Christian Student Kidnapped, Forced to Convert To Islam in Nigeria

Christian Student Kidnapped, Forced to Convert To Islam in Nigeria

Christian Student Kidnapped, Forced to Convert To Islam in Nigeria: According to a campus watchdog group, Kaduna State University staff members participated in the kidnapping and forced conversion of a Christian student to Islam.

Dorcas Adedayo Adekanola, a 20-year-old first-year chemistry student at the university, was an active member of the Fellowship of Christian Students when other members noticed her absence last month, according to leaders of Campus Mission Watch (CMW).

Her parents received a phone call on Sept. 20 from Christian students saying they were distressed that she was acting strange before her disappearance.
Her parents informed the commissioner of police and the school administration of her absence on September 20, fearing she had been kidnapped and forced into converting to Islam.

“She was always looking scared, which shows she was being threatened by the Islamists on campus,” CMW leaders said in a press statement. “Dorcas was also not seen on campus for some days.”

After her parents were informed of her absence, they immediately called her mobile phone number.

“Their daughter’s phone was suddenly switched off, indicating that the call was rejected by her abductors, who kept her in the house of a Muslim cleric outside the campus,” the CMW leaders said. “We believe she was forcefully abducted and taken out of campus by the Islamists out of fear of the parents of the Christian student withdrawing her from the university.”

“Miss Dorcas told her parents that she was taken to an imam’s house, the imam of Sultan Bello Mosque, in the city of Kaduna, where she was kept against her will and threatened not to disclose that she was coerced into embracing Islam, before being brought back to campus,” the CMW leaders said. “She also told her parents that one Muslim woman, Mallama Amina, an academic staff member in the Department of Biochemistry, was appointed as her godmother, who facilitated her forceful conversion to Islam through the renouncing of Christianity and the recitation of Kalma Sha’ada, the Islamic creed.”

The abducted student said Amina also taught her how to do Islamic ablution and prayer, among other Muslim practices, and gave her “a lot in cash and kind,” including Islamic clothing, according to the CMW leaders.