When fighters last month took the town of Gwoza murdering inhabitants and raising its jihadist flags, a video was released declaring the area was ‘now part of the Islamic Caliphate and Gwoza has nothing to do with Nigeria.’ Intelligence agencies believe that what were once symbolic links between IS and Boko Haram have developed into a practical relationship with the Islamic State offering advice on strategy and tactics. Emboldened by the success of IS and now equipped with armoured vehicles and artillery Boko Haram is beginning to operate more like a conventional army in Borno Adamawa and Yobe states. Since 2009 terrorists have attacked government buildings, bombed churches and killed; but recently entire towns have been captured and bases to control the territory are being established, a move that parallels IS. Christian leaders report tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims fleeing northern Nigeria where towns are being captured, including Michika earlier this week. See: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/africa/isis-gives-blessing-and-advice-to-boko-harams-dream-of-an-african-caliphate-30573042.html and http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue24747.html

Pray: that the ties between IS and Boko Haram will be broken by Nigeria’s security networks. Pray also for God to provide peace and security for the displaced. (Pr.29:11)

More: http://www.christianpost.com/news/isis-giving-nigerias-boko-haram-advice-on-establishing-african-caliphate-126164/

Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram has captured the key north-eastern town of Michika, residents say, gaining more territory in its efforts to create an Islamic state. People fled into bushes as gunfire rang out in the town, they added. Boko Haram has changed tactics in recent months by holding on to territory rather than launching hit-and-run attacks. The government called on Nigerians not to lose hope. The military was committed to defending Nigeria's territorial integrity, it said. Soldiers killed 50 militants during a raid on their hideout in the small north-eastern town of Kawuri at the weekend, the army said. Last month, Boko Haram said it had established an Islamic state in areas it controls in north-eastern Nigeria. Michika is a trading centre in Adamawa state not far from the Cameroon border.

Pray: against the ongoing attacks by Boko Haram as it seeks to establish an Islamic state. (Ps.140:12)

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29110663

Witnesses who fled the sandy fishing village of Doron Baga near the shores of Lake Chad said militants clothed in military and police uniforms loaded 97 men and boys on to trucks and drove them away, leaving no men or boys in the place - only young children, girls and women. They said six older men were also killed in Sunday's raid while another five people were wounded. Terrorists also burned several houses. Boko Haram has dramatically increased attacks on civilians recently and the once-grassroots movement has lost popular support as it becomes more bloodthirsty. Young men are not now willingly volunteering as soldiers. So Boko Haram’s solution is kidnapping boys and forcing them to fight and abducting girls as sex slaves. This is a chilling echo of Ugandan rebel Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, which operated in the same way in Uganda, South Sudan and central Africa for decades.

Pray: for missing and abducted Nigerians and their families. (Ps.17:7-9) Ask God to halt the increasing mobility of Boko Haram across vast swathes of north-eastern Nigeria without being intercepted by the military. (Ps.44:23-24)

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2725964/Boko-Haram-kidnap-dozens-men-boys-attack-Nigeria-village-latest-Islamist-outrage.html

For the families of the missing girls kidnapped more than a hundred days ago, another trauma has emerged. Eleven of the grieving parents have died, many after heart attacks and stress-related illnesses. President Goodluck Jonathan pledged to secure the girls release during his first meeting with parents recently. Parents pulled out of previous meetings believing they were being used for political reasons. Despite the support of the USA, France and the UK the whereabouts of the girls is still unknown. President Jonathan reassured parents, appealing for patience, understanding and cooperation. ‘Anyone who says we are aloof and not doing what we are supposed to do to get the girls out is not being truthful. Our commitment is to get the girls out and to rout Boko Haram completely from Nigeria.’ Please pray for security in the area; there are concerns of a humanitarian disaster as Christians flee Boko Haram. See: http://www.3news.co.nz/Nigerians-flee-Boko-Haram-attacks/tabid/417/articleID/355664/Default.aspx

Pray: for the heartbroken families. Ask God to protect communities against the onslaught of fear and hopelessness. Ask God to remind them that He has a future and a hope for them. (Lk.1:50-51)

More: https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2014/07/article_3230638.html/

Lagos has eight suspected cases of Ebola with one case confirmed, all came into contact with Nigeria's first victim who died. On Tuesday the World Bank pledged $200 million towards containing the virus. A doctor in Lagos is the second case in the sprawling city. The doctor attended to a man working for Liberia's finance ministry who contracted the virus from his sister before travelling to Lagos for a meeting of West African officials. Seventy people who came into contact with the deceased are being monitored. Three show signs of the disease. World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, himself an expert on infectious diseases, was deeply saddened at the breakdown of already weak health systems in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The funding will provide medical supplies, pay healthcare staff and manage priorities to try to contain the epidemic and prevent future outbreaks. Reports from Liberia say corpses are being dumped or abandoned and bodies of victims rot in the streets or in their homes. See also http://news.yahoo.com/nigeria-says-doctor-treated-ebola-victim-contracted-virus-004047580.html

Pray: for the nations as they unite to reorganise their fight against the epidemic. Pray for Government and NGOs working in isolated communities as they give healthcare advice and medical aid. (Jas.1:5)

More: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/africa/ebola-virus-hits-nigeria-as-lagos-has-eight-suspected-cases-30484968.html

Christians in north-eastern Nigeria are mourning an evangelical pastor and at least 150 others. Attacks began on July 14 when Boko Haram attacked Dille village, killing Pastor Taiwo Dokun of the Redeemed Christian Church of God and 44 other villagers. The whereabouts of the late pastor's wife and their three children remained unknown. The family could have been abducted by the insurgents who took away many of the residents of the town. The pastor’s family members have not called any one' a church member told reporters, without revealing his name. The pastor’s residence was completely razed by the insurgents. Other homes and shops were also torched, forcing villagers to flee the area into nearby hills. Soon after the violence spread to other areas in and more than 100 people were killed. Militants were seen hoisting their black and white flag over the north-eastern town of Damboa. Hundreds are fleeing Askira Uba after receiving letters from Boko Haram threatening to attack and take over their villages. Nine villages are on the run.

Pray: for the families living in fear to know God’s comfort. Pray for protection for Christians living in heavily Muslim populated areas.(Ps.40:1-2) Pray for the government and military to eradicate terrorism. (Ex.15:6)

More: http://www.bosnewslife.com/33364-news-alert-nigeria-christians-mourn-150-killed-by-militants-including-pastor

The Church in Nigeria will be holding a nationwide National Day of Praise, Thanksgiving and Repentance on 1st October 2014.

It is a day for all Churches, in all cities, regions and states in Nigeria to gather together in agreed worship places nearest to them to Pray, Praise and Thank the LORD for Nigeria and to seek for forgiveness and mercy upon our nation.

Download and Print Flyer

National Day of Praise, Thanksgiving and Repentance

1 October 2014

Download and Print the Event Flyer / Poster HERE

The AFP report below refers. KANO ( AFP) – Boko Haram’s leader said he has created an Islamic caliphate in a northeast Nigeria town seized by the insurgents earlier this month, in a video obtained by AFP on Sunday.
“Thanks be to Allah who gave victory to our brethren in (the town of) Gwoza and made it part of the Islamic caliphate,” Abubakar Shekau said in the 52-minute video.
He declared that Gwoza, in Borno state, now has “nothing to do with Nigeria”.

- See more

The pasted extract below is from LAMPSTANDLETTERS NO 19, FEBRUARY 2000 and is for understanding the Fulani-Kanuri-Arab Islamic fundamentalist  conspiracy and necessary focused spiritual action.

'Great and amazing things happen when the Church prays.'  Anonymous

'If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land' ( 2 Chro.7:14).

This is an urgent call to the entire Church to pray. This call for prayer has become necessary in light of the numerous challenges the Church and our Nation is going through. We all recall that in the past, when the Church faced similar challenges and threats, we had resorted to prayers and God answered. So, as we now face what can no doubt be described as 'PERILIOUS TIMES' in our nation, let us arise and pray, knowing that God has always been faithful in responding to our passionate petitions.

Prayer is at the core of the ministry of the Church. The Church was born in prayer and has been sustained all through her history by prayer. Jesus, the head of the Church, exemplified the importance of prayer by the attention He gave to it. He prayed regularly, and taught his disciples how to pray. Once, when He went into the temple, He drove away the money changers who had turned the temple into a business centre and thereafter declared, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a house of thieves.'" Thus, the Church should be a house of prayer, a place where prayer never ceases.

I urge all Christians - Catholics, Protestants, Pentecostals, Charismatics, and all other denominations, including men, women and children - whether in the market places, the offices, in business premises, at homes, in Churches, at street corners, in the eateries, in communities and at football fields to arise and join in this One Year 24/7 prayer initiative. Let us all raise the altar of prayer in twos, in threes, in groups, and families so that the tide of evil facing the nation and the Church may be overturned. Let us persist in prayer until a great awakening is seen in the land.

God bless you all as you respond to this clarion call to prayer.

Rev. Dr. Felix OMOBUDE
President, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN)

A truck has exploded in a huge fireball, killing at least 17 people in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the latest attack in a city repeatedly hit by Boko Haram fighters. Tuesday's bomb rocked Maiduguri's largest roundabout near the crowded Market where elderly women line the road selling peanuts and kola nuts as snacks to morning commuters. The Defence Ministry said in a tweet that an ’improvised explosive device’ went off in ‘a van loaded with charcoal’ and that the area had been cordoned off. One witness said the bomb went off just after the market opened at 8am before most traders or customers had arrived. Unruly crowds tried to attack fire-fighters deployed to the scene, accusing them of arriving too slowly and hindering their efforts to put out the raging blaze, the AFP news agency reported.

Pray: continuously for God to confuse the hand of the enemy and bring peace. (Ps 140:7-8)

More: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/07/dozens-killed-car-bomb-nigeria-20147195610585272.html

More than 60 women and girls are reported to have escaped from the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, security sources say. They were among 68 abducted last month near the town of Damboa in north-eastern Borno state. But some women who made it home said they feared other escapees had been recaptured, villagers told the BBC. Boko Haram is still holding more than 200 schoolgirls abducted from Borno's Chibok town in April. Initial reports said the women escaped when the militants went to attack a military base near Damboa on Friday. Local vigilante Abbas Gava told journalists he had ‘received an alert from my colleagues that about 63 of the abducted women and girls had made it back home’. ‘They took the bold step when their abductors moved out to carry out an operation,’ he said. But 18 women who have made it back to villages around Damboa over the last three days - and are being treated at a hospital in Lasa village - said the militants were asleep when they escaped, a Lasa resident told the BBC Hausa Service.

Pray: for the safe return of all the abducted women and children; for the terrorists to be brought to justice. (2 Thess 3:3)

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28189035