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Email to FriendNIGERIA: Province criticizes article implicating Akinola in 2004 massacre
"Archbishop Akinola has not and does not encourage violence but continues to maintain peaceful cordial relationship with every peace-loving Nigerian irrespective of tribe, creed or gender," the Ven. AkinTunde Popoola, the Nigerian province's director of communications, said in a statement.
A March 2008 Atlantic Monthly article describes the violence that began in the northern Nigeria town in February 2004. First, a group of men, presumed to be Muslims and dressed in military fatigues, imprisoned worshippers in a Yelwa church, set it on fire and killed anyone who tried to escape. Two months later, Christian men and boys retaliated. They killed 660 people, burned 12 mosques and 300 homes, forced many young Muslim women to eat pork and drink alcohol, and then raped them.
In her article, writer Eliza Griswold, daughter of 25th Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, traces the roots to the 2004 violence to 2002 when disputes over whether Christians or Muslims controlled the town's council -- and who could issue government papers certifying residency in the town -- boiled over in a riot. In the aftermath, Christians imposed strict rules on contact with Muslims.
Griswold reports that the men and boys who retaliated in Yelwa in 2004 wore name tags identifying them as being members of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which Griswold describes as an umbrella organization founded in the 1970s to give Christians an organized voice to counter rising Muslim influence in the country.
She notes that Akinola was president of CAN when the 2004 massacres happened. She tells readers that Akinola was "a colleague of my father."
Akinola lost his bid in June to be elected to another term as CAN's president. "As CAN president, one of the challenges the Archbishop faced was that of persuading youthful Christians to stop revenge attacks," Popoola said in the statement.
During an interview with Akinola in his office in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Griswold reports that, when asked if those wearing name tags that read "Christian Association of Nigeria" had been sent to the Muslim part of Yelwa, the archbishop grinned.
"No comment," Griswold quotes Akinola as saying. "No Christian would pray for violence, but it would be utterly naive to sweep this issue of Islam under the carpet."
She quotes him as continuing: "I'm not out to combat anybody. I'm only doing what the Holy Spirit tells me to do. I'm living my faith, practicing and preaching that Jesus Christ is the one and only way to God, and they respect me for it. They know where we stand. I've said before: let no Muslim think they have the monopoly on violence."
Popoola said in the province's statement that Akinola's latter reference involved a time in 2006 "when Nigerian Christians were being slaughtered because of some cartoons published in Denmark."
"The Western press should learn from the Danish cartoons saga that articles they publish, whatever the motive might be, can be responsible for the death of many innocent lives hundred of miles away," he said in conclusion.
-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Episcopal Church governance, structure, and trends, as well as news of the dioceses of Province II. She is based in Neptune, New Jersey, and New York City.
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