Coreports he has become a high profile target for Islamic militants who want to kill him for converting to Christianity.
Compass Direct, a Christian news agency investigating persecution, said that despite the death threats Rev. Murtala Marti Dangora has planted a church of 300 former Muslims like himself in the northern state of Kano where ‘Sharia’, or Muslim law, rules.
He is also the secretary of the Kano district of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), a platform of Christian congregations with about 24,000 members in Kano including 15,000 of them indigenous Hausa Christians with Islamic background.
In religious rioting in Kano state in May last year, 24 members of ECWA congregations were killed and their corpses burnt to ashes by Muslim extremists, he said. There was no immediate independent confirmation of that report, but both secular and religious rights groups have confirmed that thousands of Christians and Muslims have died in the region during clashes in recent years.
25 YEARS CHRISTIAN
Pastor Dangora became a Christian 25 years ago through Haggai Latim, a ECWA missionary. "I was attracted to Christianity because of the love showed to me by the missionary," Dangora was quoted as saying. “In Islam, anybody who is not a Muslim is to be despised," he recalled.
"The surprising thing is that this Christian missionary kept coming. He would always be around when something bad happened to me or my family. He was always there to encourage us. I was touched by his love towards me and my family. It was this act of love that moved me into resolving to become a Christian.”
Kano authorities have refused to grant official approval of his Evangelical Church of West Africa congregation he began following his conversion. In addition he was allegedly jailed, threatened and assaulted.
"It is God that has kept me alive to this very moment," he reportedly said. "I would have
been killed and forgotten years ago. It has happened to others." Encouraged by missionary Latim who taught him the Bible, Dangora has declined to return to Islam, Compass Direct reported.
DONATING LAND
The persecution allegedly began as soon as the church was founded on a plot of land he inherited from his father. This benevolence also earned him and Latim eight weeks of detention in a police cell.
"I donated a parcel of land for the building of the church in that year [1981]," he told the news agency. "The church had just been planted and we were in dire need of a place to worship. So, I gave the land out, and a small sanctuary was built to accommodate the worshipers." Kiru authorities ordered him and Latim arrested and he was "told by the police and council authorities" that he "had no right to donate my land to the church."
While in detention, the missionary encouraged him not to despair. "At that time, I was only a year old in the Christian faith. I had just converted from Islam to Christianity," Dangora said. Latim told him that persecution is part of the Christian life and to expect it. "In detention, we sang Christian hymns, just like Paul and Silas [in the Bible] did while in prison," Dangora said. "The policemen, who were all Muslims, ordered us to shut up, but we ignored them and sang on joyfully."
LONG TRIAL
After an eight-week trial, the court in Kiru convicted them of building a church without government approval and ordered them to demolish it. Dangora obeyed the local government order to apply for approval. “But as I am talking to you now, 25 years later, our application for the building of the church has not been granted," he told Compass Direct. Hundreds of churches in Kano state face such difficulties, he added. The persecution has continued and recently there were fresh reports of anti Christian violence in the area.
During his four years in office as ECWA leader he reportedly led 20 Muslims to Christ. The church has helped them to relocate out of Kano because their lives were in danger. "The response of some Muslims in Kano to the gospel is amazing. Sometimes a Muslim would pick up a tract and, after reading it, will come our office to inquire on how to become a Christian," he stated. "But there is no doubt they are bound to face death if it is discovered they are now Christians."
"The Nigerian government needs to take a look at the policies of governments running Islamic states," the pastor said. "We Christians are being mistreated, and our religious rights are being infringed upon. Despite my ordeals, I have never regretted becoming a Christian. I have always been happy that I made the decision. I thank God that I got saved." And, he said, he will continue to preach among Muslims. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from Nigeria).
