Adamu bears a scar on the back of his neck where two members of the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram tried to slaughter him.
A member of the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria (EYN) in Gwoza, in northeastern Nigeria, Adamu, 28, said that in April 2013 he was working on his bean farm when a member of the extremist group Boko Haram showed up.
“He told me to convert to Islam and join them in waging a jihad to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria,” Adamu said. “I told him that I will not renounce my Christian faith. … He left me there on my farm without saying anything again.”
Two days later, five other members of Boko Haram showed up. “They then told me that since I refused to recant, they would kill me.” They seized Adamu and tied his hands and legs behind his back.
Miraculous survival
“They forced me down on my stomach and then proceeded to … cut my neck from the back. I was bleeding and went blank as the knife cut through my neck.”
Adamu lay there for days, he said, adding that his survival was miraculous; only later would he learn that the Boko Haram members had threatened to kill anyone in the village who helped him.
Though the villagers were afraid to rescue him, eventually a member of his church snuck onto the farm and found him alive, Adamu said, and took him to a Christian hospital in Cameroon.
Boko Haram and others killed 1,631 Christians in Nigeria for their faith in the first six months of 2014 — a figure that is 91 percent of the total Christians killed in Nigeria all of last year, according to advocacy group Jubilee Campaign.
(MS)
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