Nigeria: Preparing an Alibi For Impending Mass Atrocities?

by Eze Eluchie,

With its near weekly announcements of the release of what it unconvincingly claims are ‘reformed’, ‘de-radicalized’ and ‘rehabilitated’ Boko Haram terrorists, the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government of Nigeria has just sneaked through media houses what it feels will ostensibly pass-off as it’s alibi in the event of an expected bloodletting of apocalyptic proportions across Nigeria’s predominantly Christian idle Belt and Southern regions.

Nigerian newspapers have been awash with a report allegedly submitted to the Presidency, wherein the Department of State Security (DSS) is said to have notified the President of the discovery of Islamic State of West Africa (ISWA) networks and terrorists who have in been ‘sighted’ with some ‘apprehended’ in Benue, Kogi, Edo and other locations in the idle Belt and Southern regions of the country.

ISWA in Christian dominated areas? Really? And what has the leadership of the Immigration Services, DSS, National Security Agency (NSA), Nigeria Police and all other security agencies charged with checking the influx of foreigners into Nigeria and ensuring the security of the contraption been up to? When it is realized that for the very first time in the annals of the Nigeria’s history, all the security organizations are headed by Muslim Northerners who were all appointed by Nigeria’s extremist-leaning Muslim ruler, Muhammadu Buhari, who had in earlier times stated that “I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the Shari’a movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria...God willing, we will not stop the agitation for the Shari’a in the country”.

Are the 'reports' gaining momentum of the 'sighting' of ISWA terrorists deliberately planted to show 'we are doing our best' and 'this is all part of the global terrorism issue'?.

The above scenario coupled with the Buhari-led administrations fatalistic insistence on compelling/forcing all component Nigerian States to appropriate communal and or private lands for the establishment of ‘Cattle Grazing Colonies’ to assuage so-called Fulani Herdsmen bloody clashes over grazing lands is heightening expectations of a brutal crackdown on hapless citizens, particularly of the idle Belt and Southern States who have shown clear aversion to such interference with their properties.

Indeed with the lacklustre lackadaisical response of federal security agencies to the continuing acts of ethnic cleansing in rural areas of Benue, Taraba and Adamawa States, where the victims have been predominantly Christian/animist villagers, the projections that must be made with the news of ISWA infiltration deeper into the Middle Belt and Southern regions are quite, quite dire.

With objectives on all fours with each other, it is now becoming pertinent to wonder if there is any difference between Boko Haram, the Fulani Herdsmen terrorists and the so-called Islamic State of West Africa (ISWA). Are they same but acquiring different appellations to suit different regions and sub-objectives?

It’s not going to be only Nigeria. For these characters to succeed in Nigeria, the cost will be extremely high in terms of human lives, as it will be extremely bloody. In addition, it will put the entirety of sub-Sahara Africa within easy reach of extremist Islamist terror.

An immediate holistic restructuring and renegotiation of the Nigerian contraption will go a long way to eliminate these worries.

So-called ISWA infiltration:  https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/01/presidency-raises-alarm-influx-foreign-terrorists-benue-states/

https://independent.ng/presidency-raises-alarm-over-influx-of-foreign-terrorists-into-benue-other-states/

Buhari on Shari’a expansion: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/12/insurgency-buharis-call-full-sharia/

Picture: Boko Hara terrorist-cum-Fulani Herdsman Militia-cum-ISWA terrorist?

Nigeria: Unfortunately Stoking the Embers of Sectarian Strife.

by Eze Eluchie,

The signs of a build-up to a religious conflagration in Nigeria is all too clear, particularly since the ascendance into the highest political office in Nigeria of a man, Muhammadu Buhari, who has over the years exhibited traits of adherence to extremist Islamists philosophies and severally proved himself an ethno-religious bigot. The odious record Mr. Buhari had set in 1985 as the only President who had voted against a national of his own country for the Office of Secretary General of the African Union, during his earlier stint in office as Nigeria’s Head of State (as Military dictator) when he had voted for Ide Oumarou, a Muslim Fulani from Niger Republic against Mr. Peter Onu, a Nigerian Christian, still remains etched in history and reality. 

When, for instance, a Christian converts to Islam, it’s a private issue (some State Governors, for example Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and several Muslim State Governors, have been known to waste public funds in ‘rewarding’ such converts). In an environment plagued with endeic poverty, the cash and other rewards accorded the convert serve to entice many others to change creed;

When, however, a Muslim converts to Christianity, from nowhere, it becomes a ‘security’ issue and the Department of State Security, the Police Force descend on the convert and whosoever is believed to have aided the conversion, to reverse and or ‘punish’ such conversion. Riots even break out or get instigated, during which several Churches get destroyed and more Christians flee fro the area where such ‘conversion’ took place.

The issues are further exacerbated by the undue pro-Islamic slant the machinery and alliances of the Nigerian government has been taking under the present leadership of Mr. Buhari. Such acts as Nigeria’s joining the Saudi Arabia-led ‘Islamic Military Alliance to fight terrorism’, the Nigerian Government floating SUKUK (Islamic) Bonds, the ineffective response by Security agencies (controlled by the Federal government) to check ethnic cleansing of genocidal proportions taking place against the predominantly Christian populations of the idle Belt region by predominantly Muslim Fulani herdsmmen and recent vote patterns at international summits.

When one realizes that the above situations are occurring contemporaneously in a supposedly secular state where the numerical strengths of the twin Abrahamic religions are almost at par, it does not take a rocket scientist to discern that if current approach and deployment of state apparatus in favour of any religious orientation continues, it will give rise to conflict.

The way out of this oncoming apocalyptic conflagration is to holistically restructure and renegotiate the Nigerian contraption whilst there is yet time.

Muslim girl conversion becomes cause for intervention by Department of State Security (DSS):  http://guardian.ng/news/controversy-over-girls-conversion-from-islam-to-christianity/

Picture: Symbols of the Islamic and Christian faith.