Leo Igwe, "Boko Haram and the Threat of Islamic Extremism in Africa"

Boko Haram and the Threat of Islamic Extremism in Africa

The abduction of over 200 school girls in Nigeria by the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram has demonstrated to the world the threat posed by religious extremism in the region. The sentencing to death of a Sudanese woman for apostasy and the religious bloodletting of islamic militants in Mali and the Al Shabab group in East Africa are ominous signs of a looming dark age in Africa. While some military action is necessary to rescue the girls and defeat these militants groups, we will need more than bombs and drones to realise the much needed secular society and dispel the fundamentalist, nihilist ideologies of Islamists and other fanatics in the region. My presentation is a call to arms for all humanists, skeptics, and secularists in the US to support efforts to promote human rights, secular education and separation of religion and state in the region.

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HCCO will be hosting Leo Igwe as part of his U.S. speaking tour.

Leo Igwe is a humanist, skeptic, and human rights advocate from Nigeria. He has specialized in campaigning against and documenting the impacts of witchcraft accusations in Africa, where up to 55% of the population believes in witchcraft, often with horrifying results (more info here (http://www.livescience.com/8515-belief-witchcraft-widespread-africa.html)).

In 2012, Mr. Igwe was appointed as a Research Fellow of the James Randi Educational Foundation, where he continues working toward the goal of responding to what he sees as the deleterious effects of superstition, advancing skepticism throughout Africa and around the world. In 2014, Mr. Igwe was chosen as a laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.

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More information on Leo Igwe and the Igwe Study Project can be found at Foundation Beyond Belief (http://foundationbeyondbelief.org/?s=Leo%20Igwe%20Research%20Project).