In the first three months of 2019 (Jan to March), over 400 Christian lives including not less than 150 children with ages between those at their mothers’ backs and ten years have been lost in several coordinated deadly attacks carried out by Government-protected Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen against Christians and their properties in the Nigeria’s old Middle Belt states of Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, Adamawa, Taraba and Kogi. This is according to the Int’l Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (Intersociety), as contained in a Special Statement issued on Sunday in Onitsha.

According to the statement signed by Intersociety Board Chair Emeka Umeagbalasi; Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Programme, Obianuju Igboeli, Esq.; Head, Campaign & Publicity, Chidinma Udegbunam, Esq.; and Head, Int’l Justice & Human Rights Programme, Ndidiamaka Bernard, Esq., “The over 400 Christian lives and nearly 200 houses including dozens of churches burnt or destroyed by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen did not include Christian deaths and property destruction lost to Jihadist Boko Haram insurgents and allied others; between the Eve of Jan and end of March 2019. In the reported killer Fulani Herdsmen attacks, Kaduna State was worst hit, losing not less than 300 Christians including 101 children and 73 women; all killed in less than 35 days (Feb 10-March 16) in Christian dominated Southern Kaduna including Kajuru areas of the state. In the past 90 days of the said attacks, Kaduna had lost not less than 300 Christians, Benue 46, Plateau 20, Adamawa 25, Taraba 8 and Kogi 3.

“This in addition to 20th March 2019 killing by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen of a Senior University Lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Mr. Nnamdi Ogueche; who was ambushed and killed in Enugu State and an Igbo oil magnet, killed in Kaduna State; totaling 404 Christians. These numbers may exclude “dark figures of crime” or those that went unreported. The Jihadist attacks also led to destruction of nearly 200 Christian houses including dozens of churches and schools and seizure of acres of land belonging to the victims and their families or churches.”

Intersociety reported that “no fewer than 2,900-3,000 Christians were hacked to death in 2018” in the country. “Out of the number, not less than 2,400 were killed by Fulani Jihadists or “killer Fulani Herdsmen” in renewed and escalated attacks targeted and launched at Christians and their sacred places of worship in the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria. The rest or estimated 600 others were killed in Islamist insurgency attacks particularly in the Northeast Region of Nigeria. The present central Government of Nigeria is also responsible for execution outside the law of no fewer than 970 Christians and 1,200 members of the Shiite Muslim sect since August 2015,” the rights group said.

Intersociety indicted the Nigerian Government, saying: “In all these anti-Christian attacks, the role of the present central Government of Nigeria headed by Mr. Muhammadu Buhari has been undeniably and inescapably indicting and inciting; fueling and escalating the killings. Apart from doing little or nothing to end the butchery and anti-Christian religious cleansing- and protect the country’s constitutional secular status including citizens’ right to freedom of religion within the ambit of the law, the response of the Government and its security agencies particularly with respect to preventive security measures is also nothing to write home about.

“The security response and protection are deliberately skewed or disproportionally arranged to fuel and escalate the killings. Security agents including soldiers and police personnel sent to the affected areas have severally been found to have done little or nothing when the victim communities or areas came under attacks; allowing the attackers to operate for several hours unchallenged; only to surface afterwards and start arresting victims or clamping down on the same communities that had come under Jihadist Fulani attacks.

“The Government is so biased and complicit that in 2018, the Presidency issued a statement urging Christian communities of the Middle Belt Nigeria and others “to surrender their lands to Fulani Herdsmen and stay alive than to refuse and get killed”. The Presidential statement was later christened by critics as “Land-or-Your Life” statement. Nigeria’s Minister of Information also cried out recently that “some powerful countries denied Nigeria loans because of Fulani Herdsmen despite fortune spent and efforts made internationally or in the international media to refute the allegation Christians are being killed in Nigeria and convince them that it is only “herders-farmers clashes”.

“The Minister further spoke on the Federal Government’s “two comparative narratives” of Muslim-Muslim killings in Zamfara, Kaduna’s Birnin-Gwari and Kebbi-describing them as “herders-farmers clashes” involving “killing of Muslims by fellow Muslims”. The two narratives are not only false and rejected by Intersociety but they are purely “cattle rustling and banditry related violence” perpetrated by Muslim bandits and restricted to the named Muslim populated areas. They have nothing whatsoever to do with statistically established Government condoned Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen attacks on Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt Region.

“The Buhari Government of Nigeria not only protects the killer Fulani Herdsmen and their industrial scale rights abuses in Nigeria but also trivializes the Jihadist Genocide as “Herders-Fulani clashes” – a false labeling that has seen the Government spent billions of naira annually in selling such falsehood locally and internationally; yet the same Government has failed woefully to provide answers to the following the questions as per:

“How many Muslim farmers and Mosques have the killer Fulani Herdsmen targeted, attacked, killed or destroyed or burnt in the Middle Belt Nigeria since increase in their attacks in mid-2015; whether there are no Muslim farmers and Mosques in the Middle Belt capable of being attacked or killed or destroyed since the killings are “herders-farmers clashes”; what targeting and burning or destruction of churches and Christian schools and abduction and killing of Christian priests got to do with “herders-farmers clashes; and why is it that it is only “Christian farmers, their homes and churches” that are being targeted, leaving out “Muslim farmers and their homes including Mosques” despite their majority in Northern Nigeria.

“This is more so when it has been scholarly and statistically established that deadly attacks carried out by killer or Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen are solely launched and targeted at Christians and other members of non-Muslim faith in Nigeria with no records of “collateral killing” of Muslims.”

Intersociety also condemned what it described as the “silence and inaction of Christian leaders in Nigeria.” It said: “In all these anti-Christian attacks and killings, the role of Christian leaders especially the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, is conspiratorial and nothing to write home about; except swimming in the blood of their murdered faith members and profiting from constancy of such attacks. The national leadership of CAN has recently come under widespread attacks and criticisms for constantly engaging in ritualised presidential courtesy calls and congratulatory visits, usually in return for multi million naira “brown envelopes” – with attendant leadership crisis between the CAN national leadership and its Elders’ Council (see ‘Buhari’s N40M Gift tears CAN apart’: Vanguard Newspaper, 20th May 2018).”

Beaming its searchlight beyond Nigeria, Intersociety said it was “shocked and deeply dismayed by the reported loss in 2018 alone of no fewer than 90,000 Christian lives around the world and silence and inaction of the world leading int’l democracies. The Christians were hacked to death globally in 2018 for “being professed Christians”. The silence and inaction by the world leading democracies are clearly and dangerously rearing Xian militias and defensive insurgencies both those already formed and others at embryonic stages of formation around the world.”

The rights group further said in a section of the statement entitled ‘Global Overview’: “Christian militias and defensive insurgencies are already up and running in countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, New Zealand, Central African Republic (Anti-Balaka Xian militias), etc, just as new radical or Jihadist Muslim militias have sprung up in Christian dominated countries of Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, etc; stepping up their deadly attacks against Christians.

“The Seleka Muslim militias of the Central African Republic have even gone to the extent of organising military coup to install a pro-Muslim government in a country where Muslims are in acute minority. Totality of these has intractably threatened and undermined global and regional peace and made violence over faith or value-based violence protracted and irresolvable at municipal, regional and international levels; thereby putting the world at crossroads of grave uncertainties.”

Intersociety called on the world leading democracies, “including the US, EU, US, Canada and the Vatican to end their era of silence and inaction over the untamed and unchecked persecution of Christians around the world including Nigeria.”

According to the rights group, “Constant and unchecked attacks on Christians around the world and silence and inaction of the world leading democracies must stop. Global and faith pacifism can only be maintained in the atmosphere of religious freedom, harmony and tolerance and not otherwise. It must also be firmly stated that leaders of Christian churches and global democracies including the United Nations are speedily losing it as history has always shown that attacks over values such as religion and ethnic identity hardly go without reply or reprisal.

“The rise in number of Christian militias formed in Syria since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 and recent defensive insurgency or suicide attacks on Christchurch Mosque on 15th March 2019, killing 49 Muslim worshippers are clear signs of frustrations, loss of hope and patience by the laity Christian world and signs of more to come, if unchecked and untamed. It is also a clear sign that the global democracies including UN and leaders of global churches have failed and endangered laity Christians through conspiracy of silence and inaction.

“Christian militias, composed largely of fighters from the various Syriac/Assyrian, Arab and Armenian Christian communities in Syria, are on the increase in recent times especially in the Middle East. They are also found amongst Assyrian communities in neighboring northern Iraq. Before the eruption of Syrian war, as much as 10% of the population was Syriac/Assyrian, Armenian or Arab Christian, and together they formed one of the largest Christian minorities in the Middle East. The rise of Christian militias dominated by women has provided a semblance of “balanced of violence” and drastically reduced the attacks on Christians in the areas including beheadings and forceful conversion to Islam. There are also several “Christian-militias-in-formation” or at embryonic stages of formation around the world, with Nigeria not being left out.

“We call on the Government of Nigeria to cease from further protection of the killer Herdsmen and condoning of their industrial scale rights abuses as doing so will put the country at crossroads of grave uncertainties. The Federal Government of Nigeria must end its gross censorship and bias over reportage of Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen violence in Nigeria and call spade a spade both locally and internationally.”