“He said I was now an infidel,” Sarajo said. “So, on the last Saturday of the month of February in 1994, my father sent me out of our family home. I was dispossessed of all my clothes.”

He went to Chaga’s house, where he had read the Bible. The following day, his father came to the house and struck him with a Coca-Cola bottle. “He hit me with the bottle on my head, and I fainted before I was revived,” Sarajo said. “I was to suffer with the wound on my head for two years before it healed.”

Wamba town, which is predominantly Muslim, was engulfed in tension over Sarajo’s conversion. He had been one of the best Quranic students in town. His zeal for Islam was widely known, his sudden conversion shocking. Frightened, Chaga asked Sarajo to leave immediately. Persecution forced Sarajo to drop out of high school.

On the Run
Sarajo went from one house to another in search of a Christian family that would take him in. He first stayed with the pastor of a Pentecostal church in Wamba, Pastor Ayuba Maigagnga of the Deeper Life Bible Church. While staying with this pastor, he decided to worship with a congregation of the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) in Wamba, then led by Pastor Alade Tunga.

The two pastors became a source of encouragement to Sarajo as they taught him the Bible and discipled him. Sarajo’s father reported this development to the Muslim community leader of Wamba, Alhaji Musa Nagogo. He instructed Sarajo’s father to report the case to police.

The police mounted a search, placing announcements on the radio declaring him “wanted.” They arrested him in Wamba after he had returned from a Christian outreach effort to Andaha town.

“I was accused of causing confusion in the town because I became a Christian,” he said. “The two pastors who were encouraging me in the faith were accused by my parents and the police of deceiving me into becoming a Christian. I then shared my testimony with the police, now telling them why I became a Christian.”