Sixty percent of the population of Nigeria, one of Africa’s most populous countries, are Muslim, while 30% are Christian and 10% belong to local faiths. Efforts are being made to stir up the artificial conflicts incited from time to time between Muslims and Christians, two peoples who actually live together in peace.

European countries began colonizing various parts of the world since the 16th century. By the 19th century, however, an unexpected development took place and the colonial powers acquired a so-called scientific support for their ruthless policies. In his book The Descent of Man, published in 1871, Darwin suggested, on the basis of no scientific evidence whatsoever, that humans and apes shared a common forebear. According to Darwin’s unscientific claim, some races supposedly evolved further and were more advanced than others.

There was a second important aspect to Darwin’s errors. Darwin based the development of living things and human beings on the concept of a “struggle for life.” According to his nonsense, there is a permanent conflict in nature, a ruthless fight for survival. The strong always keep the weak down, and this makes progress possible. Darwin also suggested that this ruthless struggle for survival also applied between human races. Even the sub-title to his Origin of Species, showed he harbored a racist view of human beings: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In Darwin's view, favored races meant European Caucasians. Asian or African races had been left behind in the struggle for life. Darwin went even further and suggested that these races would eventually lose the struggle altogether:

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes ... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. (Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd edition, New York, A L. Burt Co., 1874, p. 178)

One of the places where these unscientific claims of Darwin's, violations of reason and good conscience, held sway was Africa. For generations, African peoples were regarded as so-called undeveloped animals and ruthlessly enslaved and exploited.
Still today, many African countries still bear the signs of this imperialist mindset; the above- and underground resources they possess are not made available for the use of their people, but are rather employed by certain Western powers for their own advantage. Methods employed to allow this ruthless order to survive are setting African peoples against one another in civil conflicts and bringing about an environment of anarchy and disorder by encouraging artificial conflicts. Nigeria, with its wealthy oil reserves, is facing a similar situation.

Nigeria was occupied by British and Portuguese colonialists in the 18th century, and passed into total British control in 1900, remaining under British administration until the 1960s. Nigeria gained its independence from Great Britain in October, though conflicts and tensions have persisted ever since.

There are more than 250 different ethnic groups in Nigeria, in which more than a million people lost their lives during the civil war of 1967-1970. In the war that broke out as a result of the intrigues by certain Western powers that direct the world’s energy policies, the Muslim people, regarded as an inferior class, were ruthlessly persecuted and exploited, and to a large extent martyred. Certain forces have again being trying to incite civil disorder in recent years and have caused serious conflicts by setting ethnic groups and tribes against one another. But these conflicts are described as “civil war between Muslims and Christians.” The fact is, however, that the problems in the country do not stem from people being members of two different faiths. They are completely about tribal issues such as division of land. In addition, these problems are generally artificially established by external powers and turned into serious conflicts when the government could have resolved them quite easily. It seems that the mindset that is inciting a Muslim-Christian conflict by setting the members of these two great and deep-rooted faiths against one another is using people with radical views to achieve its aims and seeking to establish an artificial climate of war. Neither Muslims nor Christians must fall for this provocation, and must immediately engage in intellectual measures against irreligion, atheism and materialism.

What lies behind the conflicts in Nigeria in recent years

Coups, wars and slaughter have never been lacking in countries with rich oil reserves. Since “the country has the world’s fifth greatest oil reserves,” and it is internally fragmented, it is one of the main targets for colonialist powers. They encourage domestic conflict among radicals from various groups in order to achieve their aims, weaken the country and seize all its resources. Because of the methods employed with the aim of weakening the country with civil strife and thus dividing it is to incite different racial groupings against one another.

Another covert technique employed by these forces is to encourage division and conflict within different groupings. This has been highly effective in Nigeria. Muslims have gradually become divided and distanced from one another. They have thus lost strength, and despite their being numerically in the majority they have abandoned economic and political control of the country to radical groups. Certain racist groups that want the Muslim population to be eradicated from the country and that receive material support from foreign powers are making use of Muslim divisions to prevent the spread of Islam in Nigeria and to wear down Muslim resistance through physical and psychological pressure.
 

Elderly people, women and children are dying

Thousands of people lost their lives in conflicts that flared up again following the civil war of 1967-1970. Tens of thousands are known to have been made homeless. What is more, the majority of those killed in the conflicts were defenseless children and old people.

The city of Jos witnessed many such scenes during fighting that erupted in 2001. More than a thousand people lost their lives, mostly from Muslim tribes.

When fighting flared up again in 2004, more than 700 people were martyred, again mainly Muslims.

Some 500 people lost their lives in fighting in 2008. Religious organizations in Nigeria, where many mosques have been burned, have reported counting the bodies of 483 Muslims.

Muslims in Nigeria, as in many other Islamic countries, wished to hold a march to celebrate Jerusalem Day in September 2009. But the police attacked the Muslims with tear gas bombs. It was reported that 3 Muslims were martyred in the fighting and dozens more injured.

Muslims celebrating Jerusalem Day in September 2009 were attacked with tear gas, with three Muslims being martyred in the fighting that followed, and dozens of Muslims injured.