YANA, Nigeria, February 12 (Compass Direct News) – A Muslim man’s frustrated desire to marry a young Christian woman resulted in him accusing her of “blasphemy,” triggering violence in this town in Bauchi state on February 2 that left one person dead, seven Christians hospitalized and destroyed five churches.

The Rev. Garba Gaius, pastor of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) congregation to which the young woman belongs, told Compass that Paitence Yusuf was at home the night of February 1 when she learned that a young man was asking her to meet him outside.

She went out to meet with him, and he told her he wanted to befriend and marry her. Surprised at what she was hearing, Rev. Gaius said, Yusuf sharply declined his offer.

As she walked back into her house, the man, whose identity has not be disclosed, told her, “I beg you in the name of God and his apostle, Muhammad, to please accept me as your boyfriend,” Rev. Gaius said. He said Yusuf looked the man in the face and replied, “You are pleading in the name of a person I do not know. Jesus I know, but Muhammad I do not know.”

The Muslim man left, Rev. Gaius said, gathering friends and neighbors that night to tell them that Yusuf had blasphemed Muhammad.

“The following morning, the Muslim man took a group of other Muslims to the house of Yusuf, where they confronted her on the allegation of blasphemy against Muhammad,” Rev. Gaius said.

Sensing that the Muslims intended to kill her, Yufus escaped to the town’s police station, he said, where she was kept in protective custody.

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