A former Nigerian Ambassador to the Philippines, Dr Yemi Farounbi, in this interview by Deputy Editor, SAM NWAOKO, speaks on the lingering diplomatic issue with the United States on terrorism and killings in Nigeria.

From your vantage position as a former Nigerian Ambassador, what do you think is going on between Nigeria and the United States of America concerning genocide or no genocide in the country?

President Trump declared Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, meaning that from that country’s point of view, Nigeria is a country that has consistently violated the tenets of religious freedom. That means that from the perception of America, Nigeria is a country of that had not facilitated freedom of worship or has collaborated with agents that had inhibited freedom of worship and religious freedom. It also means that from the perception of America, Nigeria is like a country like Iran, Korea, China, Russia that the American government had at various times had declared as countries of particular concern. So, it is not that Nigeria will be the first country to be, but it will mean that it is a new addition.

How do you become a country of particular concern? America will not just wake up one day and declare a country of particular concern. It would have been based on years of investigation and research and so on. I think in the particular case of what has just happened to Nigeria, it is an answer to the request of certain Nigerians asking for America’s intervention in what they had seen as an a terrorist action, internal or external, against a particular religious faith. We have evidence that sometime in February or March 2024, the Foreign Relations Committee of the American Congress received, on their own invitation, a delegation from Nigeria led by the Catholic Bishop of Makurdi Diocese. They made presentation to this Foreign Relations Committee about what they considered persistent deliberate effort to annihilate the Christians by what they called the Fulani terrorists. They made a presentation and they left. Nigeria is yet to respond. Of course Nigeria had no ambassador, so there was no ambassador to interface with the Foreign Relations Committee, there is no ambassador to interface with the Office of the Secretary of State or under-secretary of state for Africa Affairs.

Again, the same Bishop was invited by the Foreign Relations Committee and in his presentation, he gave a catalogue of so many villages, so many communities that had been devastated by these Fulani Islamic militias. He also gave evidence to the effect that it would appear as if the Nigerian state, that is the Nigerian government was involved in a cover-up either by not prosecuting those who perpetrated these acts or by even not drawing attention to it. Again this happened, Nigeria did not contravene it and made no representation. So, Nigeria in my view presented a very weak diplomatic or challenge to these increasing accusation of Christian genocide.

Not only that, a lot of Nigerians in America have been making representations to their congressmen or their senators, drawing attention to this increasing killing of Christians. And Nigeria would appear not to have taken such accusations very seriously nor had it made representation either diplomatically or otherwise to contravene these positions. So, we have by our own vicarious ineffectiveness allowed these accusations to thrive.

Considering this, what would you say is the foreign policy of the Tinubu government?

As a matter of fact, I don’t know it. And I will unfortunately say that we have had a totally ineffective foreign policy direction from his swearing-in. We have seen this ineffectiveness in the handling of the Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso matter that had led to the development of s splinter group. This ineffectiveness we have seen in a somersault even in the policy direction of the Tinubu administration in handling this West African matter. We have seen this ineffectiveness at the global level. Nigeria has stopped being a top player In diplomacy. When they were starting BRICS, Nigeria was not even there, and when Nigeria was going to apply it was not to be a member but to be a partner, a country that ought to be the spokesperson of Africa. A country that used to say Africa is the centre of its foreign policy now became an adjunct when they started talking about BRICS which was to protect the economy of Africa.

So, it would appear that under the present minister of foreign affairs or under the president, we don’t have a clear-cut understanding of the dynamics of global politics at all. That is why we could have kept our country without ambassadors in over a hundred countries for almost two years. Even if we were unable to fund, we could have deployed ambassadors to the important centres of foreign policy decision-making in the world – America, Russia, Germany, France, European Union, AU but we don’t even have ambassadors there to present our own national point of view, which is unfortunate.

Could that be the reason why many people claim that this administration is more of reactionary in response to the declaration by Donald Trump? Have we reacted as we should to what Trump did?

Absolutely not, because I expected our reaction to be in three dimensions. First is diplomatically, and diplomatically is not by going to the international media to canvass facts that can easily be contradicted because the world has become a global village. We cannot claim that what happened in Benue State didn’t happen; we cannot claim that the massacre that happened that required the president himself to pay a visit there didn’t happen. We cannot claim that the Deborah instance didn’t happen. So, these are things that are available in the international media market. So the answer to this was not that, the answer was to go through diplomatic channel. Deploy seasoned diplomats and there are a few that are respected in the American diplomatic circles. I know, for example, being a product of Temple University, a Bolaji Akinyemi is respected. I know for example a Tunde Adeniran, a product of Columbia University. I know that he is respected. I know that an Olusegun Obasanjo with the enormous international image that he has, no matter what you Nigerians think about him, his intervention in a time like this will buy us time to take action. We don’t appear to have been doing that. We don’t seem to understand global politics and the kind of role with a population of 227 million people, one million square kilometres, 17 percent of the Black population in the world, 20 percent of African population, we don’t seem to understand the kind of role Nigeria should be playing. So we haven’t taken that step.

The second step is to demonstrate to the world that as a government we are not a collaborator in this genocide. How do we do that? It is by insisting that the new service chiefs carry out the directive that the president gave them when he was swearing them in. in fairness to him he would appear to have perhaps too late to recognise that terrorism in Nigeria is chameleonic, it is already changing from what it was as Boko Haram; it has changed from what it was when you had Islamic State of West African Province; it has changed from what it was when you had a collapse of the Gadhafi regime and you had an importation or infiltration of Nigeria by some decadence that used to follow Gadhafi. It has become a domestic matter situated in the North in which there are Fulani Islamic militias that are far more deadly than Boko Haram and ISWAP, and we would have seen that this Islamic militancy is dominant in areas where we are also having mineral exploitation and of course China is benefitting a lot from that. We are getting a lot of illegal mining in Zamfara and Sokoto areas and these are being aided and protected by Islamic militants. So, there is a mutation, a new dimension to the terrorism that we have.

So, when he gave that matching order that is what we expect to see and it may appear that some made a declaration that one of the things we have seen is that there appears to have been an atom migration of some of these terrorists. Don’t forget that most of these terrorists are not indigenous to Nigeria. The Fulani, the Hausa, the Yoruba, the Igbo have lived together harmoniously for more than a century but a lot of these terrorists are imported. Some of them we imported on our own when we wanted to win election and wanted to drive Jonathan away by all means. I have the evidence given by El-Rufai for that, and I have a statement by Dr. Usman Bugaje for that, that they imported a lot of these militants to help them win election and if they didn’t win election to help them disorganise and destabilise the country and make it ungovernable for Jonathan. Unfortunately, they won. And from what El-Rufai told us as governor then, they were neglected and these militants have been migrating, moving around Nigeria at will, creating problems for all of us.

Now it will appear that in fear of this threat, they are beginning to move but more importantly, we know that these militants are being sponsored. They are not rich enough to buy the kind of weapon they carry so somebody is buying them, and people keep on saying the government, or probably our own military high command has a list of these people. I know America certainly has it. I know that at a time, UAE offered to give us this list but we refused to accept it. So that is how Nigeria as a state became vicariously a collaborator. This is because they offered to give you a list of the sponsors which would have been a way of terminating all of these terrorism because once you know the sponsors – they are dealing in MasterCard, in Visacards, they are dealing in dollars, they are buying equipment – and you are able to squeeze the source, we would have terminated this terrorism. But of course we didn’t do that which makes the government vicariously liable.

Now, China has stepped into the matter. Some say it is just a way of tuning up their strategic rivalry with the United States. How do you think China’s intervention and their stance will change the dynamics of the whole matter?

I am aware that in some areas of illegal mining, some Chinese have been found to be sponsors and they have used some of these militants as a cover. In large areas of Niger State and some other states where there is actually no governance, some of these militants have been used. So, if China is talking it might be protecting its interest or it might just be that they are making the correct noises, diplomatically. I think the answer to it is for Nigeria to solve its problems. Is it true that there is terrorism in Nigeria? It is. Is it true that it is targetted at the Christians? Not entirely, there had been more killing of Christians and we have not had one instance in which a Christian had killed a Muslim in the name of Jesus Christ. We’ve not had that, but we’ve also had the case of Muslims – liberal Muslims who are indigenous to Nigeria, who had lived in total peace with the Hausa, with the Igbo, with the Yoruba all of these years, they are also being killed. So, it is our responsibility to tackle this issue of security.

Let me give one example why they will think we are duplicitous: More than a year ago, the president talked about his support for state police; that has not happened. How do you explain the fact that some of these governors who are now being alleged of being collaborators or sponsors find it difficult to support a state police that would have created a new security doctrine or security architecture for Nigeria? Why is it so difficult to do that? So, Nigeria must tackle its security problem.

In the Igbomina area of Kwara State which is coterminous with Igbomina where I come from in Osun State, we are told now that there has been movement from the forest of these people who, in the last three months had made life impossible for those Igbomina villages in Kwara. So, perhaps because Trump has drawn attention to it, and because they know he knows the sponsors, and he has the military capacity to identify the sponsors without really devastating the larger population, they themselves are beginning to move. I think Nigeria should just take this as a wake up signal, combat terrorism it doesn’t matter whether it is Christian or Muslim, no Nigerian deserves to be killed by another Nigerian because of faith or because he wants to take his land or because he wants to destroy his crops. No Nigerian deserves that.

Apart from China’s right or correct noises, are you not worried that their intervention might further complicate issues for Nigeria? How do you look at it?

Of course, it will complicate matters for Nigeria. It might give the Nigerian elite the excuse they need for not taking action to protect the common man. It’s just like Femi Falana (SAN) said, ‘if you do the right thing Nigerians will defend their country.’ If we had been doing the right thing, the Nigerians that were going to foreign relations committee would not have been going; the Nigerians that had been writing letters to various editors would not have done that. And I want to draw attention to a particular report by a mayor that the NSA brought to Nigeria. They invited him to Nigeria, booked the flight, and provided him with hotel accommodation and so on. The man presented his report, I think on October at the NICON NUGA Hilton. The report of the man we ourselves brought indicted us of genocide. It indicted government of not taking active action to protect the person. So, we just, first, face that reality and solve that problem once and for all. At least decimate.

When Jonathan was in office and it was becoming difficult to do election in the North East, he had to deploy mercenaries, he had also to go and buy fighting equipment from black market. You remember that our plane carrying money to buy equipment at black market was seized in South Africa. This happened because we went and de-marketed Jonathan before the Americans so the Americans refused to sell weapons to us. But he did something that made it possible to hold elections because he decimated the capacity of the terrorists. If we had pursued it, today, I believe that perhaps, terrorism would have been a thing of the past, particularly since America became friendly to us during the eight years of Buhari. They were sharing intelligence with us until they stopped it when they found that there was leakage of intelligence through our military high command to the Boko Haram people. They were selling us jet planes that they were not selling before. So, we have not demonstrated enough will to deal with the sources, the sponsors and the financiers of these terrorists. I think this is an opportunity to do so.

You are saying that, in general analysis, we can safely conclude that there is genocide of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria?

I will say genocide of Christians and some Muslims in Nigeria, particularly the indigenous Muslims, not the foreign ones.

If that is the case, Nigeria need some form of help. What kind of help do you recommend that the country should seek in a situation like this?

I think we need collaboration. We need intelligence gathering support, particularly since some of these terrorists migrate into Nigeria. If you pursue them, they just cross the border and there would be nothing you can do. So, first we need collaboration within the West African region. We need intelligence support, unmanned vehicles to be able to combat this. Secondly, we need training. It is not that the Nigerian military is incompetent, it is just that this is a different kind of war. This is not a regular war. You are fighting some terrorists you cannot even identify. Remember that Jonathan said he was not even sure there was no Boko Haram in his cabinet. There was no way you would recognise them, it is not like we are fighting Cameroon in which you could have a battle line drawn. But you are fighting with a people who migrate into Nigeria, who live with some of our people and speak some of our languages and you cannot identify them when you meet them on the street. So it has become difficult for the Nigerian military to deal with them. If you recall the interview the retired deputy director from the defence headquarters – the man from the Navy – who said sometimes, because some of the Nigerian military officers have sympathy for these Boko Haram or these Islamic terrorists, when they are arrested, they give instructions for them to be released. We even went to the extent of granting them amnesty and incorporating them back into the Nigerian Army, only for them to sabotage the efforts of the Nigerian Army. So, we need help with training, help with equipment and fighting weapons and help with intelligence gathering. Sometimes, it can be beyond our financial capacity given the lot of infrastructural deficit that we have in Nigeria.

If you are to advice the Nigerian government on how to immediately approach the current issue, especially given the kind of responses we have been seeing all around since President Trump’s conditional threat, what would you say?

I will ask the government to shake up the ministry of foreign affairs, probably even replace that minister with somebody who is a little bit more agile and dynamic. I am not saying he is not a good person, he used to be an ambassador. But an ambassador in times of peace is not the same as an ambassador in times of war. So, we need a more proactive person. I would do that. I would also demonstrate to the outside world that I am capable of battling terrorists in my domain. Then I would deploy diplomats, not only to go to America but to all the major capitals of the world, including Addis Ababa. I will even mobilise the Africans and get them to understand the issue. Let them understand the complexity of the security situation we are facing and see if we can get a collaborative effort and support at West African level, at the African level and at the world. I would do that. But I will not be gallivanting from one media headquarter to the other, particularly when in truth and in deed we cannot claim that we don’t have security problem.

The Nigerian Senate said they might have to embark on a diplomatic shuttle to their counterparts in the USA on the issues that were raised. Do you think this is necessary?

That would have been good, in fact, I had expected the Nigerian parliament to take a similar action like that because Trump didn’t act on his own. He acted based on the prompting of the Congress – what Senator Ted Cruz was saying, on what the Foreign Relations Committee of the Congress was saying. So, if the Nigerian Senate had deployed those who have capacity and respect to the American Congress and to such other parliaments in the major world capitals, it really would help because it would give the outside world immediate impression that the three arms of government in Nigeria have really decided to work against terrorism. The executive needs the legislature to make the laws and make money available and also needs the judiciary to be fair, firm and just and act against the terrorists when the case has been made against them. An action like that by the Nigerian legislature would be desirable.

ECOWAS has rejected what it said was the war threat by the US. Does ECOWAS have a role to play in this issue?

Absolutely, because we live in West Africa and we can learn from the way a few countries have dealt with their own terrorists. We can learn, for example, from the way Ghana dealt with their own terrorists because the Ghana president made a proclamation that terrorists, wherever they found them in Ghana must be apprehended and dealt with decisively. We all have northern Ghana, northern Togo and so on as we have northern Nigeria. So, why is it that it is only in Nigeria that the terrorists are free to migrate in and find it difficult to do so in other countries? So, if we share information and intelligence, and share a collaboration, particularly with countries like Chad, Cameroon and Niger that we have to collaborate with because of terrorists’ migration, it will help. So the ECOWAS has some role to play, but incidentally, they always look to Nigeria for leadership. (Saturday Tribune)