Nigerian evangelist murdered during street preaching

ABUJA, Nigeria—Nigerian police are questioning two suspects in the murder of a female preacher in Nigeria’s capital, the state’s police commissioner said in an interview yesterday. The latest killing, one of a spate of religiously motivated murders, highlights the increasingly tense religious climate in parts of Nigeria.

Eunice Olawole, a deaconess at a Redeemed Christian Church of God parish in the town of Kubwa, left home at 5 a.m. Saturday for her daily street outreach. The attackers killed her shortly after. Her husband, Elisha, said he first received word of her death from two of his seven children, who were out playing soccer.

“My children came back and told me that they heard some footballers saying that a woman preaching this morning was killed, and her megaphone was still there,” Elisha said.

He went to the site and a policeman directed him to a nearby police station, where he identified his wife’s body.

Abuja’s police commissioner, Alkali Usman, said the police initially arrested eight suspects but only two remain under questioning. Usman said police will make their findings public after the investigation, but he dismissed some rumors about Eunice’s death.

“The sign of violence on her body was very glaring,” Usman said yesterday in an interview with Nigeria’s Channels TV. “No part of her body was removed like earlier reported by the family.”

Dolapo Osinbajo, the wife of Nigeria’s vice president, and Folu Adeboye, the wife of the general overseer of the church, paid a condolence visit to the family. Elisha remembered Eunice, 41, as a reckless giver to God’s work. He said he told his wife to be careful after she said people in a nearby mosque made comments about her preaching.

“Everybody is saying it is well, nobody can understand how I feel,” Eunice’s oldest daughter, Jessica, told Nigeria’s Vanguard Newspaper, amid tears. “She didn’t do anybody any harm. She uses just her megaphone and Bible, just preaching.”

Pastor James Movel Wuye, the co-executive director of the Interfaith Mediation Center in Nigeria’s Kaduna state, said Eunice’s death and other recent killings across the country emphasize the need for more religious tolerance and mutual respect. He called on Nigerian officials to create laws that regulate public preaching and public noise, referring to scenarios where Muslim calls to prayer or Christian services are broadcast to surrounding neighborhoods through external speakers.

“I know situations where people have mounted speakers from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.,” Wuye said. “There should be no force in religion, and people should learn to respect others.”