ROME - Back in the late 1970s, James Wuye was a young Nigerian and fervent Christian believer, who converted to Catholicism and later joined the Assemblies of God Pentecostal church amid his country’s first wave of sectarian violence. He watched as bands of Muslim extremists struck Christian targets, burning schools and churches, and felt helpless as local police and security forces did nothing.

Eventually Wuye, who grew up a “child of the barracks” as the son of an army officer, decided he was tired of waiting. He helped organize other Christian youth into secret paramilitary units, stockpiling weapons and training for combat. Wuye paid a price in the flesh, losing his right hand during a pitched battle in 1992 to defend a church in Kaduna, a heavily Muslim area. Today he wears a prosthetic limb as a result of the injury.

Crux - Anti-Christian carnage in Nigeria could be global security nightmare