The
Blind Apostle
Neither blindness nor death threats have kept this Nigerian doctor from sharing the gospel with those who need it BY OBED MINCHAKPU
F
or the past 40 years Dr. Bitrus Gani-Ikilama has been dedicated to evangelistic outreach in Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria, using medical ministry, gospel music, teaching, and preaching to reach Muslims with the gospel. The evangelist, who has been blind since childhood, has also made it his special mission to reach out to fellow blind persons and empower them with God’s Word. Gani-Ikilama says that Islamic fundamentalism has proven to be a far greater challenge to Christian missions than his blindness ever has. The religious atmosphere in Nigeria today, particularly in the northern part of the country, is so tense,
according to Gani-Ikilama, that evangelizing Muslims is an extremely difficult task that places those in ministry to Muslims at serious risk. “Right now, you have to weigh every word you say, whether you are preaching or in a private conversation, so as not to offend any Muslim sensibilities,” explains Gani-Ikilama in an interview in his home in Zaria. “The challenge is greater, but the reward is greater, too,” he adds. Because of persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria, churches and Christians there have an urgent need, says GaniIkilama. “The space up here is wider and the people more
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the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior is the greatest thing that has happened to him. “I became a Christian through the Sunday school work of the little church in my hometown of Donga,” he says. “I went to Sunday school for lack of anything to do, a blind little boy. But there I found memorizing verses exciting—at least that was one thing I could do in competition with sighted boys and girls.” Gani-Ikilama remembers very well the two verses in the Bible that convicted him and led him to receive Jesus Christ. “The first verse is Romans 3:23, while the second is Romans 6:23. I didn’t like these two verses then,” he confesses, “but I had to memorize them.” He then discovered that John 14: 6 gives him assurance of salvation in Christ Jesus—“It was the beginning of my adventure with God.” In 1966, while Gani-Ikilama was studying physiotherapy in London, Billy Graham came to the city to hold a gospel crusade at the Earl’s Court Arena. The young Gani-Ikilama was one of the members of the 4,000-strong choir that sang there. “We had great fun spreading the gospel,” he remembered. “We went from house to house, witnessing and inviting people to the crusade.” In London, Gani-Ikilama was a member of the Baptist church. “Being in that church gave me the opportunity to be involved in evangelizing and witnessing in London. We also visited missionary supporters all over the United Kingdom at that time.”
diverse, and the need to strengthen the churches through teaching and preaching is even greater here.” Gani-Ikilama also believes that persecution has become a motivating force that has been pushing the minority Christians in northern Nigeria to reach their persecutors with the gospel. “Though we face Muslim opposition,” he says, “this should not be an obstacle to reaching Muslims.” Gani-Ikilama says that severe restriction of religious liberty and freedom of speech exists in northern Nigeria.“For example, in 1987, right here in Zaria, because a member of our fellowship, Rev. Bako, held a crusade in Kafanchan town, Muslims attacked Christians at the crusade ground.The Muslims chased one member to kill him, and when they couldn’t find him, they burned churches and killed Christians from Kafanchan through Kaduna to Zaria, up to Katsina,” he recalls. At the end of the Muslims’ fury and carnage, Gani-Ikilama says, 103 churches were burned in Zaria alone. “Some of us who were seen as the focus of the Christian community were chased and had to be put under military protection for one month. Those are some of the difficulties I am alluding to.”
AN ADVENTURE WITH GOD
Gani-Ikilama was born in 1944 in the town of Donga in the state of Taraba in northern Nigeria. He became blind at age 5 after a bout of measles. He was the first primary-age child to be enrolled at the school for blind children in Gindiri, a mission station in Nigeria’s Plateau State, and the first blind teenager to attend the Boys Secondary School, Gindiri. He went on to attend the School of Physiotherapy, Royal National Institute for the Blind, in the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1967. Gani-Ikilama is a member of the Society of Physiotherapy in England and Nigeria and has been conferred with numerous awards, including Nigeria’s national honor of Officer of the Order of the Niger and the Nigerian government’s Icon of Hope. He has over 10 publications to his credit and has been on a working tour of France, Spain, England, Germany, and the United States, as well as many African countries. But for Gani-Ikilama, becoming a Christian and knowing
Ministry as a way of life
The spirit of the Psalmist took over the heart of the young Gani-Ikilama. In 1967 he returned to Nigeria and started a gospel music group at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, where he worked for six years.The group was named Medic
Opposite: Dr. Bitrus Gani-Ikilama (Photo by O. Minchakpu) Right: Isaac Gbadero, president of the student body at the Baptist seminary in Kaduna, Nigeria, recalls a 2001 attack that destroyed the seminary campus and took the lives of 11 people, including two students and a retired maintenance man. The perseverance of Kaduna’s Baptists in the face of persecution has been a powerful witness to the community, observers say. (Photo by Bob Siddens for Baptist Press) PRISM 2006
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The state of the church in northern Nigeria
been forced to live with regular attacks and the destruction of churches for the past 20 years. For them, Islamic fundamentalism has become a thorn in the flesh of the church. They also cite marginalization of Christians in work places and schools and the forceful dragging of Christians before Islamic courts in some parts of the state. The introduction of the Islamic legal system in 2000 has escalated religious conflicts in some parts of the state, they say. The same situation exists in Kano, where Christians are being suppressed, discriminated against, and humiliated because of their faith. Christian leaders liken their experiences under the oppressive Islamic regime to that of a people in captivity. Difficulties include demolition of churches, forceful conversion of Christians to Islam, discrimination in public institutions, denial of land for building of churches, and bodily attacks on Christians. In Zamfara, Christian leaders say persecution of Christians is the hallmark of their existence. Denial of lands to churches in Zamfara is one of the major problems Christians have encountered, along with non-employment of Christians in the public service. Christians also face discriminatory educational policies. Christian students in institutions pay high school fees while Muslim students enjoy tuition-free education, and there is no teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) while Islam is compulsory for Christian students. The above scenarios are just a handful of cases highlighting the consistent persecution Christians in this part of Africa face under Islamic regimes. But in spite of all these problems, Christian leaders in northern Nigeria remain resolute to the Christian faith. “There is no shaking us,” affirms one Christian leader.
How religious violence and persecution are decimating Christians BY OBED MINCHAKPU
Nigeria, particularly the northern part of the country, has in the past 20 years been engulfed in religious conflicts where Muslim fanatics have incessantly attacked Christians and destroyed church buildings. Nigerian government statistics indicate that such religiously induced conflicts resulted in the killing of about 50,000 persons and displacement of well over 4.9 million persons in 2005. These conflicts increased geometrically following the implementation of Islamic law in northern Nigeria, where 12 state governments imposed sharia, the Islamic legal code, on the entire citizenry, including Christians. This was the major factor responsible not only for the killing, displacement, and destruction but also for the banning of evangelistic work by Christians. Sharia, which means “way” or “path,” is the legal framework within which public aspects of life, as well as some private aspects, are regulated for those living within the state and belonging to the Islamic community. The states imposing Islamic law are Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara. Christians in these states cried out that the imposition of the Islamic law would negatively impinge on their religious liberty as well as retard the work of the gospel in this part of the country.The Nigerian federal government said the policy of these states is against the Nigerian constitution, which provides for freedom of thought and religion, but it did nothing to protect Christians in these Islamic states. Christian leaders in Bauchi say that the imposition of sharia has fueled the persecution of Christians. They point to incessant attacks on the churches and their members and deliberate marginalization of, and discrimination against, Christians. Examples include denial of land to build churches, forceful conversion of teenage Christians to Islam, nonemployment of Christians in public service, and lack of provision of social services to Christian communities. Christian leaders in Kaduna report that Christians have
(Author’s note: This report is substantiated by face-to-face interviews, which I conducted over a nine-month period in 2006, with Christian leaders living under sharia law in northern Nigeria. Those interviewed include: (in Bauchi) Rev. Dauda Galadima, secretary of the Bauchi district of the Evangelical Church of West Africa; Suleiman Wurno, a lawyer; and Rev. Dauda Diga Jimra, chairman of the Bauchi state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN); (in Kaduna) Rev. Joseph Hayap, a Baptist pastor; Bishop Ali Buba Lamido of the Anglican Communion; and Saidu Dogo, secretary of CAN, northern Nigeria; (in Kano) Methodist Bishop Foster Ekeleme, state chairman of CAN; and Rev. Murtala Marti Dangora, secretary of the Kano district of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA); and (in Zamfara) Bishop John Garba Danbinta, Anglican bishop of Gusau; and Rev. Barnabas Sabo, an ECWA pastor in Gusau town.)
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The remains of a Sunday school bus in which 20 Nigerian Christian children were burned to death. (Photo courtesy of Open Doors).
HOPE FOR THE BLIND
Melodies, because all of the members were doctors, nurses, or medical students. Gani-Ikilama remembers the early days of the group: “We recorded songs and sermons. It was part of our effort at evangelizing because we had noticed that a lot of people loved to listen to music.” The group’s debut album, The Challenge of Our Time, took the gospel music scene in Nigeria by storm. Besides ministering through song, Gani-Ikilama started a Christian fellowship in the hospital. Its aim was witnessing, and the group did this for six years,” says Gani-Ikilama. “We divided the city of Lagos among us in order to do street evangelism,” he says. “I must say that we thank God for the results we got.” Gani-Ikilama’s work as a physiotherapist began at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in 1967, but his entry into the hospital environment was not easy. His blindness was a serious obstacle to him, not because he was incapable of doing the work but because his employers doubted the ability of a blind man to do the work. Gani-Ikilama recalled the reaction of the British administrator at the teaching hospital: “He thought I couldn’t work because I was blind. I laughed, and he asked, ‘Why are you laughing?’ I told him, ‘If a Nigerian told me this, I would forgive and understand, but you are British. I trained in your country. Now which hospital in your country is smaller than the hospital here?’ He didn’t like what I said, but he employed me. I saw this as a challenge, and I set out to prove him wrong.” He was to work there for a few years before signing on at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, where he worked as a physiotherapist for 30 years before retiring four years ago. The joy of Gani-Ikilama was not only in his work as a physiotherapist but also in the opportunity to share the gospel with his patients and colleagues in the years he worked in these hospitals. “I find it very interesting to lead my Muslim patients and colleagues to Christ,” he says. “That hasn’t always been acceptable to the Muslims, especially up this way in Zaria, but that is my calling.”
While reflecting on the effect of blindness on his life, the doctor says, “Honestly, it is the grace of God in my life that has seen me through my career development.” He says in spite of his blindness, he has had no difficulty in carrying out his tasks, first as a physiotherapist and then as an evangelist. “I had no difficulty in the way of ministry, preaching, and teaching, because books in Braille for the blind people to read were available to me.” The only difficulty, he says, is for any preacher of the Word to be “prepared at all times to listen to God and to update one’s knowledge of the Word of God.” Gani-Ikilama says that God laid a burden on him to also minister to the blind and led him to establish Hope for the Blind Center in Zaria. “Over 2 million Nigerians are totally blind,” he pointed out, “and we need to minister to them, too.” The center, which was opened in 1976, now ministers to blind persons all over the world, especially in developing countries. The result and impact of the center is that it has brought Muslims and pagans to Christ, says Gani-Ikilama: “Soon after we started, we got requests from all over Africa, from as far away as Egypt and Zimbabwe, and from other places like Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.” The story of Gani-Ikilama’s life is one authored by Christ and inspired by the Word of God, which has led him to confront the forces of evil, give hope to the hopeless, and inspire a revival in Islam’s heartland. As Jesus said, “With mortals this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). ■ To learn more about Hope for the Blind or to contribute to their ministry, email hopeforblind@inet-global.com. Obed Minchakpu (obedminchakpu@yahoo.com) is a “media missionary” with a diverse educational background in theology, journalism, physics, and mechanical engineering. He also ministers to persecuted Christians in Nigeria, where he lives with his wife and four children in the city of Jos.
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