“Why You Must Stop Denying the Ongoing Islamists & Herdsmen Terrorism Genocide Against Nigerian Christians and Indigenous Populations.”
Preamble
The era of sugarcoating words, or trying to sound politically correct, is far gone. The issue of acknowledging and of confronting with truth, and with all the strength one has, the perpetrators and their sponsors, of the ongoing killings — extremists’ religious genocide being committed against Nigerian Christians, moderate Muslims, and Indigenous populations and destruction of their rural communities, by known Islamist insurgents and Jihadist herdsmen terrorists aka bandits — their sponsors and financiers, whether in government, or outside the government, or in military uniform or in civilian attire, is now or never! Confronting the ongoing Islamist terrorism and genocide against Nigerian Christians, moderate Muslims and Indigenous ethnic populations and communities in their ancestral homelands by known terrorists, must be seen for that which it is! It is now a matter of life and death.
Furthermore, the era of playing on the sidelines, and on the intelligence of average Nigerians, by trying to shift the blame of the insecurity in the land in certain quarters, and lay it on the Biafra or Oduduwa agitators or on other groups of that nomenclature in different geopolitical zones, or on the political opponents, is also far gone. Enough of that deception, which was engineered then by the same self-serving, corrupt politicians — collaborators with the powers that be, who are behind the insecurity and are serving as enablers of the terrorism and insecurity in their respective regions, States or local communities.
Unfortunately, most of the politicians and their cronies in the Southern and even in the Middle-Belt states, especially, states governors and lawmakers, who had contributed in one way or the other, or are still doing so in enabling the insecurity to thrive in their states or regions — those politicians from Southern and Middle-Belt regions, who in one way or the other, are serving as enablers of the Islamisation and Fulanisation, and who have shown by their words or actions to be behind the continued insecurity and herdsmen terrorism happening today in their respective states, geopolitical zones, or communities, and who have continued to keep quiet over it, must know that, “everyday is for the thief, but one day is for the owner of the house.”
No doubt, most of these self-serving, corrupt politicians, states governors and lawmakers, etc., are doing so, principally, because they want to protect their political position or job, and their political ambitions, too! Because, the main power behind the insecurity and Islamic Insurgency and herdsmen terrorism are those who control the government at the centre — Nigeria’s Seat of power and the military and police. That’s why most of the politicians serving as states governors or lawmakers, and other government appointees, would always read the body-language of the President in Aso Rock, Abuja, and act accordingly for him to continue to remain in office in Nigerian political space. Otherwise, he would be removed either by crook or hook by whoever is sitting at Presidential Villa, Aso Rock, Abuja. This is the kind of country we have in Nigeria.
With that said, one thing is certain: Nobody in his or her adult age in Nigeria today would say that he or she does not know those who are behind the insecurity and their reasons for doing that, which is for the Islamisation and Fulanisation of the entire country, to establish Nigeria as an “Islamic State” governed by the Islamic Sharia Law legal system. This is the end-game.
That is their principal reason and agenda for the renewed Islamist Jihadist and herdsmen terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, killings and destruction of rural communities happening across the country today. They want to establish an Islamic State in Nigeria. Any Nigerian of adult age with some level of sense of reasoning and comprehension, who is still denying that, is not being sincere to himself and to his people and ancestral homeland.
It is painful to hear some individuals you thought are part of the conscience of the society come to the public to deny that Christian genocide is taking place in Nigeria. This is a double tragedy against all the victims of the Islamist Jihadist and killer-herdsmen aka bandits’ killings, banditry and kidnapping in Nigeria. It is indeed a sin against the truth for any reasonable individual from Nigeria, to deny the ongoing genocide against Christians in Nigeria.
Take for example, and recall that most of the rural communities in the Northeast and Northwest geopolitical zones, Borno or Yobe and Adamawa States in the Northeast, for example, which were the epicentres of the Boko Haram and ISIS-ISWAP Islamist terrorist organisations and insurgency at the beginning, especially, from 2009 onwards, were basically, rural communities inhabited mainly by minority indigenous ethnic groups, most of whom were Christians. For instance, both the Chibok and Dapchi communities in the Northeast, where the Boko Haram terrorists at various points, kidnapped young ladies — students from their school dormitories, and most of the abducted students are still missing till today, are basically Christian populated communities and the most of the kidnapped students came from Christian families. Leah Sharibu, one of the kidnapped Christian students from Chibok, in 2014, is still being held by her captors because she refused to convert to Islam. Only those of the captives who agreed and got converted to Islam and were married off to one of terrorists, were set free. The same story is the fate of the Dapchi secondary school girls at the hands of their captors!
What of the most recent one, the Muslim extremists setting ablaze alive, Deborah Samuel at her College of Education institution in Sokoto, for professing that Jesus is her saviour and the prophet she knows that helped her in her exams. That was termed blasphemy by her fellow students in Sokoto, and for that they burnt her alive. Mind you, Deborah was originally from the North-Central State of Niger, who was living with her relatives in Sokoto for her education. She came from Niger State where Sharia has been forced on the people of that state, whether a Christian or Muslim. And don’t forget that majority of the indigenous populations and minority ethnic groups of Niger State are Christians or followers of African Traditional Religion. This tells you also that it is politics when they tell that Muslims are the majority in Nigeria or in the North. Nigeria, is a colonial construct, a nation state built on lies and deceit, just to allow the few individuals – Islamic Northern Oligarchy to dominate and control the seat of power and military in the country.
In Benue State, the Agatu community where the Jihadist Fulani herdsmen terrorists first struck and massacred hundreds of Christian worshippers and some Catholic priests, it was one of the most vibrant Christian community in the area. Today, Agatu is almost a shadow of its former vibrant self. The same is the case of most communities and villages in Benue, Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Taraba, etc., in short, the entire Middle-Belt of Nigeria, that used to be almost 90% Christians. Most of those Christians who managed to escape the terrorist attacks, are today refugees in the so-called IDP camps in their own country?
It is the same story with all those indigenous ethnic minority groups in the Northwest States of Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi and Sokoto, where the Islamist Jihadist terrorist groups have been carrying out their terrorist attacks and killings of the local population and destruction of their communities. These are communities, majority of their inhabitants are Christians and followers of the African Traditional Religion (ATR), and where moderate Muslims, mostly non-Fulanis also are live in peace with the other members of the community. Unfortunately, the terrorist activities of the Islamist Jihadists and herdsmen terrorists aka bandits have changed all that.
It needs to be noted also, that the first place, the Islamist Jihadist Fulani herdsmen terrorists struck, at the same time they were terrorising the Christians and indigenous ethnic communities in Southern Kaduna, was in the Southeast state of Enugu, Nimbo communities in Uzo-Uwani LGA.
The killer-herdsmen terrorists massacred about 250 villagers, including children and pregnant women in one night that day in Nimbo in 2016, few months, late former President Muhammadu Buhari came to power. Ugwuanyi was the governor of Enugu State then, and he told the nation that when he got the wind that the killer-herdsmen terrorists were about to strike in that community, he called the attention of the G.O.C. in-charge of the 82 Nigerian Army Division, Enugu, the State Police Commissioner, the Director of DSS in Enugu. That he had an emergency security meeting with them, and they assured him that they are on top of the situation. To the surprise of the governor, the Jihadist herdsmen terrorists struck Nimbo communities that very night and killed over 250 villagers, destroyed their farmlands and many of their houses. The governor said he tried to reach the President in Abuja, but nobody picked his call. Since then, the Jihadist herdsmen terrorists have been having their field day not only in the Uzo-Uwani agricultural communities of Nimbo and environs, but also in the Uranium and aluminium and limestone mineral and natural resources rich communities of Ehamufu in Igboeze LGA, and in Nkanu and Awgu LGA communities in Enugu State and the neighbouring communities in Ebonyi and Anambra States. The story of insecurity in Imo State, especially, since the Supreme Court imposed Hope Uzodimma as governor of that state, is the one that surpasses all the terrorist activities and insecurity that the politicians imported into Igboland since Buhari came to power in 2015, to the present federal government of President Tinubu.
The story is same in the neighbouring states of the South-south geopolitical zone, and equally in some states in the Southwest, including the Yoruba speaking communities of Kwara and Kogi States, which recently, have started to witness the Jihadist terrorist activities in a very large scale like the rest of the country. In fact, no part of the country is spared!
However, we must bear in mind that there are a good number of Nigerian Fulanis who are Christians, and very devout, practising Catholic and Protestant as well as Pentecostal Christians. Some of them, are even priests, reverend sisters, pastors, catechists and Christian women and men lay organisations leaders. And so, we must guard against the temptation of over-generation. We have many good Nigerian Fulani population and individuals that abhor, and who are not part of the few individuals that the corrupt politicians and Islamic Jihadist political Oligarchy are using in terrorising Nigerians and the country! This is very obvious!
However, it is now, time to call a spade a spade and the devil will be ashamed! There is a systemic Islamic religious persecution and genocide in Nigeria targeting the Christian population and communities! To deny this naked truth is to continue to live in denial and deceit, and in betrayal of one’s role to his or her people, as the custodian of your people and community’s security of life and property, and of truth, honesty and justice for all in our society.
What are we driving at by the above assertions?
First of all, for those journalists, mainstream media outlets, news broadcasters, popular social media influencers, clergymen or religious leaders, pan-socio-cultural organisations, traditional rulers, political-jobbers, members of the elite class resident in major cities, etc., and all those who are now parroting the propaganda of lies and deceit of this Tinubu APC-led Jihadist-driven Nigerian government, denying the ongoing genocide against Christians and indigenous populations and destruction of rural communities across the country, just know that you are urinating on the blood and on the graves of millions of victims of those terrorists.
Since 2009, and especially, beginning from 2014, when the late military dictator, an avowed ethno-religious bigot, former President Muhammadu Buhari, the alleged originator, father-founder and principal financier of those Northern-based extremist Islamist terrorists and Insurgent groups and their cousins, Fulani Jihadist herdsmen militias aka bandits, operating in Northern Nigeria, reappeared on Nigeria’s political scene as the umbrella political heavyweight, uniting his Northern Oligarchy political class and political jobbers, and with his usual inordinate agenda to contest for presidential election in Nigeria, the man and his ilks, the Northern Fulani extremist Muslim Oligarchy political class, as alleged, saw the founding and empowering of these Northern-based Islamic terrorist groups as the best way towards achieving their aim of the North continuing their domination of power, their control of Nigeria’s politics and Seat of Power in Abuja and throughout the country.
Buhari and his kinsmen who contracted him for that purpose, as one Buba Galadima openly confessed in a national tv interview few weeks ago, are alleged to have imported into the country, the Islamist Jihadist terrorist groups who are killing Nigerians and destroying communities and farmlands of the indigenous populations and Christians throughout the country since then till this day. All in the name of winning elections and making sure that the power remains in the North. They are therefore, the architects of the terrorism and genocide against Christians and indigenous communities in Nigeria happening today.
The Muslim North’s insatiable desire to dominate and control others by creating insecurity and chaos through Islamists insurgency, herdsmen terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, and anarchy, is the root cause of the insecurity — terrorism and genocide and killings happening in Nigeria today. The driving aim, however, is to capture completely the mineral and natural resources rich regions of the defunct Eastern region and the Niger Delta riverine, coastal states. And that they feel that it is through extremist Islamic religious terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and killings of Christians and Indigenous populations of those regions and communities in the Middle-Belt, and the Southern States, down to the Eastern region and the Niger Delta, and other parts of the country, that they can achieve that objective. Islamic Jihad and Terrorism became their instrument in achieving that evil agenda. That is, the of Islamisation and Fulanisation agenda of Nigeria through Jihad, to establish an Islamic, Sharia-governed Nigerian State. That’s all!
The principal aim is political and religious domination of non-Fulani ethnic nationalities and especially, to takeover the lands and the oil-rich mineral and natural resources and fertile lands of the Christians and indigenous communities in the Middle-Belt and Southern regions — especially, the coastal region and communities in the Eastern regions of Nigeria. This was also the real reason (though not visible then to many people, why the Nigeria-Biafra War was fought. The war, indeed, has now proven to have provided only a ‘pausa’, a moment of break, before the war over the rich-mineral and natural resources land of Eastern region and Niger Delta, is re-enacted again, this time through Islamic and herdsmen terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and killing of Christians and people of indigenous ethnic populations across Nigeria. This is what is taking place in Nigeria today. It is painful and pity.
Some Concrete Examples
Since 2009, when those Muslim religious extremist Jihadist terrorist groups re-emerged in Northern Nigeria’s today’s 12 Sharia States, hundreds of thousands of civilians, mostly, Christians, moderate Muslims and indigenous populations have been killed, their communities destroyed and deserted. And it has not stopped even as we speak. And as it is now becoming very clear to all and sundry to see, since 2015, when this APC ruling party-led federal government of former President Buhari came to power, and the same policy has continued under the current APC-led Federal Government of President Tinubu, the Nigerian security operatives, military, air force, navy, police, DSS, paramilitaries and what have you, are not showing a sufficient willingness to fight the insurgency and terrorism. Perhaps, the military chiefs who are appointees of the president, have to read the body-language of who is occupying that seat, the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, before they can carry out any order to go and confront the often well and better equipped Islamist Jihadist terrorists that are killing Nigerians. And this is the problem. The alleged government’s seemingly complicity.
Since 2009 to date, hundreds of thousands of Christians and Indigenous populations, including moderate Muslims have been killed and are being killed by the Islamist Terrorist Organisations and their cousins, the Killer-Herdsmen terrorists aka bandits. No matter how you try to suppress the truth and allow this corrupt Government and self-serving Nigerian politicians behind the terrorism and killings going on in Nigeria today to go on lying and deceiving the public or international community, one thing is certain, it won’t be long before the killings will reach every door step and communities of everyone, including those of Abuja and Lagos residents, or those residing in different states’ capital cities. All those who are still deluding themselves to think that they are safe in those Nigerian cities. No place is safe in Nigeria today from the attacks of those Islamist Jihadists and Herdsmen Terrorists aka bandits invasion and killings in Nigeria today as we speak. So, continue to deceive yourself, attacking those who are warning you of the dangers you are facing already in Nigeria. You will sooner or later regret your intransigence and betrayal. Because neither the Nigerian government nor the military is ready or even prepared to protect and provide security of lives and property to you. Every ordinary Nigerian citizen must know that he is on his own as far as his security and safety of his family and people are concerned. The politicians won’t save you, neither is the military or police.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we would like to re-emphasise once more, our already known position on this matter. Namely, that the gatekeepers of the Nigerian State and friends of Nigeria as a matter of fact, should summon the courage, embrace the truth of the matter and stop running away from the ultimate solution to the problem with Nigeria.
Methinks that the only thing that can stop the insecurity and Islamist Jihadists and herdsmen terrorism in the country, or least reduce it to a minimum level, is the re-negotiation of the Nigerian State through referendum for self-determination among peoples of its diverse, different major geopolitical regions/ethnic nationalities that were forcefully merged together by the British in 1914 through a colonial fiat, and called it Nigeria. It is now over 100 years since that unholy amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates and Lagos Colony by the British in 1914 to create what they named Nigeria! The amalgamation expired since January 2014, and one wonders why the gatekeepers of the Nigerian State have continued to refuse to read the handwritings on the wall, to know that it is time to renegotiate the faulty foundation of the Nigerian State, and its fake and fraudulent political independence granted to the country by the British in 1960.
After the over 100 years of the 1914 Amalgamation, one thing is certain: That amalgamation of 1914 has never worked and will never work to serve the needs and aspirations of the different indigenous ethnic nationalities or major geopolitical regions that the British forcefully merged together as one nation state and named it Nigeria. It was an amalgamation done in bad fate, a fake and fraudulent arrangement, a colonial construct of Nigeria as a nation state, that was never intended in the first place, to succeed as a nation state but rather to be behaving exactly in this way, it had been behaving since 1914 to this day.
Therefore, the leaders of the Nigerian State and friends of Nigeria need to know that it is time to do the needful. Because, as things are now, a lot of people — geopolitical regions and most people from the Southern and Middle-Belt geopolitical zones are growing inpatient with the way things are going in the country, the government seemingly incapacity to address the increasing Islamist Jihadist and herdsmen terrorism, the general insecurity, corruption, poverty, political and economic stagnation, ethnic-cleansing, religious extremism, banditry, kidnapping, killings, and lopsided federal government, nepotism, military and police brutality and intimidation, and hopelessness pervading the land.
The Nigerian government and ruling class should stop running away from embracing the ultimate solution to the problem with Nigeria, namely, granting a referendum for self-determination to each of the major geopolitical/ethnic nationality that wishes to opt out of the Nigerian State to form their own independent sovereign nation state. Because at the long run, this is going to happen as the only viable solution to the problem with Nigeria.
So, that, as this happens, we all will begin to relate well as neighbouring nation states and as member-states of the West African Economic Community, ECOWAS, and of the African Union, AU. And this will put a stop to all the animosity, insecurity, religious extremism and terrorism as well as bad-governance, political instability, lopsided government, economic stagnation, poverty, corruption, and backwardness and underdevelopment pervading the Nigerian nation state, and which have become like the second nature of the Nigerian State itself since its colonial creation to this day.
As the saying goes, “A Stitch in Time Saves Nine.”
Francis Anekwe Oborji is a Roman Catholic Priest. He lives in Rome where he is a Professor of missiology (mission theology) in a Pontifical University. He runs a column on The Trent. He can be reached by email HERE.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
