38 Christian People Killed In Nigeria During Christmas

Nigeria goes through terrifying “religiously-motivated” crimes as a series of bomb blasts killed over 38 Christian people during Christmas in the central province of Jos.

The U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the violence against Christians in Nigeria and affirmed he supported for the Nigerian authorities in their attempt to catch the perpetrators.

Even though the local police commissioner swears that the situation is being kept under control, the residents were very vocal against the police who had failed to protect them.

This attack in the province of Jos and the nearby town of Maiduguri is the latest of the estimated 1,500 killings this year in Nigeria and is being caused by the tensions existing between Berom community, which is Christian, and the Fulani population, which tends to be Muslim.

Analysts fear that the spark of violence in this province which is the cultural border of Christian, Muslim and animist communities, could spread into a far larger conflict that would encompass the entire country.

The religious violence could have a significant influence on the coming presidential elections scheduled for May next year.

Nigeria, the most populated country of Africa, has very large Christian and Muslim communities.

Ever since the independence in 1960 there were tensions among the Nigerian people on religious grounds.

The most important frustration of some Muslim preachers is that the arrival of the British at the end of the 19^th century prevented Nigeria from being now a 100% Muslim nation.

Even so, the border town have sought to keep the balance by living in harmony until a radical fraction on one side decided to stir things up.

Nigeria has an interesting system of alternating presidential candidates, so that the balance between the Muslim North and the Christian South be kept.

The system worked until Goodluck Jonathan took office after the previous president died. According to the turn-taking principle, the Christian candidate was supposed to sit the next round out, but Jonathan announced he planned on running for the office, thus stirring a lot of dissatisfaction in the North.