Bishop of Truro, extremism and religious persecution in Nigeria

Last week, I attended a workshop at Wilton Part in Sussex on the theme of fostering social cohesion in Nigeria. It was organized by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The workshop title is framed rather diplomatically as the focus of discussions was the Bishop of Truro’s 2019 independent review into the UK Foreign and Commonwealth […]

Last week, I attended a workshop at Wilton Part in Sussex on the theme of fostering social cohesion in Nigeria. It was organized by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The workshop title is framed rather diplomatically as the focus of discussions was the Bishop of Truro’s 2019 independent review into the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s work to support persecuted Christians in Nigeria and globally. The assumption is that Nigeria’s multiple and complex security challenges including Islamist violence in the North East, worsening violent criminality and insecurity in the North West and ethno-religious violence, and farmer-herder conflict across large parts of central Nigeria are all directed at targeting Christians for persecution. For a country with a highly religiously observant population that is roughly divided between the two main established religions of Islam and Christianity, you cannot have a theme as weighty as this.

The report says there is widespread evidence showing that today, Christians constitute by far the most widely persecuted religion. They cite the Pew Research Center report that in 2016 Christians were targeted in 144 countries, a rise from 125 in 2015. It affirms that the most serious threat to Christian communities came from the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, where direct targeting of Christian believers on a comprehensive scale set out to “eliminate Christianity and pave the way for the total Islamisation of the country”. They cite an investigation showed that in 2018 far more Christians in Nigeria were killed in violence in which religious faith was a critical factor than anywhere else in the world; Nigeria accounted for 3,731 of the 4,136 fatalities: 90 percent of the total.

The other area of focus of the report is what they call the new and growing threat to mainly Christian farming communities had emerged from nomadic Fulani herdsmen. The Fulani, says the report, carry out attacks against Christian communities especially in Nigeria’s ‘Middle Belt’, the border territory between the Hausa-speaking Muslim areas in northern Nigeria and land further south mainly populated by Christians. Reports also showed mostly retaliatory attacks against Fulani by “predominantly” Christian farmers, such as the November 2016 killing of about 50 mainly Fulani pastoralists by ethnic Bachama local residents in Numan district, Adamawa state. The causes of this inter-communal conflict are complex and “attributed to many factors”. That said whilst the conflict cannot simply be seen in terms of religion, it is equally simplistic not to see the religious dimension as a significantly exacerbating factor, and the Fulani attacks have repeatedly demonstrated a clear intent to target Christians, and potent symbols of Christian identity.

The general view of the workshop participants, in my understanding, was that the Bishop of Truro, by his terms of reference, worked from the answer to the question and therefore found what he was asked to look for. Many participants pointed out there is indeed evidence of targeting of Christians in Nigeria’s growing culture of violence but also evidence of the targeting of Muslims by the same forces. It is therefore important to have some comparative perspective and balance in assessing the situation. In addition, the multiple conflicts and rapid growth of criminal gangs targeting all sectors of society and community should guide us into developing a more complex evaluation of what is going on.

One of the participants who I referred to in my column last week and who is the Special Adviser on Agriculture, Dr. Andrew Kwasari took up the issue of Fulani herdsmen targeting Christians in the Middle Belt. He drew attention to the work done by the National Committee on the crisis composed of governors and ministers that have found out that essentially, it is a crisis generated by climate change, population growth, expansion of farming and transhumance agriculture based on competition in access to land, pasture and water with feasible solutions. The problem, he argued is that too many politicians and religious conflict entrepreneurs have a stake in deepening the conflict and making solutions difficult to implement. He argued that the ten-year National Livestock Transformation Plan is workable and the surest path to peace and development and should be allowed to work.

The workshop was attended by major faith leaders in the country, inter-faith advocacy groups, academics and human rights campaigners. There was a lot of discussion on expanding the domain of inter-faith dialogue between Muslim and Christian groups to address the continuous flow of inter-faith conflicts and misunderstanding that emerge on a daily basis. Each religious group was also encouraged to counter conflict entrepreneurs from within that are more interested in generating and exacerbating rather than ending the conflicts. Some of the faith leaders complained bitterly that politician and governments will cause conflict and then call on religious leaders to pray and resolve the conflicts. We must work together if we are to build peace.

One issue that called for a lot of attention was the growing sense of injustice in the country, from virtually all quarters. When people believe that are victims of injustice, it’s difficult for them to embrace peace. There can be little progress in peace building unless State actors take up the issue of addressing concerns on the massive injustice in the country. The objective must be for all stakeholders to continue to discuss the challenges of inter-communal violence in Nigeria and examine how collectively government, civil society, faith-based and community organisations and others can work together to build solutions. We need to be more honest in considering the underlying resource competition driving conflict and insecurity in the country. Nigeria is in a dangerous phase in its development where each community now believes the State is not ready to address its problems and that it has to procure arms to engage in self-help. We need to go back to basics such as considering alternative dispute settlement mechanisms to address impunity for those responsible and demands for justice is met for all, including members of religious groups. In this regard, participants were urged to highlight and promote examples in which inter-faith initiatives to promote peace and foster social cohesion have worked are working with the objective of replicating them.

The Bishop of Truro’s report advocated for religious protection, promoting inclusive high-quality education for all and addressing social-economic issues. Clearly, the massive growth of poverty in Nigeria over the past decade makes peace building a very difficult enterprise. The youth bulge and unemployment for both the educated and uneducated young person’s makes interlocutors for peace scarce. These are all elements about building a more inclusive State and society that we have to take on board. The challenge here is the dominance of a self-serving political class whose only objective appears to be the primitive accumulation of capital and self-aggrandisement.

The workshop was conducted under Chattam House Rules so individuals opinions cannot be quoted. Cardinal John Onaiyekan however gave me permission to refer to his major recommendation to the meeting. He said that all of us Nigerians feel that the cost of staying together as a Nation is extremely high and too many of us want to opt out of the State. He warned however that the cost of our being torn apart would be much higher and we should reflect seriously on what we pray for. I endorse the wise words of the cardinal.