BRISBANE’S Nigerian priests are concerned the violence in the country’s north could impact on family members living there.
Aspley parish priest Fr Gabriel Kalu said “70 to 80 percent” of the names on casualty lists from five separate bomb attacks on Christmas Day in northern Nigeria came from his own ethnic group, the Ibos.
Islamic extremist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the explosions, which claimed at least 40 lives.
Fr Kalu said all Nigerian priests in Brisbane archdiocese were worried because people being killed were mainly southerners.
“When we (Nigerian priests) meet we all talk about the situation,” he said.
“At this point no priests here have been directly affected to my knowledge.
“However, those being killed are all Nigerians…are our brothers and sisters.
“A good percentage of Christians in the north are from the south.
“Some of them left many years ago to work in various businesses.”
Brisbane archdiocese’s 11 Nigerian priests all come from Umuahia diocese in the country’s south.
They have been coming to the archdiocese since 2007 after an agreement was signed between the diocese’s Bishop Lucius Ugorji and then Archbishop of Brisbane John Bathersby.
Fr Kalu said when he went home to southern Nigeria last year the situation had not been quite so bad.
“There have been such clashes between Muslims and Christians for many years,” he said.
“But the latest problems are of a dimension not seen in the past.”
The possibility of such violence flaring up in the south is remote according to Fr Kalu.
“There are mainly Christians in the south,” he said.
“The only thing we all fear is that if the violence in the north continues there could be reprisals in the south.”
One of Nigeria’s leading bishops recently condemned the media for portraying violence in the country as a civil war between Muslims and Christians.
Archbishop John Olurunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja criticised news reports that described Nigeria as descending into ongoing religious violence.
Last week gunmen shot dead five people in their homes in two northern Nigerian cities on Monday, security forces said, the latest in a string of deadly attacks by suspected members of the Boko Haram Islamist sect.
Boko Haram wants sharia law applied across Nigeria, which is roughly split equally between Christians and Muslims.
The group’s low-level insurgency has intensified in the past year, becoming a major security headache for President Goodluck Jonathan.
The president declared a state of emergency in several regions in Nigeria on December 31, closing Nigeria’s borders with Niger, Cameroon and Chad, after a spate of Christmas Day attacks on churches and other targets.
