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Imam Abubakar Abdullahi, along with four religious leaders from Sudan, Iraq, Brazil and Cyprus, received the International Religious Freedom Award in 2019, awarded to defenders of religious freedom.
Abdullahi was recognized for sheltering hundreds of Christians fleeing attacks from Muslim farmers who had launched coordinated attacks on Christian farmers in 10 villages in the Barkin Ladi region in the Plateau State on June 23 2018, announced the organizers of the award in a statement.
The cleric refused to give them up when their badailants asked where they were, International Ambbadador for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said Wednesday at the awards ceremony in Washington.
"The Imam gave refuge to his Christian neighbors, sheltering 262 Christians in his mosque and at his home … and then stood in front of the gates to face the Muslim attackers, begging them to spare the lives of Christians in the interior, even offering to exchange one's own life for theirs, "said Brownback.
"His actions show true courage, true selflessness and true brotherly love," he said.
More than 80 people were killed in attacks by suspected herders, who also set fire to many houses in the villages. The violence between Peul nomadic pastoralists, who are predominantly Muslims, and farmers, who are predominantly Christians, in the central belt of Nigeria dates back to 2013.
The State Department, the organizer of the award, awarded to defenders of religious freedom, said the Muslim cleric had risked his life to save members of another religious community who, without his intervention, would have been you are.
Armed shepherds have wreaked havoc in the central state communities to expel farmers from a conflict that would be more deadly than the Boko Haram insurgency.
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