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…insists no Christian genocide in Nigeria,
…highlight factors responsible for insecurity
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has accused the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) of playing the script of some foreign “enemies” of Nigeria led two US Congressmen, Senators Ted Cruz and Riley Moore, on alleged genocide against Christians in Nigeria.
At a press conference in Abuja, on Sunday, the NSCIA Secretary General, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, told journalists that the main objective of these “enemies” of Nigeria is to plant and promote a religious war that could lead to wanton destruction and destabilisation of the country.
He said: “This is why the NSCIA is extremely disappointed by the false proclamation of the CAN which has now shown clearly that the individuals who were propagating the falsehood were, in reality, playing the scripts of CAN.
“To this end, we affirm that there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria. There is no Muslim genocide in Nigeria. There is no religious intolerance in Nigeria. The Nigerian tragedy is that of poverty, climate change, bad governance over time, and armed criminals who kill indiscriminately while a section of the world seeks to exploit the situation for geopolitical profit.”
Prof. Oloyede insisted that the US President, Donald Trump, has limited information regarding the security situation in Nigeria, thus urging him to retract the decision to brand Nigeria a “disgraced country” and rather assist the country with credible intelligence, critical logistics and human capacity development to enable the country overcome insecurity in different parts of Nigeria.
He also insisted that genuine assistance requires partnership, and not unilateral actions, which might, even if inadvertent, fragment the Nigerian Nation.
Prof. Oloyede further stated: “When President Trump labeled our country ‘disgraced’, every right-thinking Nigerian was concerned because an ally that is determined to help a sovereign country to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities would offer to assist and collaborate with the country and not use such language to describe a country it aims to partner in wiping out the terrorists.
“While a number of countries (e.g., China, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar) have also been designated Countries of Particular Concern (CPC), the present context of ‘what Nigeria will not like’ suggests that the plan is a pretext to destabilise our country.”
The NSCIA Secretary General, however, suspected that the campaign might have been escalated shortly after Nigeria, at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, reaffirmed its principled and consistent support for a two-state solution and for the solidarity of the Palestinian people.
He reaffirm that there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria. “Under Article II of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 9 and Article 6 of the Rome Statute 11, the crime is defined by a critical mental element known as dolus specialis. This is the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such. There is nothing of such in Nigeria.
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“For the avoidance of doubt, what Nigeria faces is a complex and tragic perennial security crisis that brings immeasurable pain to all its citizens, regardless of faith or ethnic persuasion. From Katsina to Borno and from Benue to Plateau, as well as in Kaduna and Kwara, Nigeria bleeds through gruesome savagery against Muslims and Christians, Imams and priests.
“Non-partisan experts have repeatedly refuted this blackmail and even Amnesty International, which methodically investigated the insecurity in Nigeria, had stated that there is no evidence of a religious motivation to characterise it as genocide.
“The world knows that some of the terrorist groups being paraded as ‘Islamic’ are creations of non-Muslims. For instance, it is publicly acknowledged that the US created Al-Qaeda, which is being projected as Islamic. Also, a US Congressman, Scott Perry, testified that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was financing the activities of Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in Nigeria and elsewhere.”
Prof. Oloyede, however, highlighted the major drivers of the conflicts in the parts of the country. “The first is ecological. As the International Crisis Group has detailed in multiple reports, how relentless desertification and drought which are products of climate change, have degraded pastures and dried up water sources in the far-northern Sahelian belt. This is not an Islamist invasion; it is a desperate southward migration of herders seeking survival.
“This climate-driven migration forces herders into direct, and often violent competition with sedentary farming communities over dwindling resources of land and water. Historic grazing reserves have been lost to expanding settlements, and traditional conflict resolution mechanisms have eroded. This is the flashpoint for the farmer-herder crisis in Plateau, Benue and other middle belt states in Northern Nigeria.
“The second driver is criminality. In the Northwest, Northeast and Southeast, banditry is fueled by the overlapping factors of grinding poverty, mass youth unemployment, drug abuse, porous borders and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons over the decades.
“Crucially, as researchers have noted, it is also driven by illicit artisanal mining of solid minerals. Criminal syndicates and bandits sack villages and displace populations, creating an ungoverned space for their illegal mining operations. This is a violent, organised crime racket for resources and there is nothing Islamic about it also.
“In Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto axis, Muslims have lost more than 1,200 souls to the same bandits who answer to crime, not tribe or faith. The US Department itself, in its 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, stated that banditry and other criminality, not animosity between particular religious groups were the primary drivers of intercommunal violence. This is not a religious war.
“Then, we cannot gloss over how, over a long period, failure of governance has enabled violence in Nigeria. Studies have revealed how endemic corruption, lack of accountability for human rights abuses and failure to provide basic security for citizens have, over time, created a vacuum for impunity. When the state fails to protect anyone, criminals and militias thrive. This is a massive state failure, as some have called it, not a state-sponsored genocide”.
Prof. Oloyede called on the international community and the media to reject the false, dangerous, and destabilising narrative being championed by the US led by some Congressmen, Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Riley Moore.
He also called on the federal government to redouble its efforts to protect all its citizens, regardless of faith, destroy the bandits and terrorists, expose and hold the domestic instigators of the divisive lie accountable, and shame the foreign lobbyists against Nigeria.
He also commended the resolve of the government to, with dignity and honour, engage the USA and the rest of the international community on how to eliminate terrorism and banditry in Nigeria and, indeed, in the sub-region.
