Deborah’s killers must be brought to justice — Christian group

• Religious Murder One Too Many— Clerics

The Student Christian Movement (SCM) of Nigeria, yesterday, condemned the gruesome murder of Miss Deborah Samuel Yakubu, a female Christian and 200 level student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, who was killed by his classmates, on Thursday, May 12, over alleged blasphemy. The group wants perpetrators to be brought to book.

In a statement signed by its National President, Mrs. Eberechukwu Ijeoma Ubesie and National Secretary, Rev. Olumide Toluwase, in Ibadan, the group “decried the meanness, barbarism and monstrous impunity” exhibited by Deborah’s killers.

It said such a development “is symptomatic of how dangerously Nigeria has descended into the pit of lawlessness and insecurity…”

In a related development, the Chairman and Chaplain of The Chapel of the Resurrection, University of Ibadan (UI), Prof. Emmanuel Olawale Ogunkola and Very Rev. Dr. Olufikayo Kunle Oyelade have called on governments, at all levels, to expedite action to ensure that the perpetrators are appropriately brought to justice in accordance with the laws of Nigeria. 

They noted that this wasn’t the first time such a level of violence was visited on Christians in the North over similar claims of blasphemy. “The list of victims is long and the instances span several decades. Such killings are unacceptable in any democratic and multi-religious society where the rule of law and freedom of religion are expected to reign.”

SMC called on the Federal Government to courageously rise up to put up a good fight to stop it.
It continued: “Deborah’s case shows how deep we have gone in not properly securing the lives of ordinary Nigerians.

“While not in any way approving disrespect or any form of insolence to the faith and belief system of others, the SCM believes in the maxim that an accused remains innocent until found legally guilty. How can Miss. Deborah Samuel is killed in broad daylight in a 21st century too far from the Hobbesian primitivism of life becoming short, nasty and brutish”, it said.

SCM joined the CCN under CAN with PFN and well-meaning Nigerians like the Sultan of Sokoto to ask the government of Sokoto State and all the security agencies to use all available legal means to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to book.