Why Boko Haram Placed A Bounty On This Christian Pastor’s Head
Hassan John, a Christian pastor from Jos, is regarded as an “infidel” by Boko Haram insurgents and has a price on his head of N150,000.
At the moment, Hassan John is studying at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, however, he used to go to work at his church each day never knowing if that is the day he will be murdered by some desperate Boko Haram follower looking to claim the paltry price on his head.
The Islamic extremists reportedly want him dead, even though a substantial part of his week is spent working with Muslim women in the community, helping to educate them and to set up their own businesses.
Hassan John takes time to reflect on the violence wreaked by Boko Haram. The 52-year-old man lost his two young sisters, saw blood and dead bodies, witnessed friends shot dead or injured in front of his eyes and narrowly escaped death himself.
Hassan John
“One of the horrendous things I’ve seen is coming up this village one morning after we had been told the village has been attacked. To see the bodies lying there, women, children, men that have been killed overnight, blood everywhere. It was heartwrenching. You kind of ask yourself, what is the meaning of all this?
“You see it again and again and again. You get to places where a bomb has just exploded. Lots of people have been killed. There are bodies all over the place. You visit people in hospital. You go back and meet families, you cry with them, you console them, you do the best you can with them all the time,” he said.
He acknowledges there are many different explanations for what his happening, but he puts it down to a general collapse in relations between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria.
He is trying to rebuild friendships between the faiths. After he has helped a small Muslim girl who could not go to school as her father had been killed in the violence, he started investigate other orphan children.
Then he decided that the Anglican diocese of Jos, led by the outstanding Anglican churchman in the area, Archbishop of Jos Ben Kwashi, could also help their mothers. From 12 women, there are now more than 120 they are working with. Young Muslim men in the area are starting to ask if they can be helped as well.
“We have built it to a level where the Muslim and Christian women would come and sit together, they would cook and eat together. Now in Nigeria that is a big thing. You don’t eat with your enemy because you are afraid that you will be poisoned. Now they interact, it is just so marvellous.”
“God created the world. He created men and women. We are all his creation. There’s nothing we can say or do that can change that. Therefore everyone must work together. We must understand that ultimately, we are all going to come into the same place. In other words, like the Christian Bible says, this world will pass away. At the end of the age there will be judgement,” he said. Details on Christian Today.
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