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| Intersociety Names Buhari, El-Rufai, Buratai, Nigerian Army, Fulani Terror Group and Christian leaders as Major Threats to the safety and growth of Christianity in Nigeria |
(Intersociety Xmas Day
Message, Onitsha Nigeria, 25th December 2016)-As tens of millions of Nigerian
Christians all over the country and beyond its borders celebrate the
“canonical” birth of Jesus Christ and the Christian Religion with biblical
sermons and merriments; the leadership of International
Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law; have resolved to take the
bull by the horn by alerting them over the growing and sustained threats to the
safety and growth of Christianity in Nigeria. The lives of over 70 million
Christians in the country are steadily under severe threats and the threats
have gone viral following the ascendance to political and military powers and
commands by some proponents of radical Islamism since mid 2015.
That is to say that Christians
and Christianity in Nigeria are steadily and terminally facing depopulation, suppression and persecution and that if nothing concrete
is done urgently to arrest the dire situation; the population of Christians in
the country shall steadily or systematically be shrunk by wide margins just as
the population of Christians in the Middle-East got brutally plummeted to
present 3% from its over 20% in the past hundred years (source: Society for the
Threatened Peoples (STP) December 2016).
Corroboratively, a respected German rights group- Society for the Threatened Peoples (STP), had
in its 22nd December 2016 statement drew the UN and global attention
to the situation of Christians in the Middle-East in which it found as follows:
The
believers are trying to escape from the ‘Cradle of Christianity’ due to the
ongoing violence. The 2000-year history of the Christians in this region might
soon be over, says Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East consultant. A hundred
years ago, the Christians still represented 20 percent of the population of the
Middle East. Now, it is only about three percent. Most of the Iraqi Christians
fled or were expelled during the past three decades. Their number has decreased
from 1.5 Million to only 300,000 today. In Central Syria, the ‘Islamic State’
(IS) has gained influence again, which is a threat to several villages with a
Christian population between Aleppo and Damascus – such as Qaryatain or
Maalula.
Even the few Christians in Turkey are increasingly under
pressure due to the intensified Kurdish conflict and the rigorous measures
taken by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The only Christian mayor in
Turkey, Februniye Akyol, was removed from office, and her Kurdish colleagues
were imprisoned. Terror, violence, and religious intolerance have led to
significant changes in the lives of millions of people in the Middle East,”
Sido criticized. The Christians and members of other religious minorities such
as the Yazidis or Mandaeans must be able to rely on their freedom of belief –
guaranteed by the state and supported by society – or they will hardly be able
to survive there. IS has been driven away from most of the Christian
communities at the so-called Nineveh plain to the north and the east of the
embattled metropole Mossul in the north of the country, but many Christians and
Yazidis will not be able to return to their villages unless the international
community can guarantee protection from Sunni and Shiite extremists....
Also, owing to systematic and well coordinated violence and
persecution using State and non-State violent instruments, the Christian
populations in the Egypt’s Asyut communities are in a verge of brutal
extinction. Asyut of Egypt is Africa’s oldest Christian Community, which
produced the first African Pope (Coptic Orthodox Pope); called Saint Marks;
after whom the great St Marks Coptic Orthodox Cathedral of Alexandria, built in
AD60 was named. Egypt’s Asyut also produced the first African Secretary General
of the United Nations; late Prof Boutros-Boutros Ghali. The Asyut of Egypt
embraced Christianity few years after the birth of the Church in about AD35 and
death of Jesus Christ in about AD33. Christian population of the Asyut rose to
6million or approximately 10% of the Egyptian population of 64million people in
the late 90s before being brutally depopulated to less than 200,000 as at 2006.
Between 1988 and 1990, according to the
Middle-East Quarterly 2001, 50,000 Coptic Christian graduates were
forcefully converted to Islam to escape State engineered joblessness,
persecution and threats and death in the hands of radical Muslim groups.
In Nigeria, the safety of Christians and growth of their faith
were brutally undermined and threatened particularly between 2009 and 2014
through the violent activities of northern radical politicians and Muslim
fundamentalists; using Boko Haram terror group for purposes of Islamization and
ascendance to Nigerian Presidency and its Christianity conquest agenda. As a
result, most of Christian settlements and communities in the Northeast particularly
in Borno and Adamawa States were uprooted and decimated with many sedentary
Christians of the communities killed or forcefully converted to Islam or made
to flee and become internally displaced persons or refugees. Over 13,000 Christians
were killed, 13,000 churches and 1500 Christian schools destroyed. Hundreds, if
not thousands particularly, women and children have been starved to death and over
1.3million other Christian citizens fled their ancestral homes to escape
politically oiled persecution (Intersociety
2016; Christian Open Doors 2015).
In all these, fatalities and destructions suffered by Nigerian
Christians in the northern part of the country in the hands of northern radical
Muslim politicians’ oiled Boko Haram terror; are no way in comparison to
threats presently faced by Nigerian Christians in the hands of President
Muhammadu Buhari, Lt Gen Turkur Buratai and his Nigerian Army; Governor Nasiru
el-Rufai of Kaduna State and the Fulani terror group. While the fatalities and
destructions so incurred; were perpetrated at the level of non State actor and
restricted to the Northeast and parts of North-Central and Northwest; using
politically sponsored Boko Haram terrorism; the present threats are more
menacing and widespread in that they are both State actor and non State actor
oriented with the country’s largest Christians concentration of
Southeast, South-South and Christian parts of North-Central Zone of Benue,
Plateau and Nasarawa States being the gravest targets.
Statistically, President Muhammadu Buhari as one of the major
threats to the safety of Christians and growth of Christian faith in Nigeria is
elementarily understood owing to his government’s clear-cut Islamist policies
and conducts since he became Nigeria’s sixth civilian President of Nigeria on
29th May 2015. Instances of
the referenced Islamist policies and conducts are a long list. Under his
executive watch and seal, the Nigerian Army has massacred over 300 unarmed and
defenseless Christian citizens. The armed opposition group, which is legally
known as “the Miyatti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria”; which he
is its national grand patron has massacred over 1700 rural citizens since his
assumption of office. Most of the massacred citizens are Christians; and he has
abetted and condoned same till date. Militarily or securitization wise, no
single citizen of Igbo Christian extraction; Nigeria’s Christianity
headquarters, is among the Service Chiefs of the Nigerian Armed Forces or head
of any of the country’s 12 Police Zonal Commands till date. These are just to
mention but few.
Lt Gen Turkur Yusuf Buratai and his Nigerian Army as one of the
major threats to the safety of Christians and growth of Christian faith in
Nigeria is considered going by Jihadist and gross partisanship of the Nigerian
Army under his command. Apart from the gruesome massacre of hundreds of unarmed
and defenseless Christian citizens of Southeast and South-south extractions;
the Nigerian Army has now become a Fulani Fiefdom or an extension of the
Miyatti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria. The Nigerian Army
under Lt Gen Turkur Buratai has abandoned professional soldering to pastoralist
cattle rearing; with its professional techniques and toolkits to be imported
from Argentina.
Apart from announcement of its reported readiness to establish a
country-wide cattle ranches, a Fulani Islamist agenda rejected and trounced
legislatively; the Nigerian Army has also assumed the role of mediator-in-chief
in Zamfara State where a variant of Fulani terrorist group has massacred not
less than 600 defenseless citizens since 2015; thereby rewarding terrorists and
criminals and massacring law abiding, innocent and unarmed citizens
particularly the Shiite Muslims and Pro Biafra activists in Kaduna, Kano,
Anambra, Abia, Delta and Rivers States.
It is so sad that when armies of other serious minded social
climes are busy advancing in modern military science with innovative
technological inventions and discoveries in astronomy, economy, military
hardware and software, automobiles, aviation, rail technology, civil
engineering and other industrial researches and innovations; the Nigerian Army
under Buratai is committing suicide in the art of Fulani Nomadism.
In the case of Governor Nasiru el-Rufai of Kaduna State as one
of the major threats to the safety of Christians and growth of Christian faith
in Nigeria, he has totally abandoned conventional governance including good
governance and accountability responsibilities to Islamic Jihadism. Apart from
his strong culpability in the persecution and massacre of over a thousand
opposing but unarmed Shiite Muslim faithful, he has strongly lent a hand in the
butchery of not less than 250 Christians in Southern Kaduna since 2015, with
not less than 200 killed in 2016 alone.
The authorities of ECWA Church in Kaduna State had in its recent
press conference disclosed that a total of over 138 Christians lost their lives
to Fulani terrorism in the State in the past six months of 2016. Few days ago, Governor el-Rufai raised an
obvious false alarm saying that “Niger Delta Militants have perfected plans to
attack and kill Southern Kaduna Christians this Xmas period”. The statement was
totally diversionary and complicit; and as expected, the authorities of the
Channel TV reported that many Christians were feared dead in the evening of
Saturday, 24th December 2016 in Goska Kanikon Village in Jemaa Local
Government Area of Kaduna State when terrorists of the Fulani armed opposition
group raided the area.
Further, the Fulani Terrorist group; a killer-unit of “the
Miyatti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria” is also one of the major
threats to the safety of Christians and growth of Christian faith in Nigeria.
This is on account of its systematic and coordinated violent attacks on
Christian populations in Nigeria, which has gone viral since late May 2015. The
attacks have grown into full ethno-religious cleansing particularly since its
national grand patron, Retired Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari became the sixth
civilian President of Nigeria on 29th May 2015. The terror group has also
become untouchable, sophisticated and government and military linked.
It is a dominant expert view in Nigeria’s Criminal Justice and
academic Security industry that pastoralist Fulani terrorism have
been chosen as a replacement to folding Boko Haram terrorism by northern
radical political and Islamic fundamentalists because of its wide network and
tentacles, capable of penetrating with ease Christian dominated Rain Forest
areas of the southern Nigeria; for the purpose of expansive short and long term
depopulation, conquest, suppression and persecution of Christians and Christian Religion in Nigeria.
While Boko Haram terrorism is almost wound up, except ISIS variant; more
energies and resources appeared to have been channeled into rebranded Fulani
terror project by radical northern politicians and Islamic fundamentalists.
These are strongly supported by ongoing Islamist policies and
conducts of the Buhari Administration. The patterns and trends of Fulani terror
attacks have also changed from rag-tag agro-livestock and seasonal related, to
systematic, coordinated and sophisticated ethno-religiously related. Rag-tag
agro-livestock attacks by violent Fulani nomads are usually carried out in dry
seasons when pasture and live feeding grasses are acutely scarce in dry upper
north but in relatively large quantity in the Rain Forest areas of Southeast,
Southwest, South-south and old Middle-Belt. But most of the recent violent
attacks; linked to Fulani terrorism were carried out at the heat of the rainy
season and outside agro-livestock strained circumstances. In most, if not all
the areas attacked, Christian populations were the sole targets and constituted
the bulk of fatalities and destructions.
Christian leaders in Nigeria particularly the ordained and
members of the political class are also considered as one of the major threats
to the safety of Christians and growth of Christian Religion in Nigeria. By
sheer mercantilism, moral bankruptcy and omission to act; they have allowed
fellow congregants in their tens of thousands and their holy places of worship
in their tens of thousands as well to be slaughtered and destroyed in the past
seven years (2009-2016). Before their very eyes, over 70million Christians in
Nigeria were and are still subjected to acute physical and psychological state
of fear and deprived of their constitutional rights to boldly profess their
religion in accordance with the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. In law, omission
to act lawfully is a crime and in Christianity, omission to act correctly and
morally is a high sin.
Many, if not most of the churches in Nigeria have fully become
money-making ventures and cradles of immorality, Satanism and corruption.
Salvation has given way to prosperity and primitive and crooked pursuit of
wealth by members of the clergy and the laity. Pastors, priests and bishops
have practically dispossessed Jesus Christ and assumed control
materialistically and devilishly as earthly and lavish Jesus Christ.
False prophecies and fake crusades are on rampage and church leaders now have
“magic solutions” for all social and human problems; devilishly and wickedly
deceiving and siphoning their congregants; no thanks to politically infested
human sufferings and other man-made miseries in Nigeria which are now age-long.
Agents of principalities and voodooists with crooked wealth are now offered
best positions in the church laities. As a matter of fact, Satan has been crowned Jesus
Christ in many Nigerian churches!
Some Orthodox and Pentecostal clergies have also become gamblers
and un-Joseph
De Carpenter like Jesus Christ. Members of the political class who are
Christians have become arch conformists and enemies of Christian Faith, in
exchange for blood and stolen loots. In all these, the safety of Christians and
growth and development of Christian faith in the country have steadily and
dangerously impaired, jeopardized and endangered, with innocent and defenseless
Christians left in quandary and psycho-physical state of acute confusion,
helplessness and hopelessness. As over 70 million Nigerian Christians celebrate
the “canonical” birth of Jesus Christ and the Church, we consider have considered
it extremely important to remind them that their safety and that of their Faith
is in a grave danger of short and long term extinction and annihilation by
sworn enemies in political circles and power in Nigeria.
It must be understood that Xmas celebration goes beyond
consumption of cooked rice and stew and meats or showcasing of built and bought
spatial houses and cars or spreading of bundles of naira notes of highest
denomination or consumption of liquor and other drinks or political visits with
bloated promises or traditional title takings or Christian harvests and bazaars
and so on and so forth. The gateway into Christianity and its exit point are
strictly for the growth of Christianity and its faith; embedded in salvation,
good Christian life and godliness, societal tranquility, harmony and
development.
Christian laities or congregants in Nigeria must rise up and
force their leaders to wake up from their snoring slumbers and be pressured to
triumphantly rise in defense of Christians and their faith in Nigeria or any part
thereof. Unless a firm stand is taken by Christian leaders in Nigeria for the
purpose of forcing the reversal of the motley of Islamist policies and conducts
linked to President Muhammadu Buhari, Lt Gen Turkur Yusuf Buratai and his
Nigerian Army, the Fulani terror group and Governor Nasiru el-Rufai of Kaduna
State; otherwise the Christians and their Faith stand the chance of high
certainty of being continually and systematically suppressed, repressed, persecuted,
massacred and possibly destroyed and wiped out completely in years ahead. The
political office holders named above must be compelled to revert and take a
recourse at all times to Sections 10, 14 (3) and 38 of the 1999 Constitution of
Nigeria; which unambiguously provide for
secularism
or non State religion, non domination of political institutions and positions
by one religion and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board
Chairman
International Society for
Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety)
Call Line: +2348174090052
Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq.
Head, Civil Liberties
& Rule of Law Program
Call Line: +2348180771506
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