Five charged over brutal killing

By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST News Service, who was born in Nigeria

KANO, NIGERIA (ANS – June 11, 2016) -- Five Muslim men have been charged with the murder of an elderly pastor’s wife over an alleged blasphemy in the northern Nigerian walled city of Kano.

The suspects are accused of killing 74-year-old Mrs. Bridget Agbahime, an ethnic Igbo trader in Kofar Wambai market, Kano city, on Thursday, June 2, 2016, after she allegedly insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

She was the wife a pastor in Deeper Life Bible Church, one of the most popular Pentecostal churches in Nigeria.

All five pleaded not guilty at a magistrate’s court in the city and were remanded in custody pending another hearing on Tuesday, June 28, 2016.

Nigerian authorities said the victim was “mobbed and extra-judicially murdered” at the Kofar Wambai market in Kano, Nigeria’s largest northern city.

One media report said that Mrs. Agbahime was selling plastic when an “argument happened between her and a few Muslim young men.” It went on to say, “Being a Christian she did not lose her temper; however, [she] did not support certain of their views. With a claim that she blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammad, they punched her and then killed her in most brutal way.

“The youths were so angry that they also tried to reach out for her husband; however, as someone called the police earlier, he was protected by the policemen. That absolutely saved his life.

“As a pastor of a Deeper Life Church, Pastor Mike Agbahime, is in deep sorrow together with his whole congregation…[she] was a devoted mother, a wife and a Christian.”

The BBC’s Chris Ewokor in Abuja, the capital, says that since the incident there has been widespread outcry against the crime from both Muslims and Christians.

The northern chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria said police were not doing enough to protect Christians and warned Saturday of a “looming religious crisis.”

Media reports said that such attacks have historically led to retaliations and sectarian violence.

“This barbarism must stop now,” said the association’s spokesman, Rev. John Hayab. He also accused police of trying to cover up the killing.

However, Nigeria's national police chief Solomon Arase said Saturday that suspects had been arrested, and appealed for calm on all sides. He added that security forces were being deployed to Kano - the site of previous sectarian clashes - to prevent the incident from “degenerating into a major security threat.”

Nigerian Muslim groups denounce killing

One group, the Muslim Rights Concern, said that it “strongly condemns this gruesome murder,” adding that “it is preposterous, barbaric and un-Islamic.”

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Muslim President Mohammadu Buhari called the killing “utterly condemnable” and vowed that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.

“Let us ensure that we keep the peace, as justice will be done,” Buhari said in a statement. “Let us learn to respect each other's faith, so that we can know each other and live together in peace.”

Nigeria's 170 million people are divided almost equally between Christians mainly in the south and Muslims predominantly in the north.

The northern region has been the scene of religious violence in the past

In one gruesome case in 1996, an Igbo Christian trader was beheaded by suspected Muslim youths who had accused him of desecrating the Koran.

His severed head was impaled on a spike and paraded around the city.

Note from Dan Wooding. Please pray for the family of this pastor’s wife and all of the Christians in Northern Nigeria, where I was born.

Photo captions: 1) Suspects charged with the killing of the pastor’s wife. 2) Troops patrol the streets of Kano 3) Women show their grief. 4) Dan Wooding.

About the writer: Dan Wooding, 75, is an award-winning winning author, broadcaster and journalist who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, Alfred and Anne Wooding, who were married in Kano, where the murder took place. He is now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for nearly 53 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren, who all live in the UK. Dan is the founder and international director of the ASSIST News Service (ANS), and the author or co-author of some 45 books, the latest is Mary My Story from Bethlehem to Calvary (http://marythebook.com). Dan has a weekly radio show and two TV programs all based in Southern California. Before moving to the US, Dan was a senior reporter with two of the UK’s largest circulation newspapers and was also an interviewer for BBC Radio One in London.

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