Nigeria: Terrorism Strikes the South-West

Owo church massacre might herald something worse on horizon
by Elizabeth Kendal

OWO CHURCH MASSACRE
terrorism strikes the South-West

At around 11:30am on Pentecost Sunday 5 June, Fulani Muslim militants from the North attacked worshippers at St Francis Catholic Church in Owo, in the north of Ondo State, in Nigeria’s mostly Christian ethnic Yoruba South-West. 

They struck as the worship service was ending, detonating Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and shooting worshippers as they fled.

According to reports, some of the terrorists were already inside, disguised as worshippers, while others wore military camouflage and were armed with automatic rifles. The shooting continued for about 20 minutes, and though it ‘could be heard from the nearby Methodist Church ... police officers stationed close to the area failed to respond’ (CSW, 6 June).

The highly organised attack left 22 worshippers dead and 56 wounded requiring hospitalisation, many in a critical condition (revised toll as of 7 June). 

Rushing home from a gathering of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abuja, Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu wept as he visited the massacre site and again as he visited the survivors in hospital.

A “devoted Christian” and Yoruba man, Governor Akeredolu (65) is the son of the late Reverend Jeremiah Olatusi Akeredolu, a convert from Yoruba traditional religion who rose to become the first Anglican Bishop of Akoko in Ondo State.

Critically, Governor Akeredolu has been a leading advocate for restructuring, the need for state police, the anti-open grazing law (limiting the infiltration of Fulani herdsmen), and power rotation (i.e. the unwritten rule that the presidency should rotate between mostly Muslim North and mostly Christian South). Consequently, it might prove significant that the terrorists struck Owo, Governor Akeredolu’s hometown.

Indeed, many view the Owo church massacre as a declaration of war against the Yoruba in general and against Governor Akeredolu in particular.

POSSIBLE MOTIVE
Nigeria is in election mode

With Nigeria’s next general elections slated for 25 February (federal) and 11 March (state) 2023, Nigeria is in election mode.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held its indirect presidential primary on 28 May 2022 and nominated former Vice President Atiku Abubakar – its 2019 nominee [see RLPB 488 (6 Feb 2019)] – as its presidential candidate for 2023. Atiku is a Northern Muslim from Adamawa State, whose Islam leans towards the liberal/nominal; he is more interested in the reviving the economy and in revitalising the private sector than he is in advancing Islam.

Meanwhile, the ruling APC is yet to announce its candidate. Having been elected to the office of president twice, President Muhammadu Buhari is ineligible for re-election. What’s more, because President Buhari is a Fulani Muslim from the North, many in the party believe the APC should endorse a candidate from the South. Leading the drive for a southern candidate is the Chairman of the South-West Governors’ Forum, Ondo Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.

On 4 June (the day before the Owo church massacre), eleven northern APC governors declared their support for a southern presidential candidate and recommended to President Buhari that they limit the search to their southern counterparts. Governor Akeredolu tweeted of his ‘utmost joy’.

Then, on 6 June (the day after the massacre), at the meeting of the National Working Committee in Abuja, the APC National Chairman Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, announced Senate President, Ahmed Lawan – a Northern Muslim, from Yobe – as the APC’s consensus presidential candidate.   

Governor Akeredolu questioned whether the announcement was a joke, suggesting Lawan had simply “made public his preferred choice” ahead of APC’s presidential primaries to be held in Abuja from Monday 6 to Wednesday 8 June. The main southern contender is a Christian Yoruba man, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, a graduate of the London School of Economics.

The problem is this: in line with global trends, multitudes of Nigerian Muslims have radicalised, leaving more Muslims unwilling to vote for a non-Muslim on account of the Quranic command: “O believers! Do not take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Would you like to give Allah solid proof against yourselves?” (Sura 4:144). Consequently, it is increasingly the case that most Northern Muslims will not be willing – or able (due to threat) – to vote for a non-Muslim.

RESPONSIBILITY
a mysterious silence
 
It is very interesting and indeed quite unusual that no-one has (as yet) claimed responsibility for the Owo terror attack.

Boko Haram (JAS), Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and militant Fulani herdsmen (terrorist proxies) have all been active in neighbouring Kogi State, a strategic central state and transport hub linking the political capital, Abuja (in the centre), to the commercial capital, Lagos (on the South-West coast). [See RLPB 618, Jihad Expands in Niger and Kogi, 6 Oct 2021.]

More recently, ISWAP has claimed responsibility for several terror attacks in Kogi. On 24 April, ISWAP claimed responsibility for an attack on a police station in Adavi LGA. ISWAP also claimed responsibility for the 11 May bombing of a beer parlour/bar in Kabba town which killed three and wounded 16; and another bar bombing on 29 May, also in Kabba, which left 12 people seriously injured. Sahara Reporters notes (31 May): “Kabba is the headquarters of the Kabba/Bunnu Local Government Area and the people speak a dialect of Yoruba called Owe.” 

ISWAP also claimed responsibility for the bombing on Thursday 2 June of an annual festival in Okene (38 km southeast of Kabba) which killed two and wounded 12.

Like Kabba, Okene is primarily populated by ethnic Yoruba. Both towns are just 100km north-east of Owo. Yet ISWAP, which is believed to have cells all through the south, has not claimed responsibility. 

Nigeria's South-West, showing Owo in Ondo State,
and Kabba and Okene in Kogi State.

Could it be that a coalition of jihadists/terrorists, ethnic Fulani expansionists, and corrupt Muslim officials at the highest levels of the military and the government might be working together – each maintaining deniability – to terrorise the Yoruba ahead of a campaign to retain and advance Northern-Fulani-Islamist control of Nigeria?

If so, then civil war is on the horizon!

SECURITY
a constitutional crisis

Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution was prepared by the military regime of General Abdulsalami Abubakar (a Hausa Muslim from the North) and decreed into being, just ahead of Nigeria’s return to democracy. Not only did the 1999 constitution abolish local police and centralise Nigeria’s police force, it also expressly bans the establishment of any other police force [see RLPB 596 (5 May 2021)].

The Owo terror attack has reignited calls for a total restructuring of Nigeria’s security apparatus.

In a powerful opinion piece (published 5 June) entitled, Nigeria Needs True Security Federalism, Anthony Chuka Konwea, Ph.D., P.E. explains:
 
“It is technically impossible to adequately secure a huge nation of 200 million people like Nigeria, from one single central location, modern communications notwithstanding.

“To secure Nigeria, you need field security commanders at the local level, knowledgeable of the peculiarities of the local terrain, and fully empowered to take proactive or preemptive security control measures, as they deem fit,without reference to the center or anywhere else besides the State Government.

“Imagine the chaos at the security command and control center in Abuja. It is daily inundated with situation reports (sit-reps) coming in from 36 State Commissioners of Police, each awaiting further instructions and directives on how best to respond to evolving security threats in their respective jurisdictions.

“Just picture the ensuing chaos and confusion.

“Even with a patriotic, well-meaning Central Command, there is bound to be information overload from so many incoming sitreps, each requiring separate threat analysis, and communication of tactical instructions to the respective field commanders.

“When a Fulani expansionist is the Commander-in-Chief as is the situation currently, and you factor in their obsession with evaluating whether each security threat enhances or detracts from their overall strategic objective of overrunning Nigeria, what you get is the present security chaos.”

See also:
Military Rule and Damage to the Spirit of the Nigerian Constitution
Peter Ekeh, Lagos Lecture, 1 December 2010

Presidential Control of the Nigeria Police: Constitutional Reforms for Organizational Performance Development and Political Neutrality
by Chineze Sophia Ibekwe, LL.B, LL.M, PhD (Labour Law), and Onyeka Nosike Aduma, LL.B, LL.M (Law).
Global Journal of Politics and Law Research
Vol.8, No.2, pp.65-79, March 2020

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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate.

She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).

She is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology and has formerly served with the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission and Christian Faith and Freedom (Canberra).

See www.ElizabethKendal.com

Nigeria’s Fraudulent Election: Will Things Fall Apart?

By Elizabeth Kendal

“Massive, consistent, and comprehensive, deliberate manipulation and distortion preceded, attended, and followed the Nigerian Presidential and National Assembly elections of February 23, 2019, and gubernatorial elections of March 9, 2019.”

So reads the opening paragraph of a Staff Report entitled, “Options for Africa and Nigeria Moves into a ‘Post-Democratic’ Phase” in issue 4/2019 of Defense & Foreign Affairs (D&FA) Strategic Policy magazine (the official magazine of the International Strategic Studies Association).

Shocking they might be, but these words would come as no surprise to anyone who has been closely monitoring Nigeria over recent years.

As noted in Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletins 488 (6 Feb) and 489 (13 Feb) – written to facilitate strategic intercessory prayer – Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) came to power in 2015 promising to tackle corruption, improve security and revive the economy. Instead, the opposite has occurred.

Corruption has flourished. In particular, as has been revealed, there has been massive fraud in military procurement. Government funds have been secured on the basis of fake contracts for provisions and equipment which were never delivered – “everything from food and ammunition to firearms, helicopters and Alpha jets, totalling as much as US$15 billion”.  “Armsgate” is the reason why soldiers are being deployed into conflict zones with insufficient rations and malfunctioning weapons; and why those who survive return defeated and demoralised. It is why insecurity has escalated to crisis levels. It is why Boko Haram / Islamic State of West Africa has not been defeated. It is why soldiers mutinied in Maiduguri in August 2018 not long after Buhari’s APC party suffered a string of defections to the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP). It is also why a catastrophic Christian crisis persists throughout Nigeria's North and Middle Belt.

Pleading for assistance,  Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo
World Watch Monitor, Sept 2018
For more news on persecution see Morning Star News / Nigeria

Of course corruption and insecurity are major reasons as to why the economy has stagnated and why there is such widespread disillusionment, displacement, poverty and despair.

Unsurprisingly, Buhari’s first term was widely believed to have been an unmitigated disaster. Indeed, any progress that was made, was made in Buhari’s absence – during his 170-days of “medical leave”.

Consequently, it seemed the risk was not that Buhari would win the presidential poll, but that his loss would trigger widespread religious violence, just as in April 2011 when Buhari lost to Goodluck Jonathan.

Buhari declared winner of presidential poll.

When, on the morning of 27 February, Nigeria’s Independent National Election Commission (INEC) announced Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the presidential poll, the news was met with disbelief in many quarters.

As the Council on Foreign Relations remarked (18 March): “Nigeria’s latest presidential election cycle has been bad news for democracy in Africa’s most populous country and across the continent. Though President Muhammadu Buhari won the election, it was marred by historically low turnout and credible allegations of rigging.”

In March, in an editorial in D&FA issue 2/2019 entitled “Democracy as Farce is the Prelude to Tyranny”, the president of the International Strategic Studies Association, Gregory Copley, commented that Buhari, “knowing the electorate had turned against him, could only sustain power by the direct, deliberate, and planned manipulation of voting mechanisms. Buhari controlled the levers of legalization: he ensured that the management of the ‘Independent’ National Election Commission (INEC) was no longer, in fact, independent, ensuring that the delivery and counting of ballots could be manipulated in the most blatant terms . . .

“Knowing such fraud would become known to the electorate, and that those defrauded would seek redress in the courts, Buhari unilaterally, unconstitutionally, and pre-emptively replaced the Chief Justice of Nigeria, on January 25, 2019, with Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed . . . presumably to position the highest Nigerian court to ratify a Buhari/All Progressives Congress (APC) victory in the Presidential, National Assembly, and probably state gubernatorial elections.”

According to the Staff Report in D&FA (4/2019), “The incumbent Government of Pres. Muhammadu Buhari, through manipulation of the electoral, military, and administrative processes, achieved the effect of a coup d’etat, institutionalizing corruption to a degree unseen before even in Nigeria, while all the stage settings of democracy appeared to continue in situ.”

According to D&FA (4/2019), the known steps undertaken by the cadre around President Buhari to co-opt the elections include:

1) The unconstitutional replacement by President Buhari on 25 January 2019, of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) – Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen (a southerner) – with Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed (a Muslim from the North) presumably to position the highest Nigerian court to ratify a Buhari win;

2) The now exposed and substantial under-delivery of ballot papers to voting stations around Nigeria. This means that even if 100 per cent of the delivered ballot papers were completed in favor of opposition candidates, there would still be sufficient ballots which could be illegally and secretly completed in favor of Buhari and the APC;

3) The disruptive postponement of the election from its scheduled dates (possibly to “test the waters” should a state of emergency or even martial law be declared), and

4) President Buhari’s threats against foreign governments if they “interfere” in the Nigerian elections.

The Staff Report in D&FA (4/2019) also noted that by 7 April claims were emerging that the “Presidential election result could be canceled due to the fact that INEC still was unable to produce full result sheets from the election, despite having called the Presidency in Buhari’s favor shortly after the election.”

D&FA (4/2019) laments that while Buhari “is ill, indecisive, and vindictive, and has become financially and morally corrupt”, he is “surrounded by officials who, to cling to their own wealth, are prepared to go to any lengths to sustain his Presidency”.

The report concludes: “Thus corruption continues in Nigeria with the notable compounding factor: there are no checks and balances left to constrain an administration which has essentially abandoned democracy.”

Court Challenge Commences in Abuja
On 18 March, the presidential candidate for the People's Democratic Party (PDP), former Vice President Atiku Abubakar issued a legal challenge to the election results on the basis of irregularities.”

Atiku faced immense pressure to drop the case as stakeholders warned it could trigger violence. However, former President Olusegun Obasanjo defended Atiku's right to seek legal redress, noting that, if Buhari were permitted to seek redress over past losses (as he did in 2003, 2007 and 2011), then Atiku should be entitled to do likewise, as should any Nigerian who feels they have been denied justice. According to Obasanjo, those warning the case would trigger violence are simply those looking for an excuse to unleash violence.

On Wednesday 8 May, a panel of five judges at Nigeria’s appellate court fixed 15 May as the date to begin hearing a total of four petitions filed to challenge the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) party in the 23 February presidential poll.

On Wednesday 15 May, security was high around the Appeal Court in Abuja, venue of Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, as the pre-hearing session on the 139-page petition filed by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar commenced.

Claims INEC server was hacked 

It seems that Atiku Abubakar, having been alerted to the fact that President Buhari was preparing to rig the election, took precautions. At his instigation a whistle-blower from the INEC hacked into the INEC server and download the election results before they were announced.

In his submission to the Presidential Election Tribunal, Atiku Abubakar has supplied the “unique MAC address and Microsoft product ID of the INEC server” from where the results were allegedly obtained. INEC_PRES_RSLT_SRV2019 and its unique Mac address  94-57-A5-DC-64-B9 with Microsoft Product ID 00252-70000-0000-AA535.

According to the results downloaded from the server, Atiku Abubakar won the presidential poll by more than 1.6 million votes (and this was before the results from Rivers in the deep south – traditionally a PDP state – had been transmitted to the INEC server).

During the election campaign, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Festus Keyamo served as the Director of Strategic Communications (Official Spokesperson) for the Buhari Campaign Organisation. Upon hearing of Atiku’s claim, Festus Keyamo (SAN) wrote a petition to the Inspector-General of Police calling for Atiku Abubakar’s arrest for allegedly hacking the INEC server.

But this is self-defeating, as Atiku’s guilt would only prove Buhari’s fraud.

In his petition, Keyamo echos the INEC’s false and ludicrous claim that the data Atiku allegedly downloaded from the INEC server is data he first smuggled onto the INEC server. For according to the INEC, there was no data on the INEC server as all election results were transmitted manually, not electronically.

Unfortunately for Keyamo and the INEC, Atiku Abubakar’s petition also includes affidavits from 13 presiding officers, who, in their sworn statements, testify that during their training the INEC had instructed them on how to electronically transmit the results to its server.

An investigation by Nigeria’s THISDAY revealed that, “as Atiku publicised the INEC server ID to prove that he had genuine election results, operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) arrested workers in the commission’s IT department for leaking information on the server.” THISDAY also revealed that “when the wives and families of arrested INEC staff threatened to protest publicly, the DSS quickly released the INEC staff”.

As public affairs analyst, Hamma Shehu, remarks: “INEC was clever by half. They played themselves, they think they can use technology and jettison it crookedly, unknown to them, everything digital has a footprint and cannot be deleted.”

Some of the most scathing commentary has come from popular columnist and social commentator Femi Aribisala. “I am of the opinion,” he writes in his weekly column, “that no election in Nigeria has been as fraudulent as the one we just witnessed.  Fortunately, no stolen mandate has also been so conclusively documented as this one. . .

“This blatant rape on Nigerian democracy must not be allowed to stand.”

[Commentary by Femi Aribisala: “The Courts Must Declare Atiku As Nigerian President,” Part 1 (7 May) and Part 2 (14 May).

INAUGURATION

President Buhari will be inaugurated in a “low-key” ceremony on Wednesday 29 May.  Celebrations will be held on 12 June, the day President Buhari wants recognised as National Democracy Day.

As PDP spokesman Kola Ologbondiyan remarks, no many how many global leaders are invited to this big event, it “cannot confer international recognition for a stolen mandate”.

These are watershed days for Nigeria. The future is anything but certain.

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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Advocacy at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF) and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.

She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).

See www.ElizabethKendal.com

The Islamisation of Nigeria

by Elizabeth Kendal

CONVERSION CRISIS

Nigerians Miss Nabila Umar Sanda (19) and Engineer Simput Eagles Dafup (33) first met and exchanged contact details in Dubai four years ago. A few years later, as Nabila (then a Muslim) was studying at the Bingham University – a Church-owned university in Karu, in Nigeria’s central Nasarawa State – she decided that she wanted to become a follower of Jesus Christ too. When Nabila learned that Simput Dafup was going to be Jos, Plateau State, over Christmas, she re-connected with him and arranged to meet him there. When Nabila told Simput that she wanted to convert to Christianity, he asked about her family, in particular her father who is a powerful Muslim elder and in traditional title holder in Biu, Borno State. Nabila told Simput that as she was 19-years of age, she was entitled to choose her own religion and would do so regardless of obstacles. But Simput remained concerned, so on Monday 8 January he and Nabila meet with local church leader Pastor Jeremiah Datim. Cognisant of the delicacy of the situation, Pastor Datim decided it was best to follow protocol and contact the Jama’atu Nasril lslam (JNI) to inform them of Nabila’s decision to convert, in the hope they might smooth the way forward. The JNI then contacted Nabila’s parents, after which her father, who has vowed revenge, requested an intervention of the Department of State Security Services (DSS).  

Later that day (8 Jan), DSS officers stormed Pastor Jeremiah Datim’s home, assaulted his wife and children and abducted Nabila. They also violently abducted Simput Dafup from his home, and arrested Daniel Hassan, the taxi driver who had driven Nabila from Abuja to Jos. At a press conference in Jos on Saturday 13 January, Pastor Jeremiah Datim clarified the constitutional issue at the heart of the crisis. ‘I want to state,’ he said, ‘for the avoidance of doubt, that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guarantees the right to anyone to propagate his faith and the right to also practise any religion of one’s choice.’ Simput Dafup’s widowed mother, Lydia then appealed for information on her son’s whereabouts. ‘My son,’ she said, ‘a quiet gentleman per excellence, was on Monday, January 8, 2018, brutalised, tortured and whisked away from his residence in Jos by men we suspect were from the DSS for allegedly converting one Miss Nabila Umar Sanda from Islam to Christianity’.

Despite the fact that no charges had been laid and no arrest warrants issued, the DSS alleges that Nabila had been abducted in Abuja, held captive in Jos and forcibly converted to Christianity. This echoes the ‘Camilia’ myth promulgated by Islamists in Egypt [see: RLPB 082 (17 Nov 2010)].  The accusation comes as the Voice of Northern Christian Movement of Nigeria (VNCMN) is pressuring the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to investigate the abduction of some 100 Christian girls. VNCMN Executive Director, Pastor Kallamu Musa Ali Dikwa explains: ‘Muslims have abducted 100 Christian girls under the age of 18 and forcefully converted them to lslam and we have reported to security agencies severally but no arrest was made or return of Christian girls to their parents . . .’ Thus the whole context mirrors that of Egypt [see: RLPB 398, ‘Bring Back Our Coptic Girls’ (15 March 2017)].

But Nigeria is not Egypt! Nigeria is a democracy with a secular Constitution where Christians comprise at least 51 percent. Tensions are soaring.

DSS IN THE SERVICE OF ISLAM

The DSS operates as a department within the presidency and is under the control of the National Security Advisor. Its mission is to “protect and defend the Federal Republic of Nigeria from domestic threats”. It is also charged with protecting the president and other senior government officials. 

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has slammed the DSS for its intervention in the conversion case and for acting “as some kind of ‘Islamic religious police’.”

The Rights group has specifically asked “that the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) Alhaji Lawal Musa Daura to be restrained by the National Assembly and the Presidency from interfering in a completely civil and religious rights issues relating to an alleged conversion to Christianity of a female university undergraduate [Nabila Sanda] from her former religion which is Islam, same as that of the current DG of DSS.”

The HURIWA called on the National Assembly to call the DG of DSS “to desist from using public offices to promote and canvass the interests of a particular religious group which are direct affronts to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which absolutely prohibits the elevation of one religion as state religion”.

DSS TARGETS JOS PREACHER

On the evening of Monday 15 January, DSS officers stormed the Jos headquarters of Evangelical Bible Outreach Ministries International (EBOMI) and similarly (i.e. violently and without a warrant) attempted to arrest the General Overseer, Pastor Isa El-Buba. However, their efforts were thwarted when church members gathering for a midnight prayer vigil resisted the invasion and forced the officers to retreat.

El-Buba maintains that the order to illegally arrest him came from President Buhari himself after the  government deemed his New Year’s Eve sermon “inciteful”.

In the sermon, which was broadcast nationally, a fired-up El-Buba condemns the Buhari government for its inaction over Fulani terrorism and exhorts Nigerians to get their voter cards and fight back through the polls.

[Nigeria’s presidential, federal and state assembly elections will be held in Feb-March 2019.] 

Youtube footage of the relevant portion of the sermon
 can be found here (5 mins 23 sec).  

This is not the first time El-Buba has challenged the Buhari government and he is certainly not repentant. “I stand by my words,” he said, stressing that the DSS invasion has not left him feeling afraid or intimidated. 

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin brings reproach. I said in my broadcast that the unrighteousness in Nigeria would not do anyone of us any good. And I stand by it.”

Referring to the Fulani terrorism ravaging the Middle Belt – for which he holds the government of Muhammadu Buhari responsible – El-Buba insists the killings must stop. He implores all Nigerians: “Wake up from your sleep and decide your fate,” while making it clear they are to reject violence and obey the law.

Holding up a voter card, he refers to it as the peoples’ weapon with which they can determine their future by voting wickedness out of government.

For this – and despite the fact that no charges had been laid and no arrest warrant issued – the DSS was sent to arrest the fiery preacher.

PRESIDENT PURSUING A PRO-FULANI, ISLAMIST AGENDA

In a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday 16 January, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) publicly condemned the Buhari government, holding it responsible for the gross insecurity plaguing the north. CAN accused President Buhari of serving the interests of ‘his Fulani ethnic group only’ and pursuing an ‘Islamist agenda’.

CAN General Secretary, Rev. Dr. Musa Asake told the media: “The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has reviewed the catalogue of horrendous and inhuman attacks on several states and mostly Benue State from 2013 – 2018. The impression has now been firmly established that the Islamists of northern Nigerian have ‘legalized jihad’ in Nigeria.

“As if the attacks on Benue, Taraba, Kaduna, Plateau, Yobe, Borno, Nasarawa, Enugu, Imo, Abia, Rivers, Ogun and Oyo States are not enough, the Islamists and their agents have extended their trail of blood and destruction to Bwari in Abuja and Ilorin in Kwara State. . .”

Dr. Asake noted that Security Agents routinely do not intervene until the [Fulani] attackers have finished their “horrendous assignment”.

“This pattern,” he said, “suggests collusion of the Security Units with the Islamists militia operating under such names as Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, ‘unknown gunmen’, and ‘group of vandals’. On 17th January, 2017, the Nigerian Air Force ‘accidentally’, in broad daylight, bombed a Christian IDP Camp and killed over 200 Christian refugees in Rann, Kala-Balge Local Government in Borno State. In December 2017, an Air Force spokes person confirmed that the Nigerian Air Force sent an Alpha Jet and an EC 135 attack Helicopter to fire ‘warning’ shots at Islamist militia attacking Christians in Numan, Adamawa state, but not to kill them! The villagers were later to report that the Jet actually bombed the Christian villages resulting in the death of over 50 people, while, the Nigerian Air Force said it merely fired warning shots at the Islamist militia attacking the villagers. This is jihad as we cannot understand fired warning shots in the narrative of this attack.”

Dr. Asake claimed President Buhari had “flagrantly violated the Constitution and adopted Sharia ideology as operational standard.

“Having reviewed the situation in the country, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) wishes to note that some principal entities appear responsible for the current distress in the nation.

“President Buhari was elected on a wave of unprecedented public approval in 2015. Unfortunately, within a few weeks of his election, he started creating the impression that he was in power to serve the interests of his Fulani ethnic group only. Discerning people were quick to note that contrary to his electoral promises, he actually meant to pursue core Islamist agenda. Almost every vital appointment in Security and Education went to Muslims from the North. He did not hide his disdain for the indigenous ethnic nationalities and, at every opportunity, showed preferential treatment to the Muslim North.

Full transcript of CAN statement. 

“Under President Buhari, the murderous Fulani herdsmen enjoyed unprecedented protection and favoritism to the extent that the herdsmen treat Nigeria as a conquered territory. Rather than arrest and prosecute the Fulani herdsmen, security forces usually manned by Muslims from the North offer them protection as they unleash terror with impunity on the Nigerian people. The bottom line is that President Buhari failed woefully to protect Nigerians. He wilfully permitted the Fulani herdsmen to operate killing people, destroying communities wholesale, destroying farmlands and turning the entire Middle Belt into ‘killing fields’, all the while enjoying government protection from counter attack, arrest or prosecution. . .”

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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Advocacy at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF), and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.

She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and, After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).

See www.ElizabethKendal.com

The Kaduna Declaration; Nigeria in the shadow of Biafra

By Elizabeth Kendal

Nigeria is home to "over 520 ethnic groups" (Operation World 2010). The three largest ethnic groups are roughly distributed by geography and defined by religion. Northern Nigeria is dominated by the Hausa-Fulani Muslims, while the south is mostly non-Muslim and predominately Christian, with the Yoruba in west and the Igbo in the east.

THE KADUNA DECLARATION

On Tuesday 6 June, at a press conference in Arewa House, Kaduna (in Nigeria’s volatile Middle Belt), a coalition of sixteen northern youth groups delivered a chilling ultimatum.  As spokesperson for the Coalition of Northern Youths (CNY), Alhaji AbdulAziz Suleiman delivered the terms.

“With the effective date of this [Kaduna Declaration], which is today, Tuesday, June 06, 2017, all Igbos currently residing in any part of Northern Nigeria are hereby served notice to relocate within three months and all northerners residing in the East are advised likewise.”

In a lengthy statement, Suleiman railed against the “ungrateful, uncultured” and “cruel Igbos”, accusing them of exhibiting a “reckless disrespect for the other federating units”. He charged the Igbo (collectively) with having “stained the integrity of the entire nation with their insatiable criminal obsessions”, and insisted they be held “responsible for Nigeria’s cultural and moral degeneracy”. He even claimed that “Igbos masquerade as Fulani herdsmen to commit violent atrocities” from which they reap political gain.

After thoroughly vilifying the Igbo collectively as a people, Suleiman complained that “northern leaders have adopted and have been dragging its people into a pitifully pacifist position in order to sustain an elusive national cohesion that has long been ridiculed by the Igbos.”

He then laid out the solution as proposed by the Coalition of Northern Youth: ethnic cleansing and separation.

“Since the Igbo have clearly abused the unreciprocated hospitality that gave them unrestricted access to, and ownership of landed properties all over the North, our first major move shall be to reclaim, assume and assert sole ownership and control of these landed resources currently owned, rented or in any way enjoyed by the ingrate Igbos in any part of Northern Nigeria.

“Consequently, officials of the signatory groups to this declaration are already mandated to commence immediate inventory of all properties, spaces or activity in the north currently occupied by the Igbos for forfeiture at the expiration of the ultimatum contained in this declaration. In specific terms, the groups are directed to compile and forward an up-to-date data of all locations occupied by any Igbo in any part of Northern Nigeria including schools, markets, shops, workshops, residences and every other activity spaces.

“We are hereby placing the Nigerian authorities and the entire nation on notice that as from the 1st October 2017, we shall commence the implementation of visible actions to prove to the whole world that we are no longer part of any federal union that should do with the Igbos. From that date, effective, peaceful and safe mop-up of all the remnants of the stubborn Igbos that neglect to heed this quit notice shall commence to finally eject them from every part of the North.”

Full statement can be read here:
Biafra: North give Igbos 3 months to leave zone, say they are ungrateful, uncultured
By Amos Tauna, Daily Post (Nigeria), 6 June 2017

NIGERIA IN THE SHADOW OF BIAFRA

On 30 May 1967, Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwa (34) became the first and only leader of the Republic of Biafra. His declaration of Biafran independence from Nigeria is remembered annually by many Nigerians, primarily because of the horrendous civil war which followed it. The Nigerian Civil War – also known as the Biafran War (1967-1970) – claimed the lives of some 100,000 Nigerian military personnel and between 500,000 and two million Igbo civilians, most of whom perished from starvation.

This year, to mark the 50-year anniversary of the outbreak of the Biafran War, pro-secessionist Igbo groups such as BNYL (Biafra Nations Youth League), MASSOB (Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra), IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra) and others, decided to turn up the heat.

Ostensibly to protest (1) the neglect and marginalisation of the Igbo by the government of Muhammadu Buhari (a northern Muslim), and (2) escalating Fulani (northern Muslim) violence and southward territorial expansion (jihad), IPOB issued a “sit-at-home” order for 30 May 2017. The order was of course illegal, as IPOB has no authority to issue such an order. Regardless, in cities and towns throughout the south-east, schools, churches, banks and businesses closed their doors, primarily on account of fear and a desire to avoid retaliation from belligerent, militant IPOB youths.

It must be noted that pro-secessionist IPOB has escalated its rhetoric and its actions over recent years, especially since its leader, Nnamdi Kanu was arrested on charges of treason in October 2015. While many IPOB rallies have turned violent, the response of the Nigerian security forces has been equally so, resulting in many deaths, drawing the ire of human rights groups such as Amnesty International. Kanu was released on bail in April (2017) and is still awaiting trial.

As it turned out, 30 May 2017 passed relatively peacefully. Though some IPOB youths did wreak havoc, seemingly in the hope of triggering a clash with Nigerian military personnel, the state was well prepared. Having secured potential flash-points ahead of time, the military retired to the barracks on the evening of 29 May, leaving local police to handle local incidents.

Unfortunately, that was not to be the end of it. The secessionists rhetoric emanating from pro-secessionists Ibgo youths has inflamed latent ethnic-religious hatreds in northern Hausa-Fulani Muslim youths.

The Coalition of Northern Youths’ 6 June “Kaduna Declaration” – in which Igbo are given until 1 October to quit the north – is but a response, a return volley to the pro-secessionist rhetoric emanating from the Igbo youths in the south-east. Coming as it does in these days of revived fundamentalist Islam and heightened Islamic zeal, the threat must be taken seriously.

screenshot: Most Rev Benjamin Kwashi,
Anglican Archbishop of Jos,
speaks to Global Christian News.

This is indeed an unfolding crisis.

If the situation is not defused; if the youths cannot be contained or reasoned with; and if security is not maintained or preferably tightened, then Nigeria could see an eruption of ethnic-religious violence leading to a new round of ethnic cleansing, culminating in a further entrenchment of hostility and division.

Tensions will doubtless escalate as the anniversaries roll by.

While 30 May marked the 50yr anniversary of the declaration of Biafran independence, 6 July marks the 50yr anniversary of the day the war actually began – the day artillery shells started raining down on Ogoja (10km south of the border with the north) and battalions of mostly northern Muslim forces started advancing on Enugu (the Biafran capital).

And of course the anniversaries will continue rolling by – battles won, battles lost – climaxing in the months between October 2018 and early 2019, when the Ibgo will remember 50yrs since the encirclement and blockade of Biafra. By the end of 1968 Igbo children were perishing at the rate of around one thousand per day on account of the decision by the Nigerian government to use starvation as a weapon of mass destruction against its own people. Most critically, the Igbo will be remembering this famine just as Nigeria heads into its next General Election, slated for February 2019.

If Nigeria manages to get through the next two years without massive bloodletting, it will be nothing short of a miracle.

Ethnic-religious cleansing not unprecedented

The Coalition of Northern Youths has given the Igbo until 1 October to quit the north. After that, northern youths will “commence the implementation” of actions to reclaim lands and properties and “mop-up” the remnants of the “stubborn Igbos” that have neglected to heed the quit notice, “to finally eject them from every part of the North.”

How likely is this scenario? 

Across Nigeria, senior community leaders are scrambling to douse the flames. Unlike the belligerent youths of the east and north, these senior leaders are old enough to have lived through the Nigerian Civil War. Driven by their nightmares, they are eager to do all in their power to avert a new outbreak of hostilities. Many are calling for dialogue to address fundamental issues such as injustice, corruption and marginalisation; as well as Boko Haram and the issue of Fulani banditry and southward territorial expansion (jihad).

In the East, MASSOB leader Ralph Uwazuruike has distanced his group from Kanu’s IPOB. He insists that pro-Biafra groups have no interest secessionist conflict. “Self-determination without violence is a fundamental right,” he said. “We must strive against sowing the seeds of discord but do all that will promote peace and justice.” On Monday 12 June, Uwazuruike travelled to Kaduna in an effort to advance peace.

In the North, Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai has ordered the arrest of all signatories to the Kaduna Declaration. Critically, on Wednesday 7 June, the governors of 19 northern Nigerian states met in Maiduguri, Borno, to publically denounce the Kaduna Declaration.  Premium Times reports: “The governors said they are in touch with heads of their security agencies and have taken measures that will guarantee the rights of all Nigerians to live in the 19 states in the three geo-political zones within the north.” Hopefully their rhetoric will translate into action.

While a return to civil war is highly unlikely, the threat posed to over a million mostly Christian Igbo living and working in the Muslim north cannot be overstated.

As the CNY deadline of 1 October approaches, the Igbo will also be remembering the massacres of 1966. On 29 May 1966 more than 3,000 Igbo were slaughtered in various northern cities, including Kaduna, Kano and Jos, in Islamic pogroms incited by the clerics and organised in the mosques.

Resenting Igbo success, the northern Muslims feared the more educated Igbo might one day come to dominate Nigeria. Then, after the 29 July 1966 Hausa-led military coup, a campaign of ethnic cleansing was unleashed across the north. Some 30,000 Igbo were killed as more than 1.3 million fled. The mass exodus of Igbo from the north resulted in a humanitarian crisis in the east as the east sought to adsorb this flood of displaced and traumatised humanity.

The massacres and ethnic cleansing of 1966 convinced the Igbo that the Muslim Hausa-Fulani would never tolerate the existence in their midst of the now-successful Igbo – i.e. an infidel people who the northerners had previously only ever viewed as savages fit only to be kept as slaves. This was also the reason why the war lasted as long as it did; for the Igbo were convinced that defeat would culminate in genocide. As it turned out, everyone was simply too exhausted for that.

Now (2017) as then (1967), the likelihood of an independent Biafra being realised is zero – after all, Nigeria’s oil (discovered in 1956) lies predominantly in the Delta region.

Today – 50yrs on from the pogroms of 1966 and the war of 1967-1970 – in these days of Islamic revival and heightened Islamic fundamentalist zeal; in these days when Islamists seem to have access to bottomless pit of career transnational jihadis and terror-funding to draw on, the question that needs to be answered is this: can Nigeria’s “Wahhabised” northern youths be contained?


---------------------------------------------

Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She serves as Director of Advocacy at Canberra-based Christian Faith and Freedom (CFF), and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.

She has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and, After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016).

See www.ElizabethKendal.com 

Nigeria: A Shroud of Horror Descends over Chibok

By Elizabeth Kendal

At 11pm on the night of Sunday 13 April, Boko Haram militants invaded the Christian enclave of Chibok in the south of Borno State, in north-eastern Nigeria. The attack, which lasted until 4am on the Monday morning, culminated in the abduction of around 270 girls who had been boarding at the local Government Girls Secondary School. [For background see Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 257, 22 April 2014.]

Now a spate of suicide bombings in which the all bombers have been teenage girls has caused a shroud of horror to descend upon the mothers and fathers of the Chibok abductees, who are left to wonder, "Could these be our girls?"

Bombings

Sunday 27 July: KANO (one girl)
A girl estimated to be 15-years of age, blew herself up near a temporary university site. It is alleged she was targeting police; however she killed no-one but herself.

Monday 28 July: KANO (two girls)
A teenage girl joined a queue of women buying kerosene at the petrol station before blowing herself up, killing herself and three others and wounding six. Hours later a girl estimated to be 18-yrs of age blew herself up in a trade show / shopping mall, killing no-one but herself.

Tuesday 29 July: YOBE (two girls)
Two girls entered two mosques in the town of Potiskum, killing thirteen worshippers.

Tuesday 29 July: KATSINA (girl arrested)
Police arrested three suspects, believed to be members of Boko Haram; one of the three was a ten-year-old girl with explosives strapped to her body.

Wednesday 30 July: KANO (one girl)
A teenage girl blew herself up at the Kano Polytechnic, killing six and critically wounding six others. The victims were all students who had gathered to collect their call-up letters for the National Youth Service Corps.

Previously, on 25 June, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a bombing in Lagos which was also carried out by a female suicide bomber.

New Trend

Nigerians spoken to by Nigerian Tribune wondered why Boko Haram might be using teenage girls as suicide bombers. Some posed the question, "How can we be sure they are not the Chibok girls kidnapped so long ago?"

Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili tweeted: “this new trend and serial pattern of female suicide bombers surely should particularly worry us. It worries me stiff because of our Chibok girls. Kano again and again. Female suicide bombers again and again - becoming trend. Our Chibok girls still in the enemy den. Are we thinking? Our Chibok girls really need to be rescued from the clutches of evil. We must all not stop praying and demanding that the Federal Government acts for results. We have no apology for being agitated. We have nothing to defend for crying out for their rescue.”

A human rights group has called on the Federal Government to conduct comprehensive forensic test of the corpses of the dead bombers so as to ascertain their identities.

"This," the group told the Tribune, "was to disabuse the minds of observers already insinuating that the female bombers may be from the kidnapped schoolgirls, who might have been hypnotised." Others have expressed fears that the Chibok girls might have been "indoctrinated or coerced" to become suicide bombers.

The fact is, the girls would not need to be hypnotised or indoctrinated. Their captors would only need to assure the girls that there is no escape, and, that if they fail to do as they are told then their mothers and sisters will be raped and their fathers and brothers will be killed. That would be enough to make a young girl kill herself. Islamic militants around the world have been exploiting young girls like this for years. The fact that some girls managed to kill only themselves could indicate that they might actually have been trying quite hard to not kill anyone.

Political blogger Japheth Omojuwa decried the use of young girls as suicide bombers and questioned whether Boko Haram might have simply found a way to save their men for combat.

The Federal Government attempted to douse anxiety on Wednesday by denying, without evidence, that the suicide bombers had anything to do with the Chibok girls. But not everyone is convinced.

As it turns out, the 10-year-old girl arrested strapped with explosives in Katsina State on 29 July, was a Muslim child in the company of her Muslim sister (aged 18) and a male. Personally, I suspect this case is a separate case, unrelated to the others.

The identities of the dead girls must be ascertained by expert forensic testing as soon as possible.

Regardless of who the dead girls were, they were still young girls.

That Islamic fundamentalist militants are willing to use young girls as bombs and human shields only proves that their ideology is not merely morally vacuous, but profoundly evil.

------------------------------------------------------------

Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today 
(Deror Books, Dec 2012).

US State Department fails to designate Boko Haram as FTO (plus UPDATE - Nov 2013)

UPDATE November 2013
US bows to pressure and designates Boko Haram, Ansaru as terror groups
14 Nov 2013

THE US has designated Nigeria's radical Islamist Boko Haram network and an offshoot known as Ansaru as terror groups, bowing to months of pressure to act.

. . . "By cutting these terrorist organisations off from US financial institutions and enabling banks to freeze assets held in the United States, these designations demonstrate our strong support for Nigeria's fight against terrorism and its efforts to address security challenges in the north," White House homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco said.

Nigeria welcomed the decision and hoped that the US would step up intelligence cooperation. . .

Representative Chris Smith, who chaired a hearing Wednesday on Boko Haram, welcomed the designation which US lawmakers have long sought.

"What these murderers have brought to Nigeria and surrounding countries is misery and death with no redeeming outcome," he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------

June 2012: US State Department

-- maintains socio-economic grievance is to blame for terror;
-- prescribes economic development as remedy.

By Elizabeth Kendal

On Thursday 21 June, the U.S. State Department designated three Nigerians as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). All three are senior leaders of Boko Haram with known links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM): Abubakar Shekau (Boko Haram's most visible leader), Abubakar Adam Kambar and Khalid al-Barnawi.

According to a statement by the State Department, the designation under Executive Order 13224, "blocks all of Shekau’s, Kambar’s and al-Barnawi’s property interests subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with or for the benefit of these individuals."

However, the State Department resisted calls to designate Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO). This is despite the fact that Boko Haram is a foreign organisation that engages in terrorist activity and maintains ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Shabaab in Somalia -- two groups that have been designated FTOs. Morgan Lorraine Roach, Research Associate with the Heritage Foundation, maintains that Boko Haram does meet FTO requirements and warns that it would be a mistake for the US to consider itself immune from attack.

See also, Boko Haram: Obama Fails to Designate Nigerian Sect a Terrorist Organization
By Morgan Lorraine Roach, 22 June 2012

The State Department's failure to designate Boko Haram an FTO generated some controversy.  The matter was discussed on Tuesday 10 July, at a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights.

U.S Policy Toward Nigeria: West Africa's Troubled Titan
10 July 2012, Chaired by Christopher Smith (R-NJ)
Transcripts of witness testimonies can be downloaded from this site.

In his opening remarks, Chairman Christopher Smith (R-NJ) condemned Boko Haram's attacks as "unprovoked and unconscionable".  Smith reminded the hearing that "Boko Haram reportedly is in league with al-Qaeda in the Mahgreb and is involved at some level with Tuareg rebels in northern Mali, Islamists in Somalia and possibly even the Taliban in Afghanistan."

Consequently, the question from Smith and committee member Mr Turner, was why? Why is the State Department blocking the designation of Boko Haram as an FTO?

It appears that the US State department has resisted calls from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to designate Boko Haram as a FTO on the grounds that the State Department believes Boko Haram is not monolithic and that only a small faction within Boko Haram (albeit its leadership) has any interest in international terrorism. The larger faction, so the State Department's theory goes, is "moderate".

Furthermore, because the US State Department appears to believe that the root cause of instability in Northern Nigeria is socio-economic hardship and not Islamic fundamentalist political ideology, the State Department prescribes aid and economic development as the remedy. 

Ambassador Johnnie Carson, the US Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State, testified that, "Boko Haram thrives because of social and economic problems in the north that the government must also address. A coordinated government effort to provide responsible, accountable governance to all Nigerians, while creating opportunities for economic growth, will diminish the political space in which Boko Haram operates."

Earl Gast, the Assistant Administrator for Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development, drew the same conclusions as Carson. "Consistent with the U.S. Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa, USAID's development activities target the root causes of the popular frustration with the Government of Nigeria that stokes instability in the North, Middle Belt and Niger Delta regions: poor governance, insufficient respect for human and civil rights, inadequate delivery of basic services, and a lack of economic opportunity, particularly for young Nigerians. . .

"Each of these efforts [aimed at advancing economic development] contributes to Nigeria’s development and mitigate the root causes of instability. . ."

According to Gast, Nigeria's political leadership can mitigate the root causes of instability by pursuing "reforms that will create a large, educated middle-income country, while holding itself accountable to engage and serve politically, socially, and economically marginalized populations."

Like Carson, Gast does not see Islamic fundamentalist political ideology, or even the southward migration of the Muslim Fulani, as an issue in, let alone a root cause of, the north's insecurity and instability. In fact, in both Carson's and Gast's testimonies, a word search for "Islam" reaps zero results / no matches.

During question time, Representative Smith questioned why Boko Haram's leaders were designated as SDGTs, while Boko Haram (the organisation) was not designated an FTO. Smith noted that Boko Haram is, at its core, pushing a radical Islamic position, seeking to impose Sharia law and promoting radical Islam.

In response, Carson reiterated the State Department's position, maintaining that Boko Haram is not monolithic or homogenous, and for the large part, it is only killing Nigerians and only for domestic reasons: i.e. to discredit the Nigerian government. "The phenomenon of Boko Haram is one of discrediting the central government in power, for its failure to deliver services to the people", he said. "As long as social economic conditions exist in the north to the extent that they do now, there will be a reaction . . ."

Chairman Christopher Smith lampooned the State Department for paying lip service to the insurgency in Nigeria.  He also flatly rejected any assertion that terrorism is caused by social and economic problems, telling Ambassador Carson, "It is all too convenient to suggest that somehow, just because there are depravations" that poverty is to blame. "Ideology that is highly, highly radicalized may exploit poverty at times, but poor people do not necessarily become terrorists and killers. That is an insult, frankly, to poor people,"

Smith lamented that the State Department seems to grossly underestimate the threat of militant Islamists who seek to impose Islamic Sharia law, and under-appreciate the radical Islamic fervour that drives Islamists to kill for Sharia.

See: US Congressional Panel Examines Boko Haram Violence in Nigeria
By Cindy Saine, Voice of America, 10 July 2012

Also invited to give testimony to the subcommittee was Darren Kew, Ph.D, Associate Professor, McCormack Graduate School, University of Massachusetts Boston. Kew's analysis echoed that of Carson's and Gast's, but went much further.

With his opening words -- "The recent escalation of violence between Nigeria's Muslim and Christian communities is not a single conflict between the two great religions" -- Kew set the stage for an exercise in politically correct moral equivalence. As it turned out, it was worse than that.

MUSLIMS TURNING TO CHRIST

Kew maintained that the context of Northern Nigeria's sectarian violence was Nigeria's "dramatic demographic shift in [the] number of Christians over the last 20 years. Heavy Christian proselytising in the minority-dominated regions of the 'Middle Belt', in the northeast, and in the far Northern regions of the country has won numerous converts in these areas, fuelling resentment amongst some members of the Muslim communities. . ." He added that that while some fringe Muslim groups do engage in proselytising, their success is limited.

Ignoring the reality that apostates are severely persecuted and even killed, Kew maintained that ethnic minority Muslim are converting to Christianity in pursuit of political power.

Contradicting Carson's and Gast's testimonies, that the April 2011 elections were Nigeria's "most credible national election since it returned to democratic rule" (Carson) and "freer and less violent than any since Nigeria's return to democracy in 1999" (Gast), Kew implied that the April 2011 election provided legitimate grounds for northern grievance. Kew aired failed presidential candidate General Buhari's claim that he (a northern Muslim) only lost because the poll was rigged, without providing any evidence in support of the claim.

Kew claimed that the militarisation of the Middle Belt is a cause rather than a consequence of sectarian conflict. Furthermore, he made constant reference to "Christian militias", without ever actually naming one.

Incredibly, Kew asserted that "pastoralist-farmer conflicts" occur where "predominantly Christian farmers have moved into traditional grazing lands for Muslim herders". In reality, the exact opposite is the case: desertification has driven the Fulani Muslim nomadic cattle herders south where they end up trespassing on and frequently destroying "indigene" predominantly Christian-owned agricultural lands. The southward migration of the Fulani is a reality and a problem felt right across the ethnic-religious fault-line, not merely in Nigeria.

Contradicting Boko Haram's claims about itself, Kew maintained that Boko Haram is not really interested in Christians, but is only targeting churches in a tactical ploy to "situate itself as the Islamic alternative to the corrupt status quo".

Echoing Carson's and the State Department's hypothesis, Kew claimed that there are hardline Boko Haram and "moderate" Boko Haram -- as if imposition of Sharia Law was a moderate proposition. He also recommended that while Boko Haram "currently holds the military initiative" (his opinion) it should build alliances and create a political movement "or some form of parallel party with which it is affiliated or which seeks to capture its message".

He recommended that the US take a "subtle approach" towards Boko Haram, isolating its "hardliners" while strengthening its "moderates".

A Nigerian Perspective

Standing in stark contrast, was the testimony of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). An eye witness, with first-hand experience and historical understanding, his statement is essential reading.

"Nigeria," said Oritsejafor, "is not a country divided by North and South, but a country divided between those who support freedom and equality in the eyes of the law, and those who promote persecution and violence as a means to an end.

"To an outside observer it may appear as though Boko Haram is not a monolithic group; that it is fragmented and disorganized, but I am here today to give you the Nigerian perspective. Since its creation, the Boko Haram network has never hidden its agenda or intentions. Boko Haram has openly stated that they reject the Nigerian State and its Constitution and seek to impose Shari'ah Law. To this end, Boko Haram has waged a systematic campaign of terror and violence. They seek an end to western influence and a removal of the Christian presence in Nigeria.

"This is outright terrorism, not legitimate political activity or the airing of grievances. By refusing to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization, the United States is sending a very clear message, not just to the Federal Government of Nigeria, but to the world – that the murder of innocent Christians, and Muslims who reject Islamism, and I make a clear distinction here between Islam and Islamism, are acceptable losses. It is hypocritical for the United States and the international community to say that they believe in freedom and equality, when their actions do not support those who are being persecuted. . .

"In Nigeria, my people are dying every single day, and it is only a matter of time before the international terrorist links and anti-democratic Islamist agenda of Boko Haram turns its attention to the United States. In fact, this may already be a reality, in April of 2012 the NYPD learned that a U.S. resident living on the East Coast had sent surveillance, including maps and photographs of lower Manhattan and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels to an alleged member of Boko Haram based in Nigeria. . .

"We too, want to have freedom, freedom of religion, freedom to worship as we choose without fear, we want to have justice, based in equality and not driven by discriminatory religious practices. Let me remind us that this is not about economics but about an ideology that has a history of sponsoring genocide across the globe. . ."

SEE ALSO: Report says killings in Nigeria next to Bosnian war
12 July 2012 The Guardian (Nigeria)
U.S. claims limited understanding of Boko Haram
Oritsejafor accuses Obama of hypocrisy

-----------------------

For more on the relationship between economics and human rights, see:
Economics and Human Rights,
Religious Liberty Monitoring, 21 July 2012

For information on the most recent violence in Nigeria see:
Nigeria: terror in Plateau state
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin 168, 18 July 2012

Economics and human rights. Incl. "How is it possible?" by Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang (June 2004)

Boko Haram, the al Qaeda-link terrorist organisation that is traumatising Nigeria, has always been open about its Islamic agenda. The US administration, however, believes it knows better than the terrorists why terrorism happens. Refusing to take Boko Haram at its word, the US administration of President Obama insists that the root cause of Boko Haram terror is not Islamic fundamentalist political ideology, but frustration and grievance over poor living standards. The prescribed remedy, therefore, is socio-economic development.

See: U.S. State Department fails to designate Boko Haram as FTO
Religious Liberty Monitoring, 21 July 2012

Surely the hypothesis that improved living standards lead ipso facto to improved security and human rights has been tested long enough and proved false. Surely such thinking is both naive and a denial of reality.

As a supplement to the above Nigeria posting, I am republishing a piece written in June 2004 by persecuted Vietnamese Mennonite pastor Reverend Nguyen Hong Quang.

The full text of that WEA RLC News & Analysis posting (missing from my blog due to oversight) is available here (ASSIST).  It includes a report on the 8 June 2004 arrest of the Reverend Nguyen Hong Quang, the General Secretary of the Vietnam Mennonite Church; and a translation of a letter dated 21 May 2004 from the leaders of the Vietnam Mennonite Church to the Mennonite World Conference detailing the severe and ongoing persecution in Dong Nai Province.

As noted in that posting, one Western diplomat, when presented with information describing the violent persecution in Dong Nai, responded in virtual disbelief with the question, "How is it possible that a province which is growing economically and which enjoys a lot of foreign investment, and whose standard of living is rising, is not also advancing human rights but is on the contrary is said to be persecuting Christians?"

The June 2004 WEA RLC News & Analysis posting also includes Rev Quang's response to that question. It is a response that is worth republishing today, for it strikes at the West's false yet intransigent belief that human rights are achieved through economic development and modernisation, rather than by challenging the way people think / what people believe.

--------------------------------------------------
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?
By the Reverend Nguyen Hong Quang
(June 2004, full text)

"How is it possible?"  These are the words of a ranking foreign diplomat of a Western country when he heard the story of what happened in Dong Nai [in April-May 2004] and the various ways that Christians were oppressed.  This diplomat, who in many ways supports the bilateral relationship between our two countries and supports the development of Vietnam, was so sceptical that he blurted out, "How is it possible that a province which is growing economically and which enjoys a lot of foreign investment, and whose standard of living is rising, is not also advancing human rights but is on the contrary is said to be persecuting Christians?"

Confronted with such views and ideas from the diplomat, I was at once angry and sad.  I was angry because the people responsible for causing these events "live above the law" and have a low view of our citizens and of humanity in general in the 21st Century.  They do not value human beings, they violate the basic rights of people - the human rights that have been the desire of people for ages - and they have the power to deny the natural aspirations for freedom of the citizens of Vietnam.

I was sad because this country has heard too many politicians say we should serve the high calling of "freedom, democracy and independence", while hundreds of thousands of human beings have fallen in our homeland. At this time many suffer great hardships, even for simply trying to exercise the minimum right of "gathering to worship the Almighty" and are savagely beaten.  The world has been exploding with social aspirations and advanced technology. Huge changes are taking place all over, affecting many governments like a strong whirlwind, bringing some of them to an end.  The choice seems to be "develop, change and survive" or "disintegrate and fade away."

How is it possible?  Is it possible that the extreme confusion of the diplomat, when faced with the fact of this repression, is evidence that he does not want to admit such things happen?  His diplomatic work is to wholeheartedly foster relationships so that his country will understand and support Vietnam.  The diplomat seems to believe in the philosophy that says "Develop the economy and raise the standard of living, and the valuing of human rights and freedoms will inevitably follow."

He has his beliefs, and I have my belief that the Bible's teaching is accurate when it speaks on principles governing humanity. Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

If a country honours and places a higher value on things spiritual (as the Kingdom of God, righteousness, etc.) than on material matter and economics, then that country will enjoy peace, stability and development.  Compare the countries that respect the Creator and respect human rights, with countries which denigrate the Creator and trample on human rights. You will see clearly that those which respect the Creator and honour human rights are blessed, and those which disdain the Creator and flaunt human rights seem to be cursed. The difference between South and North Korea is a stark example. The South has a large section of the population that worships the Creator and the country respects human rights, while the North completely puts down the Creator and tramples on human rights is in an incredibly desperate condition.  (The two Germanys formerly and the two Koreas today are clear and concrete examples.)

The Bible teaches in Genesis that in the beginning was God and that the world, the atmosphere, plants, animals, people and other things were created later. To raise the creation higher than the Creator is contrary to the Bible, as is putting material things ahead of the freedom to worship, to enjoy authentic human dignity and democracy and other human rights.

If an evil person is very rich but lives an openly debauched life, then the morality of all society will suffer and a dictator who has in his hands the means, the authority and the power, will use them to strangle freedom, democracy, and faith and morality.

The bankrupt policy of promoting economic development ahead of the values of freedom, democracy and human rights, though it seems to have the advantage in the beginning of winning outside favour, is contrary to the laws of the Creator and so how can it be supported? We have had nearly two decades of so-called "renovation", and a decade without the US embargo, but the situation of human rights and religious freedom for us Vietnamese has gone nowhere.  Ask the Christians in Dong Nai.

So the prioritizing of what "seems right to man"-- that is putting a priority on promoting economic development and ties -- has worked out precisely contrary to the hopes and desires of the diplomacy of countries which enjoy democracy.

Evangelists Ms. Pham Thi Kim Huong, Ms. Trinh Thi Kim Phuong, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Trung, and Mr. Dang Dang Khoa are servants of the Lord who had their house of worship smashed. Then were cuffed and dragged away in front of their flock and before the villagers by Dong Nai security police and government officials on May 2, 2004. They were treated as criminals and thrown into a stinking vehicle used to transport pigs.  The humiliation which the Mennonite pastors, evangelists in Dong Nai had to endure was a great disgrace, but they bravely endured with dignity.

How many times have the faithful been trampled on in Dong Nai? Only the perpetrators know, but nothing is hidden from God - not one of the evil acts in Dong Nai province.

As for the diplomat, he may continue to ask incredulously, "How is it possible?" in reference to our struggle for religious freedom, and the efforts of our government which has recently cranked up its positive announcements and propaganda efforts whilst in actual practice continues it's dirty deeds in Dong Nai. Dong Nai province has given the diplomat a clear answer with its unreasonable and steady harassment and persecution of the believers continuously from Easter until now.  And this is but one small example of a widespread reality.

As a citizen of Vietnam I have a question.  "How is it possible that the government machinery in Dong Nai Province is unaware that it has broken the law according to Article 129 of the Criminal Code of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam?"  Local officials continue to deny the right of assembly and the right to worship God, giving orders to suppress Christianity, as has just happened again.  How is it possible that government officials in Dong Nai continue to treat Christianity as an enemy and no one takes any action at all?

Respectfully,
Rev. Nguyen Hong Quang
(June 2004)

Nigeria: the Boko Haram threat

By Elizabeth Kendal
Religious Liberty Monitoring

-- Al-Qaeda supports Boko Haram expansion
-- The Abuja bombing
-- The threat to the Church
-- Terror campaign slated for end-of-July anniversary

[For an UPDATE to this post see Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin 116. Nigeria: Boko Haram Strikes.]

Boko Haram, also known as Jamaatul Alissunna lid da a wa wal jihad and the "Nigerian Taliban", was founded in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's most north-eastern state of Borno, in 2002 by a religious teacher named Mohammed Yusuf.

The name Boko Haram comes from the Hausa word boko, which means animist, Western or simply un-Islamic education and culture, and the Arabic word haram, which means forbidden.

For Boko Haram, boko is fitna: i.e. something that can shake the faith of Muslims and lead to apostasy. For this reason, boko must be haram.

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On Sunday 26 July 2009, around 150 armed Boko Haram militants attacked a police station in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, in retaliation for the arrest of one of its leaders. After slitting the throat of a policeman on guard, they went on a rampage, torching homes and vehicles owned by police to cries of "Allahu Akbar". They also attacked Maiduguri New Prisons where they killed the two gate wardens before breaking open the gates and liberating the prisoners. As Nigerian security forces counter-attacked, the conflict escalated and spread.

On Tuesday 28 July 2009, Nigerian security forces besieged and shelled the home of Boko Haram leader, Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf, where dozens of militants had congregated. They also stormed a local mosque known as a Boko Haram stronghold, spraying it with gunfire. According to the Red Cross, when the fighting was over, some 780 bodies were gathered up off the streets of Maiduguri for burial in mass graves.

By Thursday 30 July 09, Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf was in custody after being arrested at his in-law's house. By Friday 31 July 09, Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf was dead.

On 9 August 2009, Boko Haram issued a statement in which they pronounced "Mallam Yusuf" a martyr, along with "over 1000 of our [martyred] members killed by the wicked Nigerian army and police mostly of Southern Nigeria extraction". Furthermore, they declared that they had "started a Jihad in Nigeria". Declaring their intention to render the country ungovernable, they warned that Nigeria would be Islamised by force.

AL-QAEDA SUPPORTS BOKO HARAM EXPANSION

In mid June 2010, Boko Haram formalised its links with al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Furthermore, adds terrorism analyst Yossef Bodansky, AQIM is receiving aid and intelligence from Sudan and Iran "who are operating jointly in the Sahel" (Strategic Policy 8, 2010).

According to Bodansky, AQIM leader Abu Mousab Abdel Wadoud has pledged that the international jihadist movement will assist Boko Haram with weapons and training to enable al-Qaeda to gain "strategic depth" in sub-Saharan Africa and the solid foothold in Nigeria required for operations in West Africa. Bodansky warned (Aug 2010) that the AQIM link could lead to the emergence of "spectacular terrorism" al-Qaeda-style -- such as suicide-bombings -- hitherto unknown in Nigeria.

THE ABUJA BOMBING

On Monday 13 June 2011, in response to overtures from the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, Boko Haram laid down its preconditions for dialogue. In a letter made available to newsmen in Maiduguri, Boko Haram unapologetically demanded that before any dialogue with the government could take place, Sharia Law must be implemented across Northern Nigeria where Muslims form a majority, and the security officials implicated in the 31 July 2009 death in custody of Boko Haram leader, Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf, must be prosecuted.

On Tuesday 14 June, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Hafiz Ringim -- who was in Maiduguri to officially receive the donation of 10 Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) and 10 Toyota Hilux vehicles donated to the police by the state government -- warned Boko Haram members that their days were numbered. He boasted that the police were now poised to wipe them out, adding, "No stone will be left unturned, until the menace of Boko Haram is unravelled."

Boko Haram responded with defiance: "Very soon, we would wage Jihad on the enemies of God and his messenger," they threatened. "We want to make it known that our Jihadists (warriors) have arrived [in] Nigeria from Somalia where they got serious training on warfare from our brethren who made the country ungovernable and forced the interim government to relocate to Kenya.

"We want to assure all security agencies that we would frustrate their efforts. By the grace of God, despite the armoured carriers that they are boasting of, they are no match with the training we acquired in Somalia".

While in Maiduguri, the Inspector General of Police, Hafiz Abubakar Ringim, met with a man -- possibly someone offering himself as an informant. That man then joined the motor convoy that travelled back to Police Headquarters in Abuja on Thursday 16 July. Fortunately, as he tried to follow Ringim's car in through the main security perimeter, he was stopped by attendants who directed him to an adjacent car park. It was there that he detonated his explosives killing eight, wounding dozens and destroying 77 vehicles. Had he been permitted to follow the Inspector General's car into the central parking bay, many more people would have been killed.

Boko Harman wasted no time in claiming responsibility: "We are responsible for the bomb attack on the police headquarters in Abuja which was to prove a point to all who doubt our capability."

By attacking Louis Edet House, headquarters of the Nigerian Police, Boko Haram has indeed declared war on the government of Nigeria.

THREAT TO THE CHURCH

While Boko Haram has been busy assassinating police, MPs and traditional leaders; and bombing beer gardens, markets and police stations; it has also been busy terrorising Christians, killing pastors and bombing churches.

As reported in Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 088 (29 Dec 2010), on Christmas Eve 2010, Boko Haram militants perpetrated almost simultaneous attacks on two churches in Maiduguri. Three militants armed with guns and petrol bombs attacked the Sinimari Church of Christ in Nigeria, riddling the walls with bullet holes and killing the security guard, while some 30 jihadists descended on Victory Baptist Church on the other side of the city. Shouting "Allahu Akbar", they dragged out and executed Rev. Bulus Marwa (37) and shot dead Christopher Balami (50), Philip Luka (22), Paul Mathew (21) and Yohanna Adamu (26). Twenty-five other worshippers were wounded as the jihadists razed the church to the ground.

On the night of Saturday 1 January 2011, about 10 jihadists stormed the Victory Christ Church at Gawo Mai Lamba in London Cinki area of Maiduguri and set the church on fire, destroying part of the building. Fortunately no-one was killed.

On Tuesday 7 June, Rev. David Usman and the assistant secretary of his church were shot dead in their church -- Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) in Maiduguri -- by gunmen suspected to be members of Boko Haram. The gunmen reportedly arrived on motorcycles as the church was concluding a meeting. They shot the assistant secretary and ordered that someone phone and inform the pastor. Rev. David Usman ran to the church unaware that he was running into a trap. As he arrived, the pastor was gunned down by the waiting gunmen.

A Bomb-scare at a Maiduguri church on Sunday 26 June reveals the level of danger Christians face, confirming that security cannot be relaxed, not for a moment. The plot only failed because police, already on high alert, are maintaining rigorous security protocols.

A security officer at Maiduguri's already twice bombed Saint Patrick Catholic Church told James Bwala (reporting from Maiduguri for the Nigerian Tribune): "The stop and search became necessary following the recovery of some explosives in the bag of a female worshiper in one of the churches in town. The lady had on the fateful day asked her mother and siblings not to go to church for no convincing reason, but luck ran out on her when the curious mother called the attention of some church officials alongside security operatives, who quickly intercepted the lady and her co-evil plotters at the car park of the church."

Major General Jack Nwaogbo, the Commander of the Joint Task Force, confirmed that on Sunday 26 June, security operatives picked up two people "who pretended to be going to church to be converted but were discovered to have a different motive". Both remain under arrest.

BOKO HARAM THREATENS END-OF-JULY ANNIVERSARY TERROR

The Abuja suicide bombing and the bomb plots targetting the Church come in the context of Boko Haram's threat to mark the 31 July anniversary of Mohammed Yusuf's death in a "big way".

On Saturday 9 July 2011, the Saturday Tribune reported that sources close to the administration have confirmed to them that more than 100 trainee-jihadists have returned from Sudan and Somalia ready to be deployed in a massive terror campaign timed to commemorate the 26-31 July 2009 crisis, in particular the 31 July 09 death in custody of Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf. The trainee-jihadists have reportedly each received three-months training under the supervision of al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Government sources confirmed to the Saturday Tribune that the attacks are being planned for a number of states including Borno, Katsina, Kaduna and Yobe.

Sources told the Tribune, "The operations of this sect [are] getting deeper than many people know. The international dimensions are overwhelming."

According to the Tribune, there is an exodus underway out of Maiduguri, with many people selling their homes and farms for a pittance.

On Wednesday 6 July 2011, Borno Governor Ali Modu Sheriff took steps towards appeasement and issued an apology to Boko Haram over his role in the brutal military crackdown on the radical Islamist sect.

In an advertorial published in local newspapers, Ali Modu Sheriff grovelled: "I wish to publicly tender my apology to the Jama’atul Ahliss-Sunnah Ladda’awaiti Wal Jihad and any other group I might have offended in the course of discharging my duties as the Executive Governor of Borno State. It is human to err and divine to forgive."

But in a subsequent statement issued by Boko Haram spokesman Abu Zaid, the group said would only accept Governor Ali Modu Sheriff's apology if he was to dissociate himself from "anti-Islamic activities".

With that, Ali Modu Sheriff resigned from office and fled the city.

Sheriff was not the only governor to be "grovelling" to Boko Haram. Gombe State Governor, Danjuma Goje, also apologised, as did Bauchi State Governor, Isa Yuguda. The central government has done its share of grovelling too, for in line with one of Boko Haram's preconditions for dialogue, the police implicated in the 31 July 09 death in custody of Mohammed Yusuf have been indicted to face "terrorism" charges.

Concerning Boko Haram's threat for an end-of-July anniversary terror campaign, the Saturday Tribune reports: "The sect members warned all Muslims to stay away from Christians, security agents, government institutions and functions or face death, maintaining that, 'since the present Federal Government is not Islamic, every [one] of its employees is considered an infidel marked for elimination'." (emphasis mine)

The group concluded their lengthy statement on a confident note: "We are not in doubt that we are going to win this war. So far, we have an upper hand. Even if it means bringing external forces, we will fight to win. History has shown that when you are fighting in the cause of Allah, there will be a divine intervention . . ."

After asserting that their cause is "purely religious", Boko Haram warns Muslims not to hinder or undermine their activities lest the jihadists find it necessary to turn on them also.

It is ironic that after declaring that all infidels are marked for elimination; and after warning Muslims that the consequence of dissent will be death, Boko Haram sect leader, Muhammadu Abubakar Shekau, posted a statement to the internet in which he claimed that Boko Haram was fighting for "freedom of worship and assembly".

Unsurprisingly that freedom was immediately qualified and defined as freedom "for everybody to believe in Allah . . . jettison modern democracy and embrace Islam as their religion".

Essentially Boko Haram is pursuing an Islamic freedom -- i.e. freedom from fitna (anything that could shake the faith of a Muslim) -- a freedom that is essentially no freedom at all.