The Non-Muslim Hausa have been victims of so many abuses and maltreatments since the emergence of Islamic system of ruling was brought into Northern Nigeria. Hausa, being a tribe and not a religion, has lost its original meaning and now means different things to so many people locally and internationally. The word ‘Hausa’ has been abused and given the connotation as an appendage of the Islamic Religion.
Whenever the word ‘Hausa’ is mentioned, the first things that usually come to the minds of many people around the world are Islamic militants, jihadists, terrorists, persecutors of the Church in Nigeria, workers of iniquity and all sorts of things.
Funny enough, whenever an Easterner, Southerner or Westerner becomes a Muslim and lives in Northern Nigeria, such a person usually claims to be a Hausa person. It is very common to see many people that are not Hausas referring to themselves as Hausas simply because they have become Muslims. And so, when Southerners, Westerners, and Easterners refer to the Muslims in the North, they always call them Hausa people. Or whenever they say “Hausa people”, what they actually meant to say is Northern Muslims.
Interestingly, there are many indigenous northern tribes in Northern Nigeria apart from the Hausas that are living in all the Northern States of Nigeria. Unfortunately, collectively, they are all also referred to as Hausa people. They do not mean that their tribe is Hausa but mean that they are Muslims.
And so, terms like Hausa, Arewa and Hausa-Fulani are nothing but impersonations of the Northern Muslims. In the long standing deception, the freedoms and destinies of so many indigenous Northern Christians, especially the Hausa Christians in Nigeria, are buried.
Hausa Christians have been turned to worse than second class citizens in Nigeria because they are Christians. They have endured all forms of slavery, even in the 21st century. Many are the afflictions of the Hausa Christians in Nigeria, but a catalogue of the most pronounced issues are detailed below:
1. There exists a deliberate denial of the existence of the Hausa Christians in Northern Nigeria; deceiving the world that all Hausas are Muslims except a very few that practice paganism, usually referred to as the Maguzawas. The claim that all Hausas are Muslims has caged and denied the identity, rights and privileges of the Hausa Christians in Nigeria. It has given birth to the continuous slavery the Hausa and Northern Christians have been subjected to.
2.Denial of the children of the Hausa Christians, schools admission as well as Certificates of Indigenization which is used to facilitate employment into all the public offices in the Country; especially those with Christian or English names.
3. Use of every slight opportunity to cause riots that always result in the burning of houses of Christians and churches. Looting of valuables, raping of women as well as killing of men and women are commonplace.
4. Intentional burning down of Churches and government deliberately refusing the Churches permission to rebuild.
5. Forceful kidnapping, raping and conversion of young Hausa Christian girls into Islam against their wish, denying their parents access to them, marrying them off and giving them out in marriage to whosoever they wish against the wish of their parents.
6. The settlements of Hausa Christians are inundated with bad roads; lack of healthcare facilities, electricity, potable drinking water and any form of social amenities as dividends of democracy from our governments.
7. Denial of Hausa Christians the right to participate in politics and governance by deliberately preventing their settlements from having polling units; prevention of any Hausa Christian to hold any traditional or political office in the Northern states of Nigeria, though there are many highly educated people caged down through the unjust treatments perpetrated by Hausa Muslims in the Nigerian Government.
8. A current trend that is engulfing the entire Hausa Christians settlements is the issue of seizure of farmlands and settlements that they have stayed in for hundreds of years by the so-called Traditional rulers. Many Hausa Christians are losing their farmlands which is the major source of their livelihood.
9. Northern Christians have been forcefully silenced in a system called Arewa. This is a system or Islamic agenda where State and Federal resources are used to advance the cause of Islam in Northern Nigeria to the detriment of all the non-Muslims in Northern Nigeria. This is achieved through the subduing of the indigenous Christians by the use of all forms of terror. This system is a deep and strong contradiction to freedom. Arewa has thus forcefully become an Islamic region where the truth is very scarce and even telling the truth can cost a person his or her life.
10. The security of lives and properties are in complete shambles. The Hausa Christians are not only suffering from lack of basic social amenities like roads, potable water, electricity, schools, primary healthcare facilities but also lack of security of their lives and properties. Many of the Hausa Christians are always robbed by armed bandits, their men and wives kidnapped and released after payment of huge ransoms. The Hausa Christians are living like hopeless orphans in their own country with only God to help; simply because they are Christians.
11.Deliberate refusal of the Northern State Governments to employ Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) teachers in Primary and Secondary schools in Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Kebbi, Jigawa and other states, while Islamic Religious Knowledge teachers are employed and paid in all the schools by the same State Governments. The few Christian students in the Government boarding and day schools are routinely denied the right to fellowship or engage in any Christian activities on Sundays and other days. A practical example is Government Girls College (GGC) Talatan Mafara.
12. Any Christian representatives that seeks to protect the interests of the indigenous Christians in the Ministry for Religious Affairs of States like Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, Jigawa etc are refused.
13. Disconnection of electric power supply from all the Churches in Zamfara State and even denying Churches bills that can be paid at the electric Authority offices. At the same time, mosques receive power supply free of charge and without any disconnection. According to the Electric Supply Authority of some states, there is now a new law to disconnect Churches from using public power supply. ECWA Church Damba and other churches are victims of this discrimination.
14. The Christian Burial Ground (Cemetery) in Zamfara State that has been in existence for more than 40 years is now filled up, but the Government has refused to allocate more spaces to the Christians to bury their people. Christians continue to squeeze in those who died in the same cemetery.
15. The Christians in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Katsina and other states have been banned from airing any Christian Program on radio while Muslims do that every day.
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