Dear Sir,
Respectful greetings from me, a constituent of Adamawa South Senatorial District which you represent.
I am proud of your good representation, and I am particularly privileged to have unimpeded access to you at any time. This letter is made open, not to jettison that privilege, but to exploit it a little more while escaping its potential restraint on me by you concerning the subject I am commenting on. It is to add to the scant voices of your constituents concerning a trending matter, the matter of whether or not there is genocide targeted against Christians in Nigeria, and which has attracted the attention of the United States Senate, which has made true their threat to make America designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern.
The matter is both annoying and deeply embarrassing. It is annoying to Christians that there has to be a debate on what is glaring, with a collective national aim of making it misty, uncertain, then untrue, even when the scars are there in the physical domain and emotional realm. It is deeply embarrassing because the Christian population is so docile, bullied, beaten to pulp and shut up that America has to bring the matter up. The embarrassment has become very traumatising.
On the flip side, some people, especially the Muslim Umma, are apprehensive, tense and getting annoyed because it is also obvious that non-Christians are also being killed, some even in their worship places. Still (because the coin actually has more than two sides), some people say it is not Christian genocide for many other reasons: their job is on the line, they are part of government, they might have been paid to do so, etc. The last group proffer the strongest evidence of the reality of Christian genocide in Nigeria as their actions give credence to various forms of the government looking the other way or of muzzling of voices, necessary ingredients for continuous genocide.
And now that Nigeria is so designated, the reactions are much more annoying. What many Nigerians don’t know is that the US has her own way of verifying facts over the decades. We are arguing about facts already verified and acted upon.
The matter at hand is a serious issue because, except for very fair individuals, every Nigerian is immediately angered because of his ethnic and religious persuasions. It is natural to feel so. But unfortunately, it is what seems to define our reasonings, what provides the lens through which every issue is interpreted. So, whatever argument or reasoning anybody brings will immediately tickle everybody, irking one half of the population and pleasing the other half. Whatever it is, at this stage, the truth must be told, and loudly so. This is because we love to live in peace, and we love Nigeria. Our goal is to stop the carnage on Nigerians, whatever their ethnic group is or their religious persuasions are. And we don’t have to necessarily annoy anybody, even though everybody is already hurt.
The first bitter truth is that we are all Nigerians, and nobody should be seen as superior to the other or having more right to Nigerian-ness than others. In terms of who came to Nigeria first, only two ethnic groups (the Yorubas and Ibos) can lay claim to being the bonafide authoctons because their ancestors (Oduduwa and Nri, respectively) were dropped from heaven. The third may be the ethnic groups of the Nok culture. Every other person came, came at different times, and are still coming (no thanks to our porous borders). So, we must let it sink in, that the Fulanis, whom many want to see as late comers and as even intruders, are bonafide Nigerians now. This may be painful to them, but it is an obvious fact.
A second bitter truth is that there have been killings targeted at Christians for decades now, so arguing against that fact can only be infuriating. Some Nigerians relocated to other towns and cities because of that and many shops now occupied in some north eastern towns originally belonged to these internally displaced persons or persons forced to relocate. They saw their worship places selectively burn down and their neighbours killed before they escaped with their lives. When this started it was targeted at Christians only. When there were few or no churches to burn, moderate Muslims or those with slight doctrinal differences then began to be victims. No mosque was bombed for years at first and the perpetrators had a particular religious incantation when they carried out their atrocities. It was not ‘Praise the Lord’ or ‘Halleluyah’, which would have made everyone know they were Christians. They were Islamic fundamentalists shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ before and after a kill or mayhem. In that early Boko Haram era, a vehicle would be intercepted and all and only Christians killed. The Boko Haram were mostly of Chadian and Borno (Kanuri) origin, but later recruited others. It was Christian genocide, but later burgeoned to include moderate, peace-loving Muslims.
The third and fourth truths are related and I will beg to use health terms to explain them. An epidemic is the occurrence of a disease in excess of normal expectations. Very deadly diseases are not expected at all, and even one confirmed case is an epidemic. That the targeted killing of Christians in the country is not uniformly spread in the country does not mean it is not, or has not happened. We are all witnesses, just like we are also witnesses of Hausa Muslims and Christians killed in mosques and their houses in some places now, with their numbers probably higher than those in Christian-dominated areas, as claimed. The argument that because Hausa Muslims are killed in great numbers, there is therefore no genocide against Christians, is to say the least a lame attempt to obfuscate facts. It is like saying that meningitis is not killing children because adults are also dying of pneumonia. But, no, there is meningitis and there is pneumonia, both killing people. There is Christian genocide and there is genocide of Hausa people; both are undesirable and should be stopped. And if the government were to be diligent enough to profile the perpetrators, haemophilus species may be the bacterium responsible for the two, just like the same jihadist Fulanis are responsible for both genocidal activities.
A worrying truth is the fact that these perpetrators are foreigners. They do not look like our own good neigbour Fulanis and their language sounds different. They certainly did not just run wild, like male elephants on rampage because of a surge of testosterone; if it were so, it would have been brief. They would have also killed kin Fulanis, but they don’t. It is obvious they have sponsors with an agenda, and this points to some Fulani elites with a nationalistic agenda. This profiling is necessary, Distinguished Senator, because they have caused death and maiming of innocent Fulanis who became victims of reprisals and whose blood they must account for as their third group of victims. These Elite Fulani Nationalists have influenced successive governments to look the other way while the genocides and carnage are going on. Their present denial and the coaxing of even highly respected Christian clergy to say there is no genocide against Christians is the height of looking the other way while the carnage continues. They should be stopped, even if by an American designation of our dear country as one of particular concern.
Our supreme goal in this discourse, sir, is that we should solve a national malady and still remain united. Killings should stop, whatever the nomenclature, because they are happening. This should be easy, because the enemy is foreign and can easily be identified. Every effort should be put in to resist attempts to distort the narrative or swerve it to the realm of arguments. As for the Americans, they have made their judgment and have acted; if that leads to the cessation of killings, we are the better for it. But, please, even though other types of killings are going on, a Christian genocide has been taking place. Arguing otherwise hurts. And killings of Muslims, especially Hausa Muslims, has been going on, probably on a scale more than the numbers of Christians killed. The perpetrators, foreign Fulani Jihadists and their Nigerian sponsors, some Fulani elites with some nationalistic agenda, must be called out and stopped.
Thank you for adding my position when this discusssion comes up in the Senate.
Thank you and may God bless you for good representation.
Faithfully your constituent,
Tanimu dan Rabeh
● Rabeh, who lives in Abuja, but is a constituent of the Senator, sent this via WhatsApp
