The violence in Nigeria is largely sectarian and has been going on for a long time. A hundred years ago the British merged a Christain area with a Muslim one, and there have been trouble ever since. It is hitting the headlines now because the US have decided Boko Haram are a terrorist group with links to Al Qaeda. So the religious violence that has occurred for decades now takes on a different dimension and gets reported as extremist terrorist activity.
The Christians do their fair share of massacring as well and I have not heard you Christians condemning it.
// Saturday, 23 January 2010
More victims of deadly religious clashes in central Nigeria have been found, with scores of bodies stuffed in wells and sewage pits.
Correspondents say elders hid in holes for seven hours to escape the violence.
An exact death toll is not known but overall 300 or more are thought to have died in the Muslim-Christian clashes.
Muslim officials in Jos who spoke to the campaign group Human Rights Watch said 364 Muslims had been killed. //
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8476534.stm