Nigeria is presently at a “breaking point”, according to a delegation of international NGOs led by U.K. House of Lords Member, Baroness Caroline Cox, Independent Member of the House of Lords and Founder President of Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART).

The warning was issued after a fact-finding visit to central Nigeria, “where Islamist Fulani militia attacks continue to escalate against predominantly Christian victims,” the group said in the 35-page report entitled, “BREAKING POINT IN CENTRAL NIGERIA? TERROR AND MASS DISPLACEMENT IN THE MIDDLE BELT”.

“Our Visit Report (attached) provides more information, including photos of destroyed villages and eye-witness accounts of the slaughter of women, children and the elderly. The violence has resulted in thousands of deaths and millions displaced across the Middle Belt – yet with virtually no support from the Nigerian Government or international community,” Baroness Cox lamented in a note accompanying the Joint Visit Report by HART, International Organisation for Peace Building and Social Justice UK (PSJ-UK) and Christian Solidarity International (CSI).

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Fulani militia1 attacks continue to escalate in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. An estimated 13,000-19,000 killings have occurred since 2009, with countless others suffering life-changing injuries.2 The violence has displaced millions and appears designed to reduce the number of indigenous Christians in the region. Inasmuch as the attacks are intended to destroy ethnoreligious communities, they may rise to the level of ethnic cleansing or even genocide.

Key findings:

We witnessed the ruins of homes, farmland, food stores, churches, pastors’ homes and an orphanage, all attacked by Fulani militia in the past seven months.

We heard detailed accounts of the deliberate targeting and slaughter of many children, a 98-year-old woman burned alive and people hacked by machetes as they ran from rapid gunfire.

The cache of weapons employed by Fulani militia includes automatic weapons, laser sights, machetes, petrol bombs and incendiary chemicals used to burn houses.

Fulani militia encroach upon and sometimes occupy villages. They assert their right to the land by re-naming the villages and threatening anyone who seeks to return.

In addition to mass attacks, kidnappings for ransom have become rampant in the Middle Belt, as elsewhere in Nigeria, and appear to have an ethno-religious dimension.

Targeted villages receive little-to-no military or police protection from these attacks; security forces usually arrive on the scene after the attack has ended.

Perpetrators of these attacks are rarely, if ever, brought to justice.
Displaced people in the Middle Belt are forced to rely on aid from under-resourced local churches, small non-governmental organisations (NGOs), or the generosity of their extended family.

Second-order effects of mass displacement are beginning to be felt: educational outcomes are cratering; use of narcotics among young people is spreading; and young children are increasingly vulnerable to trafficking.

The security situation is highly volatile, as disparate groups of Christian and nonreligious vigilantes begin to undertake reprisals against Muslims.
Religious tensions are expected to escalate in the run-up to the 2023 election.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Nigerian authorities must end impunity by ensuring that complaints related to human rights violations are promptly, independently and impartially investigated, and those responsible are held to account after fair trials.

There is an urgent need for the Nigerian authorities to enforce the rule of law to protect all its citizens. Following an attack by Fulani militia in central Nigeria, it must not be left to local vigilantes to take matters in their own hands.

Analysts anticipate increased communal tensions in the build-up to the 2023 election. The Nigerian Government must provide additional and adequate security for ulnerable communities and displacement camps, including farms and villages in central Nigeria at risk of Fulani militia attacks.

Where Nigerian military forces are overstretched, and where it is appropriate to do so, the police should be mobilised to carry some of the burden of protection of civilians. Nigerian authorities must cease persecuting journalists and whistleblowers who draw attention to their failures.

The US Department of State should reverse its decision to remove Nigeria from its list of ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ regarding religious freedom.
As part of its ongoing geographical footprint review, the UK Government must ensure immediate humanitarian assistance for displaced people in the Middle Belt, in addition to aid provided to the northeast and northwest.
EU member states and UN aid agencies should allocate more resources to the Middle Belt, which is suffering a crisis of displacement at least as intense as that in the northeast and northwest.

The US and UK Governments must use their seats at the UN Security Council to seek a resolution that significantly enhances the security given to communities in central Nigeria at risk of attack.

Signatories to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide must fulfil their obligation to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide in the context of Nigeria’s Middle Belt.

Stakeholders of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including the UK and Switzerland, should increase financial support to the ICC to ensure a full and thorough completion of the Nigeria investigation.

International NGOs, religious leaders and reconciliation specialists should consider how to work alongside local communities to provide trauma healing to families suffering the loss of family members and the destruction of their homes and livelihoods, including children who have turned to drugs and who may be vulnerable to radicalisation or trafficking.

Where it is unsafe for children to go to school, the Nigerian, US and UK Governments should support the roll-out of mobile education vans, such as those piloted by HART, including stipends for displaced teachers. Similar provisions should be made for mobile healthcare units.

Local peacebuilding projects in central Nigeria should be supported in their endeavour to reconcile Muslims and Christians, who might otherwise be caught in a cycle of sectarian confrontation.

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