Let’s talk about Genocide. Many people have asked if there is Genocide in Nigeria or not. What is Genocide? The dictionary defines Genocide as a deliberate and systematic killing or persecution of a large number of people from a particular national or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group of people. And with that definition, I’m going to turn my answers to a question or questions to the majority of you who are here today.
Let me give my responsive background. I was born in 1952 in Zaria. I was born in the military barracks.
I grew up in Zaria, Kaduna, Kenya. So my answer does not come out of just newspaper, but experience. The first riot I ever experienced, with all due respect, was against people from the East.
I was there during the Zaria riots when your crime was that you were evil. They didn’t tell me, I saw it. People were being killed right before my eyes.
There was a soldier trying to prevent it and I remember the man coming back with a deep dent in his military helmet as the guys were screaming and walking the roads of Zaria and screaming, Tawaiye. Tawaiye means our eyes have opened. Following the first coup by Kaduna and Zogu, they felt their eyes had opened.
So there certainly was Genocide because people were being dragged out of their house and killed. But then when it comes to the hot case on hand, is there religious genocide in Nigeria? Firstly, I’d like to say that whatever issue is in Nigeria, because it was not dealt with, it became a snake with five heads or more heads. And so when you are looking at each case, you need to know which head you are dealing with.
Bandit is a head. Banditry is a head. Terrorism is a head.
Fulani herdsmen carrying guns and invading people’s farm, chasing them out is another head. The guys who demand money, what did they call it? Kidnappers is a head and there are many more heads. And then deliberate chasing of people away from their land and immediately putting another tribe there is a head.
So are these things happening in Nigeria or not? I’ll just take you down some historical cases and I’ll ask you, is it really happening in Nigeria? Maitasine in the 70s, a man who rose and began to teach a form of Islamic cleansing that says anybody who was not of that particular belief must die. Is that not genocide and is that fair in a secular nation? Zanga Kataf. Zanga Kataf, in case you don’t know, what you know as Kaduna state was once including Katsina and on grounds of religion, Katsina State was cut off because the majority of Katsina State was Islamic.
And what remained as Kaduna state was majorly what we call Southern Kaduna, Zango Kataf, people who are so and so, but I don’t want to mention all the tribes. And despite cutting and not having Kaduna state, the south of Kaduna State is 99% Christian, producing Professor Ishaia Awuju, first vice chancellor Amadu Belu, producing General Ishaya Bamayi, producing former deputy governor central bank Melafia, but somebody was still not satisfied and wanted their land. And particularly under the watch of a particular governor, probably 23,000 of these people died.
Is it so? Is it not so? And if people of that number died, I mean, Zango Kataf people were being hacked, cut like animals, because you wanted their land and because they didn’t follow your religion. Is that genocide or not? There was beheading in Kano because, what’s the name of the evangelist, Reinhard Bonnke came to hold a crusade and they said, Christian crusade is not allowed. Not only did they destroy the equipment, they cut Christians.
Is that Genocide or not? Deborah Samuel, a girl in a polytechnic in Nigeria, in the north, she saw on the platform of her class that people were posting religious things. She said, hey, this platform is for our study, not for religion. They went, they killed her.
And when it became a court case, 52 barristers who hold the religious faith different from hers showed up to defend the guys who killed her. Is that Genocide or not? Evangelist Eunice in greater Abuja went out 5 a.m. to do what we used to do down south here. When we were kids, I was born a Muslim.
My name is Ahmed. My mother is Aishat. My brother is Mudashir.
My sister is Kadijat. My dad is Salam. But we knew people who wake up and be waking people to prayer.
That was what Evangelist Eunice did and they hacked her to death. And then, if all that is not Genocide and if it is just religious intolerance, what happened when Malafia came out and said, I am from Southern Kaduna and 23,000 of our people died. And actually when we call people who should come and defend them, the military, the police, they don’t show up. It is after the people are gone that they show up.
And they say they have it on good record that some mysterious helicopters are coming to give these people equipment. Is that not a plan of Genocide? If you say that is not Genocide, what shall we say of what’s going on in particularly states in the north that are of Christian conviction, like Benue State? Even today’s Vanguard reports one local government where people were hacked and the plan is to chase them out and some people come to occupy. And when I say some people, let me be bold to say Fulani. It hurts me that some of the guys carrying guns and come to occupy another persons land because when I was a little kid, one of the songs on radio in the north was that song that says that the whole of Nigeria is the land belonging to and until that is achieved, it may be Lagos.
So somebody somewhere does not want this kind of reality. Is there a Genocide? You will have to answer. I haven’t answered any of your question yet, but let me just say 270 girls were carried out of a school.
They were all Christians. The people who carried them committed 5 crimes. One, child molestation because Nigeria’s Criminal law says that if you sleep with anyone under 18, which is the age of consent, it’s a crime.
They raped these girls. Two, if you carry a person against their will across border, it’s trafficking. I thought we have human trafficking laws.
Three, you force these people to change religion. Four, you force them into marriage. That is the fourth criminal offence.
Five, some of them were violently raped And then 6, some of them were killed. The same people who committed this crime, you said you forgive them. Who forgave them? Where were they forgiven? Which court of law? Is it the government that said, okay, we suspend the Criminal laws of Nigeria? In the case of Boko Haram, who carried these girls, whatever of the Hydra heads carried the girls?
Who did it? So if you now say you forgive them, where are they? It is rumoured that some of them have now repented and you brought them into the army. How can a man who killed and committed all this crime now qualify to be a defender of the nation? It is rumoured that some of them are in the Air Force. How can a man like that defend the Federal Republic of Nigeria? How can we trust him? In the country where I live at the moment, in England, If you touch a child, you know rape and murder, you touch a child in an indecent way, you will be in the register of child molesters.
And the moment you change local government from one local government to the other, you must go and report yourself as a child molester so you can be on has books of child molesters. Once the court have passed a case against you that you molested, anytime you move, you don’t need the police to do it. You have to go and report yourself.
There are jobs you cannot get. But in our own case, we said these guys are forgiven. One, who forgave? Two, where were they forgiven? Three, where did we see their repentance? Four, where is the fruit of their repentance? So we cannot say that there is no Genocide. But if we say there is no genocide, answer my questions. Two, we cannot say there is no religious intolerance.
