Story number 1 for 29 Feb 2000

We begin today in Nigeria where President Olusegun Obasanjo is visiting the northern city of Kaduna, where more than two-hundred people died in sectarian clashes a week ago. Meanwhile, ethnic riots erupted yesterday in the southeast in a backlash to last week’s violence. Evangelical Baptist Mission’s David Jacobs says: “The government has made it clear that the present government of the state of Nigeria is not an Islamic state, and as such, we still have the freedom of worship–and the present government has never interfered with any religious activity, as long as you have not violated the principle and the law of the government.” Jacobs says despite the trouble, their work continues. “We need more missionaries to help, and to evangelize the area that still needs to be evangelized. A couple of churches were destroyed by the fanatic Muslims, but that really has not affected the propagation of the Word of God. It rather has enhanced.”