Boko Haram: Northern Nigeria Accounts For 70% Of Christians Killed Globally, Says Oritsejafor •Hails Civilian JTF For Joining Fight Against Insurgents

National President of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Pastor Ayo Oristejafor, weekend decried the policies and inaction of the United States of America which he said had helped sustain the persecution of Nigerian Christians in northern Nigeria. This he attributed to the failure of the US Government to designate the Nigerian radical Islamist sect, Boko Haram, as Foreign Terrorist Organization, FTO. The CAN President reeled out some statistics which revealed that 70 percent of all killings targeted at Christians globally occurred in northern Nigeria with 3,000 killed and over 500 Churches burnt between 2010 and 2012. Oristejiafor, who made this known while addressing the Christian Association of Nigeria in America, CANAN, in Washington DC, weekend, however commended the activities of some Muslim youths under the aegis of Volunteer Vigilance Youth Groups (VVYG) also known as Civilian JTF in parts of Borno State, for assisting the Military JTF in the state in tracking and hunting down fleeing members of Boko Haram sect. His speech read in part: “I was recently re-elected into my second and final term as President of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, an aggregation of all Nigeria’s 80 million Christians. “The population of Christians in Nigeria is equivalent to the entire country of Egypt. The population of Christians in northern Nigeria is more than the entire population of Syria. “We are by no means a minority, which makes what we are going through all the more alarming and a warning to countries who believe Islamist terrorism and insurgency could never happen in their territories.” According to the CAN President, “In my first term, about 3,000 Christians were killed. Last year alone it averaged over 100 every month. In March 2010 about 500 Christians were slaughtered in one night on an attack on their villages. “In April 2011 we lost over 500 churches, thousands of homes and businesses in a 48-hour period and in 2012 about 70 percent of all Christians killed worldwide were in northern Nigeria alone.”