Jos, Maiduguri, and from the Boko Haram uprising. Now, there are 300 of such children here. We call them the family of Mary.
“Each of them lost one of their parents or both parents in the religious uprising in most parts of the north. When we brought them in those days, we could not communicate. I cannot speak Hausa very well and none of the children could speak English. So, we used signs to communicate.
“By the end of July 2011, we had 44 of them who had graduated from the college here. Twenty of them are in the university. Till today, the 20 students are not sponsored by anybody other than us. We have not got any external help for them.
“The journey has been exciting, though it is full of ups and downs. But the most important thing is that we are focused on where we are going. At Stephen Centre, we are dedicated like the biblical Stephen who was persecuted. Our trademark is for the church because we are children of the persecuted. There we started with the Kaduna riot in 2000.”
On whether Nelson had the capacity and experience to shoulder this responsibility, he said: “For me, it is just a miracle. How we got here, I can’t tell, as we wake up every day with God as our guard. We trust Him to support us and He has never failed us.
“We have also sponsored 20 children to higher institutions, studying courses that range from Law and engineering to Medicine and the humanities. We just bought an uncompleted building in Ijebu-Igbo to house the children who are in Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun State.
“It was a big challenge to start and to get approval from the Ministry of Education. We thank Mrs. Sore and Rev. Sofuluwe who supported us, took our plight into consideration and made sure that Stephen Centre was approved. It was a very big challenge which we could not have handled on our own. But the children within the community supported and welcomed the children.”
He recalled that when the orphanage started, the community thought that the children would be violent because they were products of crises. But with time, they saw that the children were calm and upheld godly virtues. Hence, they opened their arms to accept the children.
He said there were 60 teachers at the centre and their salaries were being paid regularly. “We have quality teachers who are totally committed to us and our goal. We are grateful to the parents, children and teachers who are working very hard on this project, as it is very challenging.
“Everything about us is a miracle. God has always been with us at this centre. We have graduated 44 students and several of them are in the universities in Nigeria. Often times, my answer has been very logical when people ask me how we are able to do this great work, because it is not a dream you can conceive or an idea that can just come to one’s mind. Feeding, housing and providing vocational and formal education to 320 children is never a child’s play.
“The churches have been helpful. The children were recently invited by Pastor Wale Adefarasin, the Senior Pastor of Guiding Light, who welcomed the children and gave them the opportunituy to share their stories with the congregation and were thereafter supported with several thousands.”
Funding for this humanitarian project could be a daunting task. How has he been able to work around it? Nelson said: “I worked for a Christian mission for more than 30 years, and I do a lot of publishing. At first, I thought I could feed eight children conveniently. But when the number increased to 20 and 50, it became difficult for me. To worsen it all, neighbours could not imagine what I was doing. They thought we were into child trafficking. I had to sell my books to feed the children.
“Some of the children are today reading Law. And when I think about the struggle, it is not an issue to remember. The God of the widow is also the God of the orphan. The church is really making a big mistake when orphans are seen as beggars. James told us that true religion is to visit the orphan and the widow in their affliction. God has not abandoned us and the church is realising it. We need to store up together and not fight one another, because our arch enemy is Satan, not the people that are killing us.
“The Voice of Christian Martyr, which I worked with for more than 30 years, gives us the most support. We are doing our best to rescue these children and their families, so that tomorrow when I die, I will be happy I have done my part towards saving lives.”
Asked whether the fact that he had worked in the North had given him a leeway in his intervention projects, he said: “I work in the North through an international Christian mission where we give relief materials to families of Christian martyrs. We are also working aggressively, reaching out to help persecuted Christians. We are the only mission recognised in most parts of northern Nigeria. We created a library where we fabricated artificial limbs for Christians whose legs were broken or damaged with bombs.”
Religious crises have pervaded the world, with Nigeria as one of the major trouble spots. But Nelson said there had not been a time when the church was not persecuted. “Jesus was crucified. And bible scholars record that only Apostle John, the brother of Jesus, died a natural death. The remaining apostles died harrowing deaths.
“Christianity was borne out of persecution. I will like to recommend this book, Foxes Book of Martyr, which gives a detailed report of Christians’ persecution. Today’s world can never be defined, because when you think you are at peace serving Christ, you should see yourself as being parochial. But when we open our eyes to the world, there are countries where you cannot mention the name of Jesus Christ.
“In Iraq, Egypt and America, Muslims are using oil money to buy churches and turn them into mosques as Christians no longer go to church and in most climes do not stand for the faith once delivered unto the saint. It is very alarming what you see around the world. Interestingly, the Bible is still the best seller in the world. A former senator in America, Thomas, said that evil triumphs when good people sit down and do nothing. It is not news that Christians are facing intense persecution around the world.”
What then should be the attitude of the Christians suffering intense persecution? To this, he said: “Extreme persecution should not deter Christians from following the path of truth. It is like the death of Stephen in the Bible, which added great impetus to the spread of the gospel after the ascension of Jesus Christ. We must also understand that serving Christ does not consist only in some fake and cheap miracles, screaming for prosperity without salvation, even to the neglect of the persecuted.
“The church must lay emphasis on preaching on persecution, passion for Christ and its attendant suffering, which is a must for all Christians.
I have heard of CAN (Christian Association of Nigeria) President agreeing with Muslim leaders that Boko Haram is not a religious group but a political one. But the group fights with the Quran and machetes in their hands. While I agree partially that some of the reasons for the unrest are political and some economic, we can recall that a former presidential aspirant once boasted that because of the election rigging in Nigeria, Nigeria would never know peace.
“I hope there will be a remedy to the issue of children given to early marriage and the almajiri (street urchins) who are often used for political or religious reasons. Until you take these almajiri children off the streets, we cannot know peace.
“Let me tell you, some of the leaders of the North will not do anything about taking them off the streets, no matter the effort of the government in tackling the menace. This is because the belief is that any city in which you do not have beggars on the streets cannot be blessed. So, these children grow up in hopeless conditions. They sleep on the street. They are covered with flies and live in inhuman conditions. They therefore kill without passion because they themselves grow up in hopeless conditions.
“If the Boko Haram sect kills all the infidels in Nigeria, only the Christians would be left for killing. People should not think of fighting for God because God is so great, good and full of mercy. Why do we now have to use cutlass to fight for God? It is political as well as religious.’’
