An Islamic human rights organisation, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has asked the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) to investigate the circumstances surrounding the discovery and eventual rescue of 21 Muslim children from a building belonging to the Evangelist Church Winning All (ECWA) in Jos.
It will be recalled that the DSS recently raided a house located at JMDB quarters, in the Tudun Wada community of Jos North LGA of Plateau State, where the operatives rescued 21 Muslim children.
The victims alleged that they were forcefully brought to the house and converted to Christianity.
The General Secretary of ECWA, Rev. Yunusa Nmadu, had also confirmed that the house in which the victims were kept was under the custody of the Church.
In a statement issued by the Muslim rights advocacy group, MURIC, the organisation expressed shock at the criminal implication of the discovery and demanded full investigation. The statement was issued on Friday, 1st July, 2022 by the Director of MURIC, Professor Ishaq Akintola.
The statement read in full:
“We are bewildered by reports that 21 Muslim children were rescued by the DSS from a building belonging to the Evangelist Church Winning All (ECWA) in Jos. The children were abducted from Gombe and forcefully brought to Jos.
“They had been kept for about six months before one of them escaped and sought help from a mosque in Jos. During captivity, they were forcefully converted and their Muslim names were changed to Christian names.
“This is like one of those stories from the movies. It is appalling. We are dealing with a highly sophisticated and meticulously planned conspiracy. The diabolical objective is to decimate Muslim population in Nigeria and eliminate Islamic landmarks wherever they exist.
“It is not a new phenomenon. This wicked plot has been in operation for several years without the Muslims suspecting anything. We recall the Kano 9 saga in which nine Muslim children were kidnapped from Kano and taken to Onitsha where their names were changed to Christian names. They were eventually rescued on Friday, 11th October 2019.
“The Kano 9 brouhaha is verifiable because it was in the news.
“Just as we are condemning the atrocity of ECWA church today, MURIC kicked against the abduction of those nine Muslim children from Kano in 2019.
“It was Kano in 2019. It has happened again in Gombe in 2022 and in a larger number. We are of the opinion that it has become a recurring decimal. It is widespread. If you discover one, hundreds of cases must have gone unnoticed. Nigerian Christians are using all available methods to eliminate Islam.
“They know no rules, no decorum. Fair or foul, what matters is to capture all Muslims in the Christian den. Blackmail, mischief, deceit, subterfuge, abracadabra, anything goes. The more you look, the less you see.
“Any Muslim in distress becomes an easy target. Any offer of help from them to a Muslim is a concealed trap. Any admission into their school is an invitation to deprivation of personal identity and the surrender of one’s civil liberties. Proselytisation is being pursued with such astonishing aggressiveness.
“To the average Nigerian Christian today, except for very few of them, the only good Muslim is the ‘liberal’ Muslim. Yet to them, the only ‘liberal’ Muslim is the one who surrenders his Allah-given fundamental human
