NIGERIA

NIGERIA STATS



CAPITAL:  ABUJA
POPULATION: 174,537,509
LANGUAGE: FRENCH
BELOW POVERTY: 70%
ACCESS TO WATER: 47%
ACCESS TO IMPROVED SANITATION: 30%
AVERAGE ANNUAL INCOME: $984
CHRISTIAN: 50%

Living Water International exists to demonstrate the love of God by helping communities acquire desperately needed clean water, and to experience "living water"—the gospel of Jesus Christ—which alone satisfies the deepest thirst.

EXTREME ISLAM IN NIGERIA

Islam in Nigeria has witnessed a rise in the numbers of radical Islamic sects notably among them, the Boko Haram, Maitatsine, Darul Islam among others.

These sects have sometimes resorted to the use of violence in a bid to realizing their ambitions on the wider Islamic and Nigerian populations as a whole.

The rise of this radical movements has been attributed partly to the poor socio economic infrastructures and poor governance in Nigeria. Poverty has been seen as the major catalyst leading to the rapid increase in the membership of these religious extremist groups. The rise of these sects has also been linked to the increase and aiding of religious extremist by politicians for their selfish ambitions.

During the 1980s religious riots occurred in and around the five cities of Kano in 1980, Kaduna in 1982, Bulum-Ketu in 1982, Jimeta in 1984 and Gombe in 1985. These riots were caused by the migration of the rural poor into urban towns during the dry seasons. An offshoot of Islam called the ‘Yan Tatsine’ violently rebelled against the authorities and non-members. These radical Muslims were inspired by Alhaji Mohammed Marwa Maitatsine. He was a Cameroon preacher who slated the government, something which lead to his arrest in Nigeria in 1975, yet by 1972 many people followed him across society, ranging from the elite to Koranic students called almajiral or gardawa and unemployed migrants. Maitatsine and his followers became separate from orthodox Islam, condemning the corruption of the religious and secular elites and the wealthy upper classes’ consumption of Western goods during the petrol boom in 1974-81. The Boko Haram movement has been connected to the Maitatsine movement. They want to implement sharia law across the whole of Nigeria.

NEWS