About 11.5 million schoolchildren are affected by four Nigerian states’ decision to close schools during Ramadan, which Christians say is rooted in religious rivalry and threatens the country’s secular commitments.
Church leaders in Nigeria, Uganda, and Rwanda say the Communion is evading "the crucial issue of human sexuality" to focus on climate and social justice.
Violence erupted at several historically Christian schools as clashes between Christian and Muslim groups continue into a fifth week in Ilorin, Nigeria’s seventh largest city. The ten schools at the center of the crisis, at least two of them Anglican foundations, refuse to allow Muslim students to wear the hijab.
Bishop Ephraim Ikeafor, whose diocese is in the heartland of the 1960's separatist Republic of Biafra, calls on Nigeria's national government to address the concerns of regional separatist who criticize uncontrolled attacks by Muslim Fulani herdmen on local Christian farmers.
Muslim Fulani herdmen shot Canon James Adebayo Famonure four times as he was leading family devotions, also wounding three other family members. The attack is the latest in a series launched against Christian farmers in central Nigeria in a conflict driven by land use disputes, Islamist ideology, and widely available weaponry. The current coronavirus seems to be making things worse.
