A Nigerian bishop has lamented a week of terrorist violence in which 200 Christians have been murdered.
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto severely criticised the lack of a comprehensive strategy by the government to combat the terrorists following attacks which include a Palm Sunday massacre that left at least 56 people dead.
Fulani herdsmen stormed the village of Zikke in Plateau State leaving behind "the corpses of deceased women, children, and senior citizens in their homes, which they torched as they left the village", according to Truth Nigeria.
Relatives were traumatised since they had to bear the stench of the burned bodies of their loved ones from smoking compounds, reports said.
The Palm Sunday attack came just a week after a similar attack in five villages to the south of Jos left at least 50 people dead.
Bishop Kukah said: “In less than one week, we have lost almost 200 lives across the country.”
The attack on Zikke was “another tributary of blood” that will “link up with older tributaries and continue their flow slowly but surely into an invisible ocean of blood that now threatens to swallow the Plateau”, he said.
Bishop Kukah continued: “The streams have flowed from different directions, through Jos, Dogo Na Hawa, Bukuru, Gwong, Shendam, Yelwa, Wase, Langtang, Riyom, Kadarko, Shere, Miango to mention only a few.
"The list is almost endless. One would need to look into a magnifying glass to see which communities have not been touched in Plateau."
Bishop Kukah expressed disappointment that while the blood of Nigerians flows like streams, those who are supposed to have taken action seem to have taken “the tranquilising drug of complacency”.
“This is Nigeria, no amount of blood is ever enough to make us pause,” the bishop said.
“Neither the brutality, bestiality, primitivism, nor the callousness, viciousness, wickedness, barbarity or cruelty of the murderers on rampage can stir us from our stupor,” he added.
The bishop expressed concern over the lack of a plan or strategy to confront the enemies, emphasising that they have become invisible by embedding themselves in all structures of power across the land.
He remarked that those responsible for preventing this situation would continue their lives unaffected, while blame would be widely distributed.
“We all are under the tranquilising drug of complacency that we are merely either comparing numbers, or attributing ethnic or faith identities to the dead,” he said.
Bishop Kukah said he was worried that Boko Haram “is on rampage, returning with a vengeance”.
“In other parts of the country, the bandits continue their dances of evil, encircling the landscape, capturing, torturing, and inflicting the harshest form of inhuman treatment on our people,” he said.
Nigerian Christians have since 2009 been facing attacks by the Boko Haram insurgency intent on creating a Caliphate across the Sahel, but they have been joined by other terrorist organisations, including the Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP ,and the Jihadist Fulani herdsmen.
According to the Catholic-inspired NGO, International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Intersociety, more than 20,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria’s South East by Fulani herdsmen over the past 10 years.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said in the wake of the Palm Sunday killings that he had directed the security services to investigate the perpetrators and bring them to book.
But the Chairman of Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalasi told <em>Crux</em> that it is hard to see how the government can fight a system that is doing its bidding, accusing the government of allowing the Fulani jihadists carry weapons while Christian farmers are forbidden from carrying same.
“This is why they [Christian farmers] are killed—slaughtered like fowls at every opportunity by the Fulani jihadists,” he said.
“Why are Fulani jihadists allowed to carry sophisticated firearms such as AK-47s, AK-49s and other illicit small arms and light weapons?
"Meanwhile, if a Nigerian who is not a Hausa-Fulani Muslim is found with a simple Dane gun, they risk immediate arrest or even execution,” he added.
Mr Umeagbalasi described the situation as “appalling”, pointing to massacres such as the Palm Sunday massacre and others that preceded it.
He lamented that none of the perpetrators had been apprehended to date. Instead, he criticised the authorities for arresting innocent individuals with Christian names and backgrounds, falsely accusing them of involvement in these attacks.
He argued that this practice not only perpetuates injustice but also encourages repeated offenses and further atrocities by the jihadists.
Archbishop Ignatius Ayau Kaigama of Abuja has suggested that the one way out for the vulnerable Christian farmers is to engage in self-defense, describing it as “natural justice” that saves one from “bloodthirsty criminals”.
“Self-defence is natural justice. How you defend yourself is important. You can’t just sit there, and somebody comes to kill your family, and you say they are not protecting you. You must rise up and protect yourself and your communities against these bloodthirsty criminals,” he told ACI-Africa.
Mr Umeagbalasi said the international community needed to hold the Nigerian government accountable for the massacres
“I believe the only way to hold Nigerian leaders accountable is for the global community — particularly the European Union and the United States government — to designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern,” he told <em>Crux</em>.
“The Fulani killers, including the jihadist Fulani herdsmen, and their allied groups, must also be classified as entities of particular concern,” Mr Umeagbalasi said.
<em>(Photo: EMMY IBU/AFP via Getty Images)</em>
