Genocide starts with the killing of one person and it is usually reported in the past tense. And if the targeted killings of Christians continue without check, the numbers of the dead will rise to a level that will satisfy the definition of genocide by both the protagonists and antagonists of Christian genocide in Nigeria. Therefore, the too much ado about Christian genocide in Nigeria is not only insensitive and provocative but hypocritical, as no one has a right to decide for another how to describe their tragedy.
While the Nigerian government, its agents, propagandists and intellectually dishonest hirelings were pre-occupied with shutting down the cry of Christian genocide in Nigeria, our common enemies – Fulani bandits and Islamic State of West Africa Province insurgents – struck at multiple targets, leaving death, tears, blood, and mourning afterwards. In the past few weeks of the needless controversy and, or should I say, senseless debate over the concerns raised by the American authorities on Christian genocide in Nigeria, we have lost a military commander of the rank of a Brigadier General in the theatre of war on terror against ISWAP fighters, with over 300 people – including men, women and school girls – variously abducted from a church in Kwara, a catholic school in Niger, and a government school in Kebbi. These were as killings, abductions, and the sacking of communities by terrorists are still ongoing across the country.
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As soon as President Donald Trump made his “gun ablazing” statement in relation to Christian genocide in Nigeria and his vow to intervene if the Nigerian authorities are unable to contain the mass killing of Christians in the country, and I observed a reactionary defensive posture on the part of government and some prominent Muslim authorities, I reached out privately to “whom it may concern” in government to caution against their denialist approach to this issue. I also advised that government security agencies should rein in Muslim individuals, groups and institutions, such as Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), the Supreme Council on Sharia in Nigeria, and the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, from attacking the position of the American authorities, which was simply an amplification of a long held notion in the Christian divide in Nigeria. And my reason is simple: neither the American authorities nor the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) have accused the government or the Muslim community in general of being the perpetrators of genocide against Christians in Nigeria. Their accusations have gone straight to Jihadi terrorist groups’ like ISWAP and Boko Haram, as well as killer Fulani herdsmen operating in the predominantly Christian Benue/Plateau axis of Central Nigeria.
My advice and caution is to prevent the debate from degenerating into a Christian/Muslim or North/South divide at a time when social cohesion, national unity and fraternal solidarity are essential towards forging a common front against our common enemy as a people. But as always, the government failed to understand this basic principle of citizen engagement and what followed from statements talking down on those who are crying out for help against what they believe to be genocide against their kind, has deepened the Christian/Muslim fault line to dangerous levels. Unfortunately, the needless debate surrounding the cry of Christian genocide in Nigeria revealed a fundamentally flawed understanding of the subjected matter of genocide by the antagonists, even as they carried on mercurially in the arrogance of ignorance.
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The constant refrain by the antagonists of Christian genocide in Nigeria that Muslims are equally, if not more, affected by mass killings in Nigeria, clearly underscores this arrogance of ignorance on the meaning of genocide. That the general definition of genocide is “the deliberate and systematic killing or persecution of a large number of people from a particular, ethnicity, race, nationality or religion, with the intent of destroying them in whole and part,” simply means that when Muslim terror groups like ISWAP, Boko Haram and Killer Fulani herdsmen kill fellow Muslims, it doesn’t raise the concern of genocide, as much as when Christians are killed. This is because genocide is a peculiar kind of crime that takes into cognisance the identity (ethnic, racial, national or religious) of both the victim and perpetrator, in order to isolate the hate factor that motived the crime in the first instance. And I have often stated that when Muslims are killed by Boko Haram and ISWAP terror groups, it is because in the consideration of these Jihadists, such Muslims are not Muslim enough; but when they kill Christians, it is because they are indeed and in practice, Christians. As such, the number of the Muslim dead, even if higher than those of Christians, do not technically count as Muslim fatalities, as the killers do not consider them different from the “few” Christians they have killed, because as far as they are concerned their Muslim and Christian victims are nothing but infidels whose blood is “halal.” And this is why Christians in Nigeria are and should be more worried than Muslims.
Despite the fact that for many years, Fulani bandits have been wreaking havoc in the North-West of Nigeria, rustling cattle of fellow Fulani cattle breeders, killing and kidnapping them for ransom, no genocide claim was made by the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), until Fulani cattle breeders were massacred on the Mambila Plateau by ethnic Mambila militia men some time in 2017.
Let me reiterate it here once again that it is smacks of provocation, insensitivity and lack of empathy, for some Muslim authorities to continuously talk down on grieving Christians, as no man has the right to decide for another how to describe their tragedy. And Christians will not be the first to cry out for help in terms of what they perceive to be targeted killings of genocidal proportion against them. Despite the fact that for many years, Fulani bandits have been wreaking havoc in the North-West of Nigeria, rustling cattle of fellow Fulani cattle breeders, killing and kidnapping them for ransom, no genocide claim was made by the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), until Fulani cattle breeders were massacred on the Mambila Plateau by ethnic Mambila militia men some time in 2017.
In an editorial in Daily Trust titled “Genocide on the Mambila,” it was reported that “according to the Fulani community, which was the target of the attacks variously described by observers as genocide and ethnic cleansing, more than 200 people were killed, 180 Fulani villages were looted and burnt, 4000 heads of cattle were also killed or maimed by the attackers.” In fact the casualty figures were believed to be higher than reported in the media, as some sources placed the number of the dead at over 800, while 25,000 cattle were destroyed.
So outrageous was the carnage that Gan Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria, a pan Fulani socio-cultural group, filed a suit against the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Taraba State government at the ECOWAS Court of Justice, claiming that they violated the fundamental human rights of Fulani people on the Mambila plateau, contrary to the constitution of Nigeria and African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, amongst many other violations. According to the filling by the group’s solicitor, Professor Yusuf Dankofa, the Gan Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria accused the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Taraba State government of “destroying lives and properties of several Fulani communities in Mambila between 17th and 23rd June 2017 in a well-coordinated and organised manner fit to be aptly described as GENOCIDE.”
On that occasion, no attempt was made by the government of the day to characterise the mass killing of Fulani people as farmer/herders clashes, neither did the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Middle Belt Forum and other such groups make any attempt to dispute this act of genocide, even when the perpetrators were mostly Middle Belt Christians. In fact, the then GOC of 3 Division, Jos, General Benjamin Ahonotu, an Igbo Christian from Southern Nigeria, was full of empathy when he visited the area of the carnage on a motor bike and lamented that, “even Boko Haram did not slaughter women and children but here I saw young children and pregnant women slaughtered.”
Similarly, Muslim individuals, groups and authorities, such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, had reasons in the recent past to describe the persecution and mass killings of Muslims in Plateau State as a genocide. And this concern was never shouted down, as it was valid at the time, when over 700 Muslims were massacred in the Yelwa-Shendam attacks in 2004.
On my part, I wrote an article titled, “Fulani Cattle Breeders: a National Treasure Turned Preys”, where I paid glowing tribute to Nigeria’s cattle breeding Fulani, condemned the genocide against them on the Mambila Plateau, while calling out the government of Taraba State for not doing enough to protect the Fulani community in the state. Interestingly, I wrote this piece a year after I was kidnapped by Fulani bandits somewhere in Kogi, and had to pay them ransom. But in my assessment of the Mambila tragedy, I was able to make a distinction between a Fulani bandit and a Fulani cattle breeder, whose hard work, tenacity, God given knowledge of animal husbandry and discipline has contributed enormously to Nigeria’s food security.
Similarly, Muslim individuals, groups and authorities, such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, had reasons in the recent past to describe the persecution and mass killings of Muslims in Plateau State as a genocide. And this concern was never shouted down, as it was valid at the time, when over 700 Muslims were massacred in the Yelwa-Shendam attacks in 2004. Olusegun Obasanjo, the Christian president of Nigeria at the time, didn’t deploy energy and resources to shutting down the voices of the victims, but instead took decisive actions to halt the killings and bring the perpetrators to justice. On that occasion, President Obasanjo declared a state of emergency and sacked the Christian governor of Plateau, who was blamed for not doing enough to prevent the attacks on Muslims in his state. And when a similar attack took place in 2008 against Muslims, a prominent Muslim scholar and politician vowed in tears to lead a Jihad to Plateau State against the killers of Muslims.
Genocide starts with the killing of one person and it is usually reported in the past tense. And if the targeted killings of Christians continue without check, the numbers of the dead will rise to a level that will satisfy the definition of genocide by both the protagonists and antagonists of Christian genocide in Nigeria. Therefore, the too much ado about Christian genocide in Nigeria is not only insensitive and provocative but hypocritical, as no one has a right to decide for another how to describe their tragedy.
Majeed Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through [email protected].
