A Warning to Northern Religionists
This article is six months late. Originally, I had planned to use it as a warning to a section of religionists from the North not to squander the incredible opportunity they had under President Bola Tinubu. He had shown remarkable goodwill towards this group, making them feel at ease despite the initial complaints about the Muslim-Muslim ticket. My decision to issue this warning was based on the actions of some individuals within this group. They travel abroad to demarket the President, his administration, and even Nigeria, which has over 200 million people.
My intention to warn them was also influenced by my observation that their efforts to get sanctions re-imposed on Nigeria over what they call the genocide of people of one religion could eventually hit a nerve in the Tinubu administration. The president’s officials might become frustrated and change their attitude toward this group, and the President himself might grow disenchanted with their activities and turn his back on them. This scenario is similar to what happened under Malam Nasir El-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna State, where wild accusations against the state government led to a tense relationship with a section of Kaduna’s population.
While I was waiting for the right moment to write about this issue, the President made a statement on insecurity, which some labeled as religious persecution. During his recent visit to Imo State, he said, “They lie all over the place that we have religious persecution. Our Muslim brothers and sisters, our Christian brothers and sisters are united. No religious persecution in Nigeria, it is a lie from the pit of hell.” I believe “they” in his comment refers to foreigners who spread the narrative of religious persecution or Nigerians who travel abroad to sell the genocide tag to foreigners. From the President’s choice of words, I concluded that the demarketing campaign was beginning to exasperate him. At this rate, he may change his stance on how he treats this group of North-based religionists, who are making his job more challenging than it already is.
Intelligence and the President’s Actions
Undoubtedly, the President had superior information about the situation, especially in the North-Central zone. Locals know some things, but intelligence agencies have more detailed insights, and they report directly to the President. I assumed this was why the President issued the statement he did just before visiting Benue State. After another round of violent attacks, he urged locals to reconcile their differences and give peace a chance. The Secretary to the Federal Government, George Akume, an indigene of Benue, echoed similar sentiments at the time. This was because they had information about the real perpetrators or their proxies involved in those attacks. However, during his visit, the President was told that every attack in Benue was an act of genocide. Everything was labeled as genocide in a context where I had written for 10 years about attacks between rival tribes of the same religion in Benue State. The President didn’t argue with anyone on that occasion because he knew what he knew. But the ongoing effort to demarket him and his government to foreign governments is a different matter. No leader would fail to find it annoying in the long run, especially now that the US says it’s sanctioning Nigeria.
Since June 2023, I have concluded that if the President and the First Lady, Senator Oluremi, believed in narratives about persecution of only members of one religion before taking office, the intelligence reports they later saw convinced them otherwise. Now, the President knows who did what, what led to it, where the arms came from, and how everything was often swept under the “suspected Fulani herdsmen” narrative prevalent in the media. While he was in Benue State, the President said he expected the army to have arrested the perpetrators of the attacks. Later, we saw the names of those who facilitated weapons for the attackers. They were mostly locals, people of the predominant religion in Benue State.
The Truth About Insecurity
While I was explaining the complex nature of insecurity in the North over the past 10 years, I never doubted that a time would come when the truth about the claim of religious persecution would be revealed. Now, many in government who had previously frowned at my position are saying something different. Journalists and others who had been silent are now speaking up when they hear of US sanctions. I’m surprised any Nigerian would know about attacks in the north-east, north-west, and north-central, yet believe the narrative that only members of one religion were targeted. Many educated individuals in the south who repeated the false narrative that only herders were responsible for all the insecurity in Nigeria shocked me, and I mentioned some of them on this page in the past. I think this is due to our general tendency to reach conclusions before seeing all the facts, the tendency for selective amnesia, selective empathy, and blind religious sentiments that drive many.
The Missed Opportunity
I think the President has done so much for a section of religionists in the North, but he hasn’t been appreciated. This is evident in the way some rubbish his government to the outside world. Worse, there’s a lack of awareness among these religionists that they may be squandering the goodwill they enjoy with the President. As a result, this administration might complete in 2031, and these religionists might still find themselves in the same spot regarding the issues that matter to them. Meanwhile, this is the time they should work closely with the President and his top officials to get a few things on their list done. Like other Nigerians, they have an agenda, and they should focus on the agenda under this willing President. Instead, they expend time persuading foreigners to buy the genocide tag, which is what they called insecurity. How this provides practical solutions to problems in their communities remains a question no one is answering.
One of the earliest things the President consciously did for this section of North’s religionists was to appoint one of them as Chief of Defence Staff. That he’s now been removed is the reason I state that this piece is six months late.
The Consequences of Inaction
I wish I had made the point I make here while he was still in office. For the former CDS did his best to attend to issues which mattered to his people. And I had planned to ask his people to make the most of his stay in that position while he was there. In Kaduna State, where the outgone CDS came from, fewer attacks were reported in the troubled parts. It was because he paid that area more attention. I had wanted to urge traditional and religious leaders here to devise approaches that would guarantee permanent peace. At the same time, they had a CDS who was willing to assist them to the maximum. Instead, while he was in office, some focused on talking to the US Congress. Now, their own is no longer in the saddle.
The next danger is that with the manner some refuse to sit and find local solutions, the two terms of the President might pass, and this section of North’s religionists wouldn’t consolidate on the gains made in their areas under the current administration. Many of them still don’t get the point that insecurity is local, there’s no general solution, and each area in each state has to identify and deal with the sources of its own problem. They’ve also not accepted the fact that local government councils need all the funds coming from the FG to fight insecurity effectively.
As such, no state governor in troubled northern states should hold on to the funds belonging to LGAs. In the President, there’s a willing leader who could assist them to achieve this. If LGAs had all their funds, they could utilise them to provide localised security surveillance, which the FG’s army and police could never provide sustainably. Instead of people here to advocate these things and work on them, their members globetrot to demarket Nigeria, after which they regularly call on the FG’s soldiers to secure them and their farmlands from destructive elements. I hope they realise soon that they’re about to fritter away a lifetime opportunity they have under President Tinubu.