The Ongoing Killing Of Middle-belt Christians By Fulani Militans Is Unacceptable And Must Stop—Let Christians Arm Themselves and Fight Back -By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe

What is currently happening in Nigeria is beyond explanation, particularly as it revolves round the right of a Nigerian citizen to be a Christian and live peacefully in the land bequeathed to him by his ancestors. I am yet to understand the kind of addle-brained Christian leaders and followers we have in Nigeria today. May I ask:  Is it a curse to be a Christian, much more being a Christian from Middle Belt?

The kind of insults Nigerian Christians are receiving from Nigerian Muslims far surpass the amount of insults Jesus Christ received on his way to Calvary. Can you imagine the impostor Muhammadu Buhari from Niger Republic asking for forgiveness from Nigerians? Forgiveness for burying the value of the naira from 180 to one US dollar under President Goodluck Jonathan, to 750 naira to one US dollar in 2023 under him!

Forgiveness for introducing banditry, kidnappings and killings as a lucrative Fulani business! Forgiveness for slaughtering Christians in their thousands by Government-protected Muslim bandits, Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram and ISWAP! Is Impostor Muhhamadu Buhari asking for forgiveness for the on-going genocide in Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue and Taraba States? Forgive him for giving military uniforms and supplying arms and ammunition to his Muslim Fulani and bandit kinsmen to kill our people! I don’t understand the meaning of forgiveness under this context.

It is ridiculous that Nigerian Christians and their leaders are not concerned about what a Muslim President and a Muslim Vice President portend for the future of Christianity and democracy in Nigeria. If thousands of Nigerian Christians could be murdered in cold-blood with ignominy under President Muhammadu Buhari with a Christian lame-duck Vice President, how many more would be murdered under a morally bankrupt Muslim President with a blood-sucking Muslim fundamentalist as Vice President?

This is the major reason I will never celebrate such people as Mr. Allen Onyeama of Air Peace, because you don’t sacrifice for those who see you as anathema to their objectives. Is it not ridiculous that while Allen Onyeama was announcing his plan to evacuate stranded Nigerian jihadists-in-training from Sudan the Federal Government was awarding a dubious contract of 1.2 million US dollars for their evacuation by bus? These are people who are being trained with Nigeria’s oil money on the techniques of launching jihad against Christians of Nigeria. After all outside Islamic studies what intellectual relevance is the Republic of Sudan to Nigeria?

Moreover I don’t know if the likes of Allen Onyeama who are always out to please the Fulani oppressors of their fellow Nigerian Christians at the slightest opportunity are aware of the on-going killings of Christians in Middle Belt. Is Mr. Allen Onyeama aware that millions of horribly displaced Middle Belt indigenes from their ancestral homes by Fulani militants are in IDP camps in their home-States?

Is Mr. Allen Onyeama aware that these people’s ancestral lands and villages are currently criminally occupied by immigrant Fulani refugees from Central African Republic? If Christian leaders and businessmen like Mr. Allen Onyeama are aware of the dangers looming against their people by Fulani-instigated colonization, they would have fathomed the danger of seeing themselves in the current Ukraine and Sudan situations with all their businesses in jeopardy.

If the Nigerian Church leaders by keeping grave silence on the on-going genocide against Nigerian Christians by Fulani Muslim militants are telling their members that the only way they can be safe as true citizens of Nigeria is by converting to Islam, then let them say so; otherwise what stops them from taking proactive actions to stop this nonsense once and for all? How can we explain it to the world that Nigerian Church leaders are flying multiple private jets while their flocks are being slaughtered and displaced from their homelands by Fulani Muslim militants? How can we explain it to the world that under President Muhammadu Buhari thousands of Christians have been slaughtered in cold-blood by Muslim militants and all they could do is to condemn it by words of mouth and it ended there?

What stops the Church leaders from calling their members to bear arms and attack their aggressors back? What stops the Church leaders from mobilizing their members into the streets across the nation for one week or more and let the Muslims run this country alone if they believe the country belongs to them alone. Moreover, let us know how many of Christians the Police, Army and DSS will kill during the protests. How long shall we watch while our people are maimed, killed and displaced from their ancestral lands under a supposed democratic government?

What kind of God do Nigerian Christians worship? Is it not the same God the Jews worship that has kept the State of Israel afloat and saved her people from total annihilation by their Arab neighbors? Is it not the God the Christians of Lebanon worship which has kept them politically alive in the sea of hostile Arab Muslims? Can’t Nigerian Christians learn from the Central African Republic experience, when the people said no to Fulani conquest and they meant it? I am yet to understand the chronic defeatist mentality of the average Nigerian Christian.

Today we are busy debating over the 1.2 million dollars budgeted for the evacuation of Nigerian jihadists-in-training in Sudan, while thousands of Middle Belt Christians in Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba States are being slaughtered every day by Fulani herdsmen, millions in Internally Displaced People’s Camps and still millions being displaced from their ancestral lands by Fulani refugees from Central African Republic with the full official connivance of the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari.

We watched with our naked eyes and did nothing when General Ibrahim Babangida unceremoniously forced Nigeria into Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and consequently Islamic Development Bank. Yet we claim we are indeed true Christians. We watched with our naked eyes while General Sani Abacha forced Nigeria into the Islamic Development Eight yet no Christian leader rose up in disapproval.

Can we count the number of Christians from the time of Gideon Akaluka whose heinous beheading was supervised by the now ignominiously deposed now Saint Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to the present, that have been kidnapped and murdered in cold-blood by these Muslim militants that go by different terrorist brand names—Boko Haram, ISWAP, Fulani Herdsmen and Bandits, without a single culprit among them prosecuted for murder in the court of law? Instead we are frequently insulted with the news of repentant Boko Haram insurgents who are clothed, well-fed and subsequently rehabilitated into our security agencies; while there is no compensation policy of the Federal Government for the thousands of murdered innocent Nigerian Christians by the same Islamic criminals.

We saw and heard many prominent Fulani people justifying the on-going killing of innocent Christians by Fulani Muslim militants without any Christian leader in Churches and politics challenging them. What a shame to those who parade themselves as men of God in Nigeria! In a news report titled, “Fulani engages in kidnappings, banditry due to injustice on them, revenge – former Bauchi Gov, Yuguda”, as reported by Sikiru Obarayese on Tribune issue of March 5, 2023, the former Governor of Bauchi State and a Fulani man Alhaji Isa Yuguda heinously defended the on-going killing of innocent Christians by his Fulani compatriots in the following words:

“As a Fulani man, we went to Zamfara up to the kidnappers den in the bush seeking to know why they are in to banditry, kidnappings and other criminal activities, and we understood that they took up Arms to revenge, because their parents were killed, maimed and raped, and their cattles were rustled , even their grazing reserves were seized.”

Where can this happen except Nigeria? Is Isa Yuguda is telling Nigerians that all the kidnappings in Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Plateau, Taraba, Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi, Abia, Delta, Edo, Ondo, Oyo, Ogun and Kogi States were revenge against cattle rustling and denial of grazing lands? Grazing reserves on whose land? The same Isa Yuguda went further to state that the Fulani are the largest ethnic group in Nigeria with over 50 million people. Why can’t he say so when they have the National Population Commission at their disposal to manipulate at will and we have indolent Christian leaders in Government and Churches mopping like Sallah ram?

We saw a Redeemed Christian Church of God woman murdered in cold-blood for preaching the word of God in Bwari Abuja and it ended there. We saw an Igbo woman murdered on the false accusation that she tore the Quran and her murderers were discharged and acquitted. We saw a Pastor and Chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria in Adamawa State beheaded live like cow and he is forgotten just like that. Can a Christian behead an Imam and Nigeria will still remain a united and peaceful country?

We witnessed a young innocent girl Deborah Samuel murdered in Sokoto in a most gruesome manner for no other reason than being a Christian; and when the few who were bold to protest did protested the Christians in Sokoto State were attacked and their property destroyed. Today there is no news about the arrest and prosecution of the culprits. Some prominent Christian leaders were even blaming the innocent girl in death. What a shame to the body of Christ.

We witnessed how Fulani Muslim militants invaded the Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State—the hometown of the State Governor on a Sunday broad day-light and slaughtered over 76 worshippers—men, women and Children, for no other reason than the Governor having the audacity to spearhead the Amotekun security outfit against Fulani kidnappers. We have security agencies littered along our highways molesting innocent commuters all over Southern Nigeria, yet no arrest was made.

We witnessed the Prelate of Methodist Church of Nigeria together with the Methodist Bishop of Owerri Diocese and the Prelate’s Chaplain kidnapped by the same Fulani herdsmen close to Ihube his hometown in Abia State. It took the Methodist Church of Nigeria millions of naira as ransom to set them free. We have also witnessed the Anglican Bishop of Oyo Diocese kidnapped by the same Fulani herdsmen along Ibadan-Oyo highway in his home-State; yet our Church leaders believe everything is normal in Nigeria for those who call themselves Christian citizens of the Nigerian nation.

What a shame to those who call themselves Christian leaders! We have just forgotten those people just like that. So if the Christians of Nigeria continue to forget those killed yesterday by Muslim Fulani murders, why can’t the same Muslim Fulani continue their killing today, tomorrow and forever? And since it is obvious that these killings will not stop tomorrow, shall we then wait to be counted among those slaughtered? The answer is no! The Christians of this country must rise up in arms and defend themselves. The Christian Anti-Balaka of Central African Republic did it in their country against the Muslim Fulani Seleka and the result today is the Fulani being clandestinely resettled on the ancestral lands of Middle Belt citizens of Nigeria.

I have travelled from Freetown in Sierra Leon through Conakry in Guinea to Dakar Senegal passing through the Futa Jalon Regions of Guinea and Senegal and I believe there are enough lands to resettle the Nigerian Fulani population if only that will bring lasting peace to Nigeria and, the entire West African sub-region.