Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, appears in a video screen grab. (PHOTO: CHRISTIAN POST/VIDEO GRAB)
By Samuel Smith, Christian Post
With Boko Haram recently seizing its own 20,000-square-mile territory in Northern Nigeria, all signs indicate that the extremist group is working toward building a Caliphate, or Islamic government ruled by a Caliph, that could span across Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon, a top Christian persecution watchdog leader warned.
While discussing the findings from the 2015 Open Doors USA World Watch List of top 50 nations where Christians are persecuted the most, during an event hosted by the Family Research Council on Thursday, Open Doors USA President, Dr. David Curry, explained the severity of the situation in Nigeria, which ranked 10th on the list, and the legitimate threat that the extremist group Boko Haram poses to Nigeria’s neighboring countries.
Curry said that in Nigeria, over 2,200 people were executed in 2014 because of their faith, which he claims could be a low estimate since there could be many more that the list could not verify.
Curry added that it is even more troubling to notice that Boko Haram is in the midst of a familiar pattern of violent extremism that helped the Islamic State extremists establish their so-called Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
Although over 9,000 Nigerians were killed and over 1.5 million were displaced as a result of Boko Haram violence in 2014, the terrorist group took its first real step toward building its own caliphate when it conquered an area the size of Belgium in the Northeastern Borno state in mid-January, capturing a few key Nigerian border towns. In one of it’s deadliest altercations yet in the town of Baga, off of the shore of Lake Chad, the group destroyed over 3,700 homes and killed as many as 2,000 people.
Related article: Islamic Cailphate, why should I care, by Carmen Fowler LaBerge