MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Asabe Ladagu, a Christian widow in the capital city of Borno state in northern Nigeria, has survived without income for 16 months. It was that long ago that Muslim administrators at Ramat Polytechnic, a technical college, forced Ladagu into early retirement — without pay — after she and others requested land to build a chapel.
Ladagu had put in 35 years of government service as Ramat Polytechnic’s librarian and chief lecturer.
“Other Christian brethren, too, have either been forced out or have been the subjects of witch hunts,” Ladagu said.
Roots of the conflict go back to 1991, she said, when a Muslim student attacked a Christian student, threatening to send the institution into religious crisis.
“The Muslim student slapped the Christian student on claims that Christian students were disturbing them with worship songs in a classroom,” Ladagu said. “At this time, we were using classrooms for our worship services, Bible studies and prayers because we didn’t have a chapel.”
She and others were able to calm Christian students, averting large-scale violence at the institution. They decided to apply for land to build a chapel.
Community Christians managed to raise enough funds to build the chapel, but the school’s administration did not grant their request for land. Ladagu recalled a time when they were told to shut up or be shown the way out of the institution for advocating for a chapel. They were told the school is for educational purposes only and not for religion, she said. The Christians viewed the denial as deliberate discrimination against Christians by Muslim administrators at a time when there were seven mosques on campus.
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