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• FG must keep partnering with US till terrorists are totally eliminated
• Terrorism persists because religious leaders failed to speak against it in the past
From Sola Ojo, Abuja
Rev John Joseph Hayab is the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in the 19 Northern States and Abuja.
In this interview, he warns that Nigeria will never defeat terrorism as long as political loyalty is used to shield the powerful sponsors of violence, declaring that supporting a leader while the nation suffers is foolishness, not loyalty. He urged President Bola Tinubu to move beyond chasing gunmen and instead arrest, prosecute and expose those funding and protecting terrorists. He also dismisses the Christian-Muslim argument as a dangerous distraction since both faiths are now victims, backing Donald Trump’s hard-line stance on terror, and insisting that only firm leadership, honest religious condemnation of extremists, strong international cooperation and active citizen accountability can end bloodshed in the country.
What do you make of the US President Donald Trump’s terrorism and religious narratives in Nigeria especially now that he has admitted that Muslims are also victims?
That has been my position, acknowledging that both Christians and Muslims are being killed by terrorists in Nigeria. The killing of Christians has never been in doubt.
It was reported, it reached President Trump, and he reacted. That part is not contestable. What changed was the broader recognition that the violence has since expanded. At first, there was denial from some quarters. But reasonable leaders came out and admitted that Christians were being killed. However, the madness did not stop there. The killers are now killing Muslims too.
So, Trump’s acknowledgment of this wider reality shows political sensitivity and rational leadership.
Trump first said Christians are being killed. Now, after more reports, he is acknowledging that Muslims are also being killed. That shows he is a sensitive and reasonable leader. His focus is not religion; his focus is to get rid of terrorists. And everywhere in the world, terrorists are terrorists.
Again, terrorist groups operating in Nigeria began by deliberately targeting Christians but later turned on Muslims as well particularly Muslims who fear God, and reject extremist ideology.
These terrorists started by going after Christians. But they also go after Muslims especially those who do not agree with their twisted assumptions. So if Trump continues to take action against terrorists until they are defeated, that is fine. What matters to me is not whether the victims are Christians or Muslims. What matters is that the killings must stop.
So, why the tensed argument over this among Nigerians since the perpetrators are known to be terrorists?
Yeah, the politicisation of religion in the conflict has only distracted the country from the real issue. The Christian-Muslim argument is a diversion. Are there terrorists in Nigeria? Yes. And what do we do with terrorists? We go after them. Unfortunately, our government has been treating them with kid gloves. Trump’s actions have shown that terrorists should not be treated gently. They must know that someone is ready to confront them.
Do you want to put a time frame for this insecurity to end?
How can we do that? What we need to do in all sincerity is to strengthen any genuine international partnership that will lead to the defeat of terrorism. If our government keeps this partnership with Trump until all terrorists are eliminated, it will be good for everyone. If people want to keep arguing about whether the victims are Christians or Muslims, that misses the point. What matters is that the killing must stop.
Why do you think these terrorists terrorising the North East, North West and gradually spreading to North Central and South West appear to continue unabated despite huge security votes over the years?
It is because some unpatriotic religious leaders in Nigeria who, in my view, failed to speak firmly against extremists in the past. Some of them treat terrorists as if they are their children. But terrorists are nobody’s children. They do not belong to any religion.
To me, religious identity must not be confused with faith. For example, just because someone is named John, Matthew, or Joseph does not make him a Christian. In the same way, just because someone bears a Muslim name does not make him a true Muslim. If someone kills people while hiding under a religious identity, that religion must come out and condemn him if they are not supporting such crime.
So, silence or soft language only emboldens extremists and creates suspicion against entire faith communities. This is it, if someone kills in the name of Christianity or Islam, these religious leaders must rise and say, ‘This person does not represent us.’ If you fail to renounce him, people will assume you support him. That is how Boko Haram became strong in the beginning. When government went after them, some people said they were being persecuted because ‘they are our children.’ That attitude allowed them to grow to the menace we see today.
When Boko Haram started, people defended them. Now that they are killing everyone, they want us to pretend it was never a problem. No. We must be honest. Terrorists are terrorists, and they must be confronted without excuses.
No Muslim, young or old, should be killed by anybody under any guise. We all remember a time when one could travel freely at night from Kaduna to Kano, Kano to Maiduguri, Maiduguri to Adamawa, Adamawa to Taraba, Taraba to Benue without fear. Can we honestly say that is still possible today? No, we can’t. And that is the problem. We all want to go back to those days when people could move freely and safely across Nigeria. That freedom is gone now because of insecurity.
You earlier mentioned that security intelligence suggests some people are deliberately planning attacks on Christian communities ahead of elections, in order to shape a narrative. Can you explain that?
Yes. What it simply means is this: these criminals, these terrorists, have discovered that when they attack Christians, Christian institutions, or Christian gatherings, the uproar is usually very loud. They exploit that.
So we are telling our colleagues, ‘Be careful. Be wise. Be alert.’ They will try to infiltrate our programmes and gatherings to cause pain and provoke reactions. Their aim is political. Their aim is evil. So we must not give them space. We must always stay several steps ahead of them.
Some of these people have even earmarked certain states where they want to strike, so they can say, ‘Look, Christians have been attacked here.’ But these attackers are not Christians or Muslims they are just criminals trying to heat up the polity. We must not fall into their trap.
What is your position on what former security officials, including General Lucky Irabor, have said that some of the insecurity we see today was orchestrated by political actors who never expected to be in positions of authority?
This is where political leadership must be firm. If you are the President of Nigeria, and someone because he helped you politically now turns around to recruit criminals and terrorists to discredit and destabilise your government, you must go after him. Even if you rule for one day, it is better to rule well than to preside over a country where people are being killed.
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How do you mean?
For example as a president who really mean well for the majority of his citizens, if you have credible evidence against the sponsors and supporters of these criminals, arrest them. Prosecute them. Expose them. Yes, our security agencies have said it again and again: some people started this thinking it was just a political strategy. But it has become an evil against every Nigerian. So go after them. That is why we keep repeating the same message: go after the sponsors. Do you think bandits and terrorists are doing this for free? They have sponsors. When we start arresting their sponsors, prosecuting them, and exposing them, they will know the game is over.
You also talked about Trump’s involvement and Nigeria cooperating with him. Some people say that raises sovereignty issues. Does it?
I don’t agree with that argument. If we can send our military to be trained in Pakistan, in England, in America, then it means when we face a serious security situation, we can work with those who trained us to deal with it. That is not losing sovereignty. That is sharing intelligence and combining strength to defeat a stubborn enemy. Terrorism is not easy. Even America has never defeated terrorism alone. They always work with the countries where terrorists operate or hide. That is how it is done.
What I don’t understand is why our government sometimes waits for terrorists to strike before they react. If you already have credible intelligence that they are planning havoc, dislodge them first. Stop them before they strike. So I was glad when Trump reacted, and I give our government credit for cooperating in that first strike. But they should do more. Don’t wait until chaos happens. Act when you know it is being planned.
How do you balance this with the need for government to rebuild trust, so that citizens can rely on the state for protection instead of turning to dangerous alternatives like the case of Lakurawa, a terrorist group invited by the locales for presumed protection?
There is no doubt that Nigeria has a serious trust deficit. People do not trust leaders, and you cannot blame them. Those in power are often not honest, not transparent, and they do many things that make ordinary Nigerians unhappy. But the time has come for government to deliberately win back the trust of the people. When citizens trust government and trust the security agencies, they will begin to speak out. They will share what they know. Right now, many people cover up evil because they are afraid. They think, “If I tell the police, I will become a victim. If I tell government, they will go to the same powerful man and expose me.” So people keep quiet. That is dangerous, and it must change.
Government and the security agencies must make a conscious effort to build trust. But I also want to speak to Nigerians: even if we have reasons to distrust government, we must remember something very important; Nigeria does not belong to government. Nigeria belongs to us.
One of our biggest problems is that many Nigerians think the president owns the country, that governors own the states, that legislators own the nation. That is wrong. We placed President Tinubu in office on trust. We are the government. He is only the person we asked to manage our government on our behalf.
That understanding is missing in Nigeria. That is why when a governor provides electricity or digs a borehole, people praise him as if he used his father’s money. No. It is our commonwealth. It is our money that he is managing. That is why we have budgets to show how they plan to manage our money: to build roads, provide schools, improve hospitals, supply electricity, and deliver services we need.
Is that why we are debating tax laws in Nigeria?
Yes, tax is not about giving money to a governor; it is about citizens contributing to develop their own country. When we contribute, we can demand accountability. We can ask, ‘You collected this amount what did you do with it?’
But because most of the money comes from Abuja, not from citizens, accountability is weak. Leaders spend what they collect from the centre, not what we directly contribute, so we cannot easily hold them responsible.
This mindset also affects our elections. People think whoever belongs to a powerful party must win. That is not true. If governance truly belongs to us, then if a governor fails, we remove him. If a legislator fails, we vote him out. If a local government chairman fails, we replace him. But we don’t do that because we have given them too much power, more power than the Constitution gives them.
The Constitution says ‘we the people.’ But we have refused to be ‘we’ and have allowed them to become ‘we.’ That must change. I respect my governor. I respect my president. I want to support them. But I will never respect or support any leader at the expense of the country. Supporting a leader while the nation suffers is not loyalty, it is foolishness.
People now worship those who should never be worshipped. That is why leaders keep making mistakes. Nobody is man enough to tell a governor, ‘What you said is wrong,’ or, ‘You should correct that in public.’ So they keep repeating errors for four years because no one ever challenged them.
I had that experience during the (Nasir) El-Rufai administration. When he went on television and radio and said things that were not true, I went to him personally. I told him, ‘This thing you said is not correct,’ and I showed him the figures. He had no choice but to accept it. He may have had other agendas, but he could not dispute the facts I presented.
That is what we need in this country. Support our leaders. Respect them, but do not be ‘mumu’ for them. Following them blindly, even when they are wrong, is not loyalty, it is destroying them. If you are my leader and you do something wrong and I cannot tell you the truth, then I have destroyed you.
So what exactly is CAN bringing to the table with all these issues you have raised; security, tax, governance, and citizen responsibility?
What we are bringing to the table is consciousness, helping Nigerians see themselves as partners in progress, not spectators. They are the real players in politics; they are the real players in paying tax; they are the real players in nation-building; they are the real players in securing Nigeria.
Once people see themselves as players, they will protect the country. They will defend it. They will insist that it works. But when people don’t see it as theirs, they don’t care if it spoils.
You only protect what you own. If governance is truly yours, you will not allow it to fail, because if it fails, you have failed.
That is why I keep saying those in power must carry Nigerians along. They must make citizens feel that governance belongs to them. What we are seeing today including corruption, waste, insecurity, is partly because leaders have cut people off, and people have withdrawn emotionally. Everyone is just watching government fail, and when it fails, all of us fail.
Nigeria belongs to us. The governor is just first among equals; the president is just first among equals, anybody else could become president or governor tomorrow. But whoever is there must first owe allegiance to Nigerians. If that mindset takes root, accountability will return. When a budget is announced, people will follow up: ‘You promised roads. Six months have passed, where are the roads?’ Right now, budgets are just ceremonies because leaders know nobody will check.
The only people who speak against government today are opposition politicians who want power. But once they get power, they behave the same way. That is not accountability.
Citizens must be the ones to remind their leaders of their promises. If a governor is elected where I live, I will support him because if he fails, I fail. That is why I will not keep quiet when he is going wrong. Silence is not loyalty. Silence is betrayal of the country. My refusal to speak when something is wrong, that is the sin I do not want to commit.
