February 26, 2012 was one Sunday that started like any other, but one Sunday that was not going to pass away before it had carved its dramatic memory on the tender hearts of worshippers and the granite floors of the headquarters parish of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) in the central Nigeria city of Jos. The first service had begun; worshippers were still streaming in. Suddenly, at about 7.30am, a gargantuan explosion, heard miles away, shattered the Sunday morning peace, raising an atomic dust cloud. The church had been suicide-bombed. A car, which some claim had been escorted thither by what looked like a military vehicle, having been let through the gates, was making its determined way through the parking lot towards the church building when it got entangled with a motorcycle. It was still wrestling the unrelenting bike towards the building when it had a tyre punctured and the bomb went off, a few feet from the church.
I visited the church on April 14 and was shown round the bomb site with the remains of the suicide car. A left back tyre on its wrenched axle lay against the near western wall like the limb of a lamb violently torn out. Five meters away were the mangled remains of what had been the car engine. My guide showed me the filled crater in the concrete parking lot where the car bomb had gone off. He showed me on his phone the picture he had taken, of the upper half of the face of the bomber whose one leg had been found about 200 meters away beyond a bank premises. The brother who had taken me there told me he had heard the explosion from his house about 12 kilometres away, and had climbed up his fence to look out, because the bomb had sounded like it had gone off from next door.
In “Beware, the Gibeonites!” dated January 30, 2012, our last post in “The Spirit of Sudan” series, a “call” was made “for watchmen and women from midnight of February 26, praying an hour and a half each, to midnight of the 27th,” because the Lord had exposed that the 27th had been marked by the enemy. I was in London for the Europe Retreat of The Preacher when my phone rang fifteen minutes after the blast. My head drooped. Had we not begun prayers to cover the gates of the dates, I wondered. So long after, I have had to be thankful also, wondering what more may have been planned for that day, and the 27th. I left a token offering in support of God’s work in that church.
On my visit to the church, my guide told how miraculously God had saved the church and the worshippers that Sunday morning, in spite of the magnitude of the bomb so maliciously huge probably because it was the church of the disliked Christian governor of the state. The only casualty within the church premises was the bomber himself, his face partly preserved so it could be photographed. The only car that began to flame from the incinerated detonation had its fire soon put out, even though the bomb had gone off in a crowded parking lot just steps from the walls of the church. Buildings meters away were damaged, but the church besides which the bomb had gone off had only a crack in the new staircase under construction. A miracle!
The Bible tells how God opened the eyes of Prophet Balaam’s donkey to see the angel of death that the riding master could not see (Numbers 22:22-34). In this bombed church, God opened the eyes of little children who saw how the church building and the worshippers had been preserved. In the confusion after the massive detonation, children were seen pointing and asking, “Can’t you see that tall man?” “Can’t you see that big tall man?” They saw a huge angel standing between the church and the smoky dust cloud from the bomb, the angel’s hands raised, as if shielding the church behind him. At another church, children had also seen a huge angel after a bomb had gone off. The angel seemed to have been pushing the flames and the smote of the detonated suicide bomb away from the church. God “revealed... unto babes” what He chose to hide “from the wise and prudent” (Matthew 11:25), so that He might perfect unto Himself praise “out of the mouth of babes and sucklings” (Matthew 21:16).
It is encouraging thus to know that our prayers have not been in vain, but I confess that as I hear again and again the cases of angelic interventions in the jihads against the Church, especially in Jos, I have wondered to myself why God would not perform those miracles in every attack against His people. In the northern Nigeria city of Maiduguri, Borno State, the jihadists invaded the house of Rev. A. He had lived in that city for thirty-six years. They broke through his doors into the house, looted it to their full, poured petrol all over the place, and apprehended him. Deaf to his pleadings, the knife went up to cut off his head; his three grown daughters, shut up in the toilet, were praying their last prayers. Just then, the leader of the mob asked that they leave the man alone. The knife came down, but they did not leave before they had taken all his money. Part of the house had already gone up in flames.
Mercifully, soon as the jihadists left, the fire was put out, but Rev. A. did not sleep another night in the city. His precious church of much labour had already been looted and razed down. Rev. A says his deliverance was a miracle. But my head worries, “Lord, why did You not perform the same miracle for the more than thirty other pastors that were killed in the same city within the same days?” Down this pastor’s street, Sister Halitu had her eight children locked up in the house and burnt to death. When the children saw that their attackers had trapped them to die, they held hands and began to sing. They died singing. After the flames, their corpses were found with the hands still held together tightly in death. Young martyrs.
We are told that there are no more than three churches remaining in the city of Maiduguri; the others have already been destroyed or are “under lock and keys.” What more shall we say? The Sunday morning sanctuary at the Bayero University in Kano, whose altar the enemy drenched in the blood of the worshippers? In some untouched cities I see plush car stickers that announce loudly, “Clergy,” or “Missionary,” or “Pastor,” and I think of the many places where that has become a dangerous and audacious invitation for trouble. The enemy is getting desperate. Kenya in East Africa has begun to be stirred, too, with bombs. That is one Gospel bastion in East Africa that Islam has been targeting, like Nigeria in the West and the Republic of South Africa in southern Africa.
From about the close of last year, an alarmist sms has circulated Nigeria every other month. Purporting to originate from the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) in Abuja, it screams that Yobe State is “boiling again,” and that churches and Christians are at the moment being annihilated. While we do not deny that the killing of Christians takes place in many places in northern Nigeria, my head (not the Lord) tells me that that sms is the tactical device of our enemies, to decoy us from targeted prayers; to divert attention through false alarms of “Wolf! Wolf!” so that by the time the wolf truly comes, as I fear he intends soon to, we would have received the sms so many false times that we would not give attention to the true cry for help. In fact, that sms has already been used early this year by their patrons in high places to score a point of propaganda against the leadership of the Church in that state, and to cover up their nefarious activities. We should discern even the calls to prayer, so that we do not run into the very snares we flee.
At the beginning of April, about a month ago, Boko Haram boasted on the Hausa service of the BCC that in three months, the regime of the loathed Christian president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, would be ‘brought down.’ What do you hear? Another threat? I hear a coup, in the recent fashion of Mali; then they would fault the elections that had brought in that President, and showing themselves ‘democratic,’ would declare a timetable for future fresh elections (that would not come very soon, because they will need time to revise the losses during the ‘Christian tenure’). They will claim in their post-coup speech that they had been forced to step in to save the nation from imminent collapse and deterioration into the sectional and sectarian crises that had brought about the first civil war; that being officers trained and entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining the security and unity of the nation, they could not stand by and watch our beloved nation and the labours of our revered fathers wasted by selfish politicians and their terrorist tools. Their package to the nation will be very impressive. They will not be about to leave in a hurry. They will commence immediate ‘reforms’ intended to earn applause, even from the sceptical, who would be standing aloof to watch the drama. After gaining acceptance, they will begin to unfold their agenda, in slow but determined cruel phases. Too late then to cry.
And the prophet came to the king of Israel, and said unto him, Go, strengthen thyself, and mark, and see what thou doest: for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee (1 Kings 20:22).
Did the plot in Esther’s day find conspirators from among the trusted at the gate? So also shall, or has, a young trusted officer in the palace been found. “Insider,” they call it. I see him, in his smart new military uniform, with a slashed matching smart cloth cap; somewhere in his thirties; slim; of appreciable height under six feet. Dedicated. Reliable. I have never been inside that place, but I see his outline from here. The eyes that have marked him have not yet found his ears, but they hope at the opportune time, days before their day, to enlist him. Nevertheless, unknown to himself, they have begun to process and prepare his heart and their passage to his heart. I speak this in the hope that it finds a Mordecai who knows not only to pray but what more to do and save a generation.
Ezekiel 11:
1 Then the Spirit lifted me and brought me to the east gateway of the Lord's Temple, where I saw twenty-five prominent men of the city. Among them were Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, who were leaders among the people.
2 The Spirit said to me, "Son of man, these are the men who are planning evil and giving wicked counsel in this city. ...4 Therefore, son of man, prophesy against them loudly and clearly."
5 Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon me, and he told me to say, "This is what the Lord says ... 6 You have murdered many in this city and filled its streets with the dead.
8 I will bring on you the sword of war you so greatly fear, says the Sovereign Lord. 9 I will drive you out of Jerusalem and hand you over to foreigners... 10 You will be slaughtered all the way to the borders of Israel. I will execute judgment on you...” (Ezekiel 11:1-12, New Living Translation).
The proclamation in the next verse seems more appropriately rendered in the KJV:
11 This city shall not be your caldron... (Amen.)
O, that someone will consecrate the palace gates and lay thence a snare to catch Hamans when they begin to busy themselves along those corridors according to their malicious intent.
This too shall fail, but the dragon shall make more war with the woman, being unable to kill her son the man-child caught up to the throne of God beyond his murderous reach. Tell the king to watch his ways from the middle of June, and beware of certain local and international trips, especially ‘very important’ and suddenly ‘urgent’ honorary invitations outside. It is a global conspiracy. The cauldron I see boils in a distant desert land, the fire is being stoked by congregated hands of different colours and climes, but the broth is to be served our land by local hands when it is done. But yea, our flesh shall not be meat for that cauldron, and may the fury of the Lord God of hosts overturn and overturn their pots. Amen. O land, may God “feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob” (Isaiah 49:26). O God, arise and save your people again. Amen.
General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) is reported in the headlines of the Daily Trust newspaper of May 15, 2012 not only to have said that the Federal Government is the “biggest Boko Haram” but also threatened “serious crisis in the country” if the elections in 2015 were rigged ‘again.’ Of course, the elections would always have been ‘rigged’ if he does not win. O God, according to the words of Elisha (2 Kings 7:2), may he see but never partake of that day, in Jesus name. May peace be far from them that have hated it. Amen.
Tell King Lagos, the eyes are watching him also, as he gradually becomes their southern voice in democratic turban. God will lay for him a snare and open up his sins, if he does not amend. The year shall not have ended before it is seen.
We mourn the helicopter crash, very auspiciously, in Jos en route Abuja, that claimed the life of Deputy Inspector General of Police, Mr John Haruna, with three other officers, on Wednesday, March 13, 2012, twelve days after his elevation to the new rank. He is said to have been the most senior Christian officer in Alhaji Mohammed Dikko Abubakar’s new regime as Inspector General of the Nigeria Police. He was in charge of Operations. If the fears of sabotage are correct, as not a few headlines moaned, then it would appear that the terrorists could not even wait for the fearless officer with eloquent records against crime, to settle down. If the suspicions of sabotage are founded, then it would have taken Boko Haram of a very senior kind to achieve the crash. It is hard to restrain grieving thoughts from such a trend especially against the background of the agitations that had greeted the new Inspector General’s appointment months ago in view of the Justice Niki Tobi panel that had indicted him in 2002 for supporting Islamic terrorism against Christians.
Similarly did some cautious observers in February greet with concern the posting out of Jos of Major General Olayinka Akinyemi Oshinowo, the resourceful and successful Commander of the Special Task Force in Jos, and his replacement with a Muslim, Major General Mohamed B. Ibrahim, within one week of whose deployment the bombs that had been silent in the five months of his Christian predecessor’s tenure, began to go off. Even while they count the bomb craters and corpses, those observers should be relieved now that he has been replaced by Maj. Gen. Henry Ayoola
Do the bombs still sound so far away from the south?
13 ...Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews.
14 For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esther 4:13-14).
Those that know have begun to cry out, if wise ears would hear early. The hills of Enugu and Ebonyi states in the Christian south of eastern Nigeria already have terrorist training camps. They are preparing for the ‘elections.’ That will be another convenient guise. Then the bombs will be coming from home, not from “far north.” Some of the southern politicians will pay and use them against themselves. Then, perhaps, too late to awake as they proceed from the ‘political rallies’ to the homes of church leaders and their palatial sanctuaries. Some of the so called ‘Niger Delta militants’ are the same foes in a different guise. Their youths are gradually moving south in droves, as cheap and ready artisans, gradually taking over the menial market. In southernmost Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and other Niger Delta communities, they are dominating the water fronts and wharfs as abundant unskilled labour. Alas, the enemy at your water gates! In Lagos, it is not so easy to tell anymore.
Sometimes I fear if this were part of the Acts of the Apostles dispersal we have feared and warned about since the 1980’s, to force a complacent Church out of her comfortable walls into “the uttermost part of the earth”! (Acts 1:8; 8:1). But where? Libya? Egypt? Mali? Obama’s USA with a grand mosque threatening the conquered grounds of the felled Twin Towers, which the president, it is reported, supports? France, with her Col. Muammar Gadhafi/Islamic alliances? UK, with her increasing sharia courts and mosques replacing ageing churches?
We celebrate the new Police IG’s removal of police checkpoints which used to be notorious as toll gates of extortion dotting our roads and highways like loathsome milestones. The checkpoints will return, but before they do, my head again wonders how many bombs through the free roads would have reached their havens, safely. Only recently, two bomb factories have been discovered in Kogi State. Getting closer home? “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:8).
In the January 14, 2012 post, “The Next Agenda,” in the series on “The Spirit of Sudan,” we wrote, “Thereafter will come the Third Phase in the evil Agenda – the phase of Economic Strangulations. I do not know when that would be, but probably around the middle of the year to somewhere about August. Things will go down for a while in the economy...” It is often said that those who run away live to fight another day; but I add, only if they do not pick a bullet in the back while they fled.
Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart (Luke 18:1, NKJV).
Postscript: Just as this was about to be posted, an explosion has been reported today, May 17, 2012, in the city of Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria. It had gone off in the trunk of a mini-bus that was picking passengers for Eleme, the town of the refineries and the petrochemical plant. Casualty: one person. What an auspicious sign!