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How I Persecuted Christians
In 1976 I was elected to become coordinating secretary of Jamatu Nasri-l-Islam (Society for the Victory of Islam, an umbrella society for different radical Muslim movements) when it was first started. I coordinated their activities in the ten Northern States of Nigeria.
At that time I was backed up by the devil to commit atrocities. I hated to hear the name of Christ and of His followers. I became a great enemy of the cross. With all these efforts I did not know that the power of light supersedes the power of darkness.
Being a coordinator of this militant Islamic society we decided to eliminate Christianity. However, at the same time I used to reflect on unusual verses of the Qur'an about Christ, like the one in Sura Al-'Imran 3:55, where we read:
“And when Allah said: ‘O 'Isa (i.e. Jesus)! I am letting you pass away and am raising you up to myself; and I am purifying you from those who have sinned; and I am making those who followed you to be superior to those who have sinned, until the Day of Judgment.’”
إِذْ قَالَ اللَّهُ يَا عِيسَى إِنِّي مُتَوَفِّيكَ وَرَافِعُكَ إِلَيَّ وَمُطَهِّرُكَ مِنَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَجَاعِلُ الَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُوكَ فَوْقَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا إِلَى يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَة (سُورَةُ آلِ عِمْرَانَ ٣ : ٥٥)
In spite of the great impact of this verse on me, the first arrangement we made, was to use the leadership in Students' Unions at universities and make sure that the chief posts in this leadership would come from Islam. We had a meeting and we set aside April 24, 1978 to start eliminating Christianity in the North of our country, starting at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. We informed all chiefs, district heads and Maanguwas in Kaduna State. According to our plan, after finishing in Kaduna State, we wanted to take over Plateau State and from there all other parts of the country. Before we came to this decision, we had made statistics on the population of Nigerians in our country and abroad. Based on the 1963 and 1973 census, in Nigeria alone we found the number of Christians to be 39,640,000 while that of Muslims was only 20,180,000. We altered the figures to suit our ambitions. We declared that the Christians amounted to only 21,180,000 and the Muslims to 39,640,000. For details about this see the Third-Quarter Review on the Muslim World by Ansar Mansur.
Our first and second meetings were held in Bayero University, Kano (formerly Ado Bayero College, Kano). Since we chose Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, as the site of the disturbance, we instigated the students and people of Samaru to use such provocative words as: “We do not want the constitution; we want Maliki (sharia) law!” “We only want Islam in Nigeria!”
On that fateful day in 1978, students in the main campus started to shout these slogans, instigating unrest. But our happiness was turned into sorrow, because when mobile policemen arrived to silence the situation eleven people were killed, and none of them were Christians. In other words only Non-Christians died!
From this I understood what God meant, when He said:
“Touch not my anointed one!”
because of the precious blood of the Lamb (that is Jesus Christ). Anyone who tries to do this, God will put him to shame. During these riots we were in darkness, but the Christians were in the light. That is why the Christians had a great victory over us. Paul said:
"If God be with us, who can be against us?"
(Romans 8:32)
However, in spite of these miracles, we were not afraid and continued one further step in our plans.
In 1980 we arranged at a meeting in Kaduna that we would try to bring as many Christian daughters as possible into Islam by making them marry Muslim men. There were prizes for any Muslim who succeeded in getting Christian girls to marry them. Prizes varied from girl to girl depending on how strong she was in the Lord. Our scheme was that, if Christian girls ended up in Muslim homes, then we would have ways to Islamize them there. But the outcome of this plan was again disappointing. There were only few claims for the prize money, and of these we were not really sure whether they had achieved what they claimed. God did not allow Muslims to have victory over Christians, and no Muslim will win against Christians, not even the devil himself, for the power of light is above the power of darkness.
At this point I want to encourage every believer in Christ to see the power of Jesus. His power is beyond human sight. It is the power which raises the dead, heals the sick, revives the broken hearted, and brings deliverance and freedom. It is the mighty power that saves all who believe in Him, the power that knows no limit.
When we realized that our planning centers had become known, we decided to plan all our wicked activities outside the country. We used to go to Iran, Kuwait, Pakistan, Korea and other Islamic areas to coordinate such wicked plans, and after planning we would come back to Nigeria, to execute these plans. But in spite of this secrecy the Lord destroyed the work of the devil.
Another plan that we had, was to train as many Islamic scholars in Christian institutions like seminaries, Bible colleges and other organizations, so as to falsify the Bible. The requirement for those to be trained in the Bible was that they needed to be highly trained Muslims.
We were lucky to get one Alhaji Sule Lamido Mohammad as a volunteer to answer the challenge. We gave him money to work out his admission. He succeeded to be accepted to study in the Bible college at Kagoro. When Sule went there, the Spirit of the Lord did not allow him to have peace until he accepted Christ to be his personal savior. That was about two months later.
In April 1982, when the students were on vacation, we gathered, the eight of us who were the worst planners. We asked Sule whether he had learnt something. But Sule told us that he has seen the light - the power of light over the power of darkness. We gathered in the Congo Conference Hall of Ahamadu Bello University. We pressed that he should tell us the meaning of this slang expression. Sule then told us that he had accepted Jesus Christ to be his personal savior. What we hated occurred to us. The next thing we did, was to beat Sule and to take him to a magistrate court in Zaria. After a long litigation we were told to pay Sule 5000 Nairas as damages. We hired nine lawyers but Sule hired none. His lawyer was Jesus Christ.
Other things we did in order to harm Christians were some publications, like "The Gospel of Saint Barnabas" or "Why you should not be a Christian". We published these writings in order to provoke Christians to anger and then find a cause for Jihad (Islamic Holy War) against them.
We also conducted training camps in many areas of Nigeria, with headquarters in Kano. In spite of all these activities we had no victory at all. Jesus had been the commander-in-chief of the Christians. If we look at Luke 10:1-17 we see how Jesus sent his disciples to go into the world and let them take with them no sword, no rod, nor any weapon. If we trust in Jesus, Satan will not come near.
After these things we decided to go into churches to cause confusion between pastors and elders there. We did such wickedness in the Anglican church of Kaduna, where Rev. Ali Ahmadu Tula was pastoring, and also in the First ECWA Church in Gombe, where Rev. Mai Pandaya was ministering. We also succeeded in throwing confusion into Bishara Baptist Church in Bauchi, where Rev. Umar Hassan Shinga was ministering.
All that we did was only human effort. But to believers in Christ, God was their refuge. In Islam, with all its human drudgery, there is no salvation. Their works are in darkness, that is why they do not like the light.