By Hakeem Baba-Ahmed
“When the roots are deep, there is no reasons to fear the wind”— African proverb.
A potentially damaging campaign against Nigeria is gaining ground in sensitive and influential circles at the international level, in particular in the US. Its goals appear to be to isolate and cripple Nigeria’s influence at the global level, limit its capacity to influence events around Israel and Palestinians and deepen internal religious fault lines in a country where faith is a valuable political currency.
Basically the campaign claims that Nigeria tolerates and encourages systemic religious persecution against Christian citizens in thousands, and demands that the international community should sanction the country and protect Christians.
While these types of allegations are not new, they are worrisome now because they appear to be contrived entirely from fiction and are intended to achieve maximum impact within the shortest period possible. The goal appears to be to stimulate the massive appetite of President Donald Trump for operating outside established and predictable conduct, to punish Nigeria with labels and isolation, so that a country weakened by its own leaders will remain on its knees and become even more irrelevant in an intensely competitive world. This will please interests that could be hurt by an assertive and confident Nigeria as the world agonises from a seeming free fall of global values and integrity of its global institutions.
In March this year, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee acted on a testimony of a Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi and advised President Trump to impose sanctions on Nigeria as a result of widespread persecution of Christians in the country. Since then a variety of sources have piled pressure to draw attention to Nigeria as a country hostile to Christians and therefore deserving sanctions. From popular TV personality Phil Maher who reeled out incredulous numbers of Christians killed in Nigeria to US Senators and pressure groups speaking for Christian communities, an effort appears to be gaining momentum to invite attention to the fiction that Nigeria is unsafe for Christians who are being specifically targeted by ‘Islamist’ groups.
It is likely that this campaign will succeed in placing Nigeria under some form of sanction which it had experienced earlier by the US. Now Marco Rubio has stepped up to get Nigeria blacklisted as a country hostile to Christians. If his initiative succeeds, Nigeria could come under sanctions and even hostile action by the US.
More serious is the possibility that Nigeria is target of assaults from powerful interests in the US in particular, at a time when it has very weak capacity to protect itself. With a global environment in punishing and unsettling flux, nations, even strong ones with strong links, are unsure where they stand in relation to familiar protocols or standards.
Nigeria has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. Those who worry over reactions to the genocide in Gaza and the free hand lent Israel by the US and Europe to complete the weakening of the Arab and Muslim world watch reactions of Nigerian Muslims very closely.
Nigerian Muslim leaders and the Nigerian government have remained substantially with the world that has been content with Israel’s outrageous treatment of Palestinians, in spite of series of indictments and condemnations by international regulators and monitors who have condemned Israeli action as genocide many times over. For a world which had shared Jewish peoples’ labelling of their experiences during the Second World War as genocide, the term, when applied against any nation should be an abomination.
Yet Israel gets away with its actions with slap-on- the-wrist statements. Many countries think the world will appreciate the recent raft of decisions to recognise Palestine by many countries as punishments against Israeli actions against Palestinians. Those decisions will be engineered by Israel and the US in a manner that dilutes them to belated symbolism until Israel concludes its designs over its version of the future of Palestinians.
Nigeria could, if it is not so poorly led and unaware of its potential, make a stronger case for restraint against Israeli excesses in the Middle East and US’s domineering role in global affairs. It has the potential to represent Africa and the black race on the Security Council with a veto power, but it lacks the confidence and the credibility to lead in that direction. That potential remains a threat, and those who seek to place upon it the same label of genocide which Israel now bears know this. A Nigeria which bears the stigma of engaging in genocide by the US will bleed credibility in a world substantially designed by US standards.
The term genocide itself would be watered down, so it does not offend in its impact when applied against Israel. Nigeria’s potential to play a more decisive role in global affairs will be severely damaged. Its internal capacities to rally the two major faiths as vital requirements to rediscover its mission, rebuild and assume a place as a united, developed African nation will be severely damaged.
The US government has many sources of information that tell it that there is no genocide against Christians in Nigeria. If it acts as reaction to this contrived falsehood, it cannot be because it has evidence that thousands of Christians are being systematically killed for their faith. It will be an action designed to weaken Nigeria and compound its substantially self-inflicted weaknesses.
These include rampant threats from multiple sources against all citizens, including insurgents and bandits who shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they kill, rob and rape Muslim and Christian victims without discrimination. In many cases, Christian criminals kill Christians, the same way Muslim criminals kill Muslims.
Nigerian government has made an effort to challenge this emerging smear campaign designed to compound the country’s problem. This is not enough. Nigerians are dying and running from criminals like never before. Only the government of Nigeria can stop this, and it must look at ending these threats as its single most important responsibility. Nigerian Christian clergy have a duty to speak up and denounce the falsehood that there is genocide against Christians in Nigeria.
The US will not step in and fight for over 100 million Christians if its contribution to our crises descends lower than it is. Muslim and Christian leaders should improve their search for common grounds and speak for Muslims and Christians, all of whom are victims of criminals in all parts of Nigeria. Nigerians need to be aware of threats to our future as a free, secure and united people, many of them from outside our country.
Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a former Presidential Adviser, is a syndicated columnist