Facts about the genocide against Christians in Nigeria, by Ayuba Ahmad
Recently, the very vocal Texas Senator Ted Cruz presented a Bill in the US Senate which seeks to classify Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) over the supposed incidents of large-scale persecution of Christians in the country.
By this, the US Secretary of State is expected to restore Nigeria’s CPC status, based on which targeted sanctions are imposed on the nation’s officials perceived as complicit in the mass murder of Christians.
Citing the 2022 lynching of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto, to highlight the view of targeted violence against Christians, the Bill according to Cruz, “ensures accountability for Nigerian officials who turn a blind eye, or worse, participate in the persecution of religious minorities.” The U.S. senator described Nigeria as “one of the deadliest places in the world to be a Christian.”
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Popular American television host, Bill Maher, in his ‘HBO Show Real Time on Friday’, while blasting the mass media in the West for underreporting news of the alleged violence against Christians, also blamed the Boko Haram and the Islamic State West African Province, ISWAP, for spearheading the campaign of decimation of the Christian population in Nigeria:
“I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They have killed hundreds; they have burned 18,000 churches since 2009. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. The fact that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar, is pretty amazing.”
Addressing the issue on the floor of the Canadian parliament, Andrew Scheer, very effusive and emotional, spoke about what he termed as the tragedy of the displacement of 3.5million people and “the massacre of 7000 people this year alone.”
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Like Maher, Andrew Scheer lamented the poor publicity given. “Sadly, the world is turning a blind eye to the plight. No embedded journalists are covering the violence.”
Not surprisingly, a cross-section of Nigerians, some in influential and respectable positions in society, have bought into the story. For example, Prophet Isa El-Buba, a cleric of towering stature based in the Plateau state capital city of Jos, has been vehement that, “genocide against Christians is a reality in Nigeria.” According to him, “to say otherwise is telling a lie.”
What acts amount to genocide? Do we have situations in Nigeria today that are tantamount to genocide?
In its various definitions, genocide, implies the deliberate, coordinated and predetermined acts of targeted killings of a people, on the grounds of race, ethnicity and faith, among other social and cultural peculiarities. It denotes mass murder, extermination or, annihilation of a particular group of people.
In the modern world, several infamous incidents of genocide readily come to mind. These include the “holocaust”, the mass killings of Jews that took place in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, 1939 to 1945; the Serbian massacres of Bosnian Muslims, 1992 to 1995; the Hutu massacre of Tutsi in Rwanda, 1994; the displacement and killings of the Rohingyans and, the ongoing war of extermination of Palestinians in Gaza by the Zionists.
Indeed, it is absolutely correct that Islamist insurgents have been rampaging, especially in the Northeast region, since 2009. It is also an irrefutable fact that bandits, operating under different names and hues, have become a scourge, particularly in the Northwest and North Central regions, from approximately 2015 to date.
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Equally undeniable is the truth that the victims of the mass murders, dislocations and displacements, the wanton destruction and ruination of habitats, places of worship, farms or business premises, cut across the boundaries of ethnicity and religions.
In the Northeast, the Boko Haram or ISWAP fighters have been randomly, indiscriminately killing both Muslims and Christians, just as they have been kidnapping and raping young boys and girls without regard to the faiths or ethnic background of their hapless victims.
The same scenario is playing out in the regions of the country under the throes of bandits. In fact, the overwhelming numbers of the victims of the senseless killings, kidnappings and other forms of atrocities of banditry in the Northwest, are the Hausa and Fulani people of the Islamic faith. The bandits are clearly therefore, hordes of godless, marauding criminals with nothing but material accumulation as their goal.
The situation in the North Central appears to present a different scenario. The region is predominantly populated by farming communities, mainly of the Christian faith. On the other hand, the aggressors usually identified as Fulani herdsmen, are generally regarded as belonging to the Islamic faith.
However, as is the case with the Boko Haram and the bandits in the Northeast and the Northwest respectively, those bands of gunmen that are wreaking havoc, deaths and sorrow in the North Central states of Plateau, Benue, Niger and Kwara, are anything but a people of religious piety on “jihad” a holy war.
In most cases, these herdsmen are barely better than illiterates in their knowledge of the Islamic religion. The monstrous, barbaric atrocities they unleash portray them as agents of the devil.
A realistic and intelligent prognosis of the myriad conflicts plaguing the nation will put the blame on the shortcomings of the Nigerian state. The country is in its present parlous situation because of the malaise of the cankerworm of corruption that has eaten deep into the very marrow of the state.
The nation’s leadership elites are so incapacitated and overwhelmed by the various crises that were, in the first place, the outcome of their paucity of foresight and abysmal patriotic fervour, gross incompetence and avarice. These are the causative factors why insurgency and banditry have defied the security agencies and have festered to this level. The country’s armed forces have not been modernising in terms of equipment or expanding in line with the changing exigencies of emerging security challenges.
It is obvious even to the external detractors with treacherous designs against Nigeria, that there is nothing in the least, that is akin to genocide of any sort in the country. But, in their desperate obsession to derail the progress of Africa’s most promising nation, they are subtly, scheming to instigate a cataclysmic crisis in the country. Igniting a religious war appears to be the easiest, quickest option available to them. Unfortunately, they will find people who, by commission or omission, will be there to serve as lackeys or quislings.
In the emerging scenario, Nigerians should be very wary of foes in the garb of friends. A Ted Cruz or an Andrew Scheer, and their ilk, are wolves scheming to feast on our misfortune. If they are so concerned about humanity, if they are so sensitive and averse to genocide, why have they been looking away from the horrifying enactment of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza by the Zionist state of Israel?
Very significantly, we as Nigerians, should be probing the moral authority of Senator Ted Cruz talking about genocide in Nigeria or elsewhere in the world? This is a man who has declared time without number that the only reason why he is in the US Senate is “to protect Israel.” This means that, while supporting a real-time and raw genocide in Gaza by the Zionists, here he is, talking of an imaginary genocide in Nigeria! Double standard, Janus face.
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