Tag: Muhammadu Buhari

1. Muhammadu Buhari and the power not to act when you should act, when heaven and earth, human compassion and common decency demand that you act.

You never know that a tool, an institution or an entire system is not working or is no good at all until when it fails you when you desperately need it to work for you, especially in a matter of life and death. Muhammadu Buhari refuses to act expeditiously and effectively to halt and reverse the loss of thousands of lives due to the great state of insecurity spreading throughout the country. As I write these words, the likelihood is high that scores of other Nigerians are being killed, kidnapped and physically and/or sexually violated; or, they are about to be killed, maimed, violated, their dwellings and means of livelihood wantonly destroyed.

Most Nigerians are saying that unless and until Buhari acts to bring all this mayhem and tragedy to an end we are lost. Is that true, that if Buhari does nothing or does too little to matter, then all is lost? Deep, deep down, most Nigerians feel that this is true, that in our system of government, the president and the presidency together constitute the only location of power, authority and legitimacy that could save Nigeria from our present dire prospects. It is generally agreed that the concentration of power and authority in the Nigerian presidency, regardless of whoever is the incumbent, is one of the highest in the world. Are we seeing in Muhammadu Buhari the first (and last) negative dialectic of this over-concentration of power with regard to this case of the power not to act when one should act? What greater exercise of power can there be than the power not to act when your action is deemed to be the only thing keeping disaster and tragedy on a monumental scale at bay? Thus, this power not to act when it is of utmost necessity to act, when the very existence of the country depends on acting  – perhaps this will be Buhari’s unique but extremely dubious contribution to the study of contemporary African political institutions.

The document that follows is an excerpt from the Hansard, which is the official name for the records and archives of debates in the British legislatures. The document speaks for itself. But it also prompts the question: why is the Nigerian legislature, the members of the Senate and/or the House, not holding the feet of the Buhari administration to fire as their British counterparts are doing to Her Majesty’s government as we can see in this excerpt? If and when they do so, we can only hope that they will be inspired by the carefulness of some of the British legislators, as revealed in the following document, not to over-simplify but to respect the complexities of our security crisis in all its dimensions. Or is our legislature too, like the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari, also useless and ineffectual in the face of looming disaster?

Baroness Cox, Crossbench,   11:22 am, 9th May 2019

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of recent developments in Nigeria?

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State

My Lords, we remain deeply concerned by the escalation in intercommunal violence across Nigeria, which has a devastating impact on lives and communities and is a barrier to Nigeria’s development. While religion is a factor, the root causes remain complex and include access to resources, population growth and displacement due to climate change and desertification. We are working closely with international partners and the Nigerian Government to develop measures to address the causes of the conflict, including the national livestock transformation plan.

Baroness Cox, Crossbench

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. Is he aware that since the Fulani insurgency began, thousands of Christians have been killed in the Middle Belt region? That includes about 300 killed in Kaduna between February and April this year. Also, on 14 April, Fulani militia invaded Nasarawa, killing 17 people, including a 100 year-old man, and a girl whom they raped to death, and on Good Friday, another dozen were killed in Benue.

Given that the Government’s interim independent review into the global persecution of Christians has found that religious hatred plays a key part in these killings, does the Minister agree that while other factors may be involved, the asymmetry and huge scale of attacks by well-armed Fulani upon the predominantly Christian communities has a significant ideological base that must be acknowledged if the issues and the suffering are to be addressed appropriately—such as the Nigerian Government’s responsibly to ensure that it will be safe for thousands of displaced Christians to return to their homes?

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness. It is exactly why the Foreign Secretary and I were intrinsically involved in that decision, and initiated the independent review of Christian persecution around the world. The interim report is not just sobering, it is actually pretty horrific in terms of the numbers. We are talking about 200 million Christians around the world being persecuted in some shape or form because of their faith.

The example of Nigeria is a very stark one. The noble Baroness knows Nigeria well. This was a focus area for my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary’s recent visit, and I assure the noble Baroness that any of the organizations that seek to represent or hijack a religion are doing so erroneously. It is important for all communities, all faiths, to stand against them. I am of course referring to Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa. Through development, diplomacy, and security initiatives, we will defeat these radical extremist groups once and for all.

Lord Anderson of Swansea, Labour

My Lords, Nigeria is a valued member of the Commonwealth and as such, has signed the Harare Declaration and all other relevant declarations, yet Nigeria is mentioned by Open Doors as among the 50 worst countries in the world in which to be a Christian. What have the Government done, consistent with their new policy on religious persecution, to assist the Government of Nigeria to fulfil their commitments under the Commonwealth? Does the Commonwealth have a role in this tragedy?

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State

First, I totally concur with the noble Lord. Membership of the Commonwealth brings additional responsibilities for any country wishing to be an active and fully engaged member. I assure him that we are working closely with the Government of Nigeria. President Buhari himself has condemned these clashes. There is also an initiative from the Christian vice-president, who is taking forward a national strategy to address the issue of violence directly. He has already engaged directly with governors. We are also providing support and assistance to communities on the ground to ensure that those communities—be they of whatever religion, Christian or Muslim—can work together to defeat the scourge of extremism. This is a long process; that does not mean that we bail out at the first challenge. I fully accept that the situation of Christians in Nigeria is dire, but it is important that we engage even more forcefully now to ensure that we can beat the groups which seek to destabilize Nigeria.

Baroness Berridge, Conservative

My Lords, as a fellow officer of the APPG it was a pleasure to respond to the request from the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for the group to launch an inquiry into this matter. The evidence has been that the violence goes across many states but that it is complex and various factors are at play. One key theme has been that the perception is rising that religion is a motivating factor, due to the use of social media, fake news and, often, the lack of capacity in civil society to investigate what is happening. Whatever part religion actually plays, in and of itself, the perception that it is playing a heightened role is a concern. Will my noble friend the Minister please outline what funding from the FCO and DfID can be given to civil society in Nigeria to increase its capacity to get accurate information about these attacks? Many of them, particularly Muslim-on-Muslim attacks, are going underreported in Nigeria.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State

My noble friend is quite right to point out the extensive level of support. I assure her that our work in Nigeria represents, I believe, the fifth-largest DfID support programme and our second largest in Africa. Various organizations are engaged on a series of initiatives; whether we are talking about schoolchildren, teacher training or building community capacity, we are working at all levels. When my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary visited Nigeria, he went to Maiduguri and saw directly how the UK is contributing to a programme for Nigeria to fight against terrorism. Again, we have emphasized the importance of the British Government standing in support of all initiatives. We are working with a raft of organizations on the ground and I will write to my noble friend in that respect.

Lord Chidgey, Liberal Democrat

My Lords, in answering the Question that I put to the Minister last December, he said that the development of policies and plans with European partners to address the escalation of violence and deaths in Nigeria was “work in progress”, and that the Nigerian Government were planning to introduce a Bill to address the events that have occurred between the Fulani and the farmers. Can he confirm what progress has been made in developing these policies and plans with our European partners since then, and advise how much, if any, of the £150 million of new British aid announced by the Foreign Secretary will be allocated to these projects?

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State

The noble Lord is correct to ask that question. Progress is being made; obviously, the election in Nigeria may have caused certain things to come to a halt but there has been a renewed focus. I have already referred to the vice-president’s initiative. On the Bill that the noble Lord refers to, we are providing direct assistance to the communities affected. Consideration is currently being given to that very Bill, which will look at, for example, grazing reserves, routes and cattle ranches, to ensure that we can address the issue of land in Nigeria.

2. Obasanjo’s four scenarios

Let none of the four prophetic projections of Obasanjo in his recent open letter to Buhari come to pass – as we have it the plot of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold: a planned assassination is revealed but because the townspeople are terribly complacent, nothing is done to prevent the assassination and so it happens anyway. This was also the fate of Cassandra in ancient Greek mythology – to give prophecies that are disregarded because she is deemed mad and possessed and thus worthy of being totally ignored; unfailingly, all her prophecies came to pass. But aspects of the first Obasanjo “scenario” are already happening. Therefore, let not the fate of Garcia Marquez’s novel and Casandra’s disbelieved prophecies befall that last three of Obasanjo’s “scenarios”! In this instance, compatriots, forget the messenger who, I agree, is often a megalomaniac; think only of the message.

“To be explicit and without equivocation, Mr. President and General, I am deeply worried about four avoidable calamities:

1. abandoning Nigeria into the hands of criminals who are all being suspected, rightly or wrongly, as Fulanis and terrorists of Boko Haram type;
2. spontaneous or planned reprisal attacks against Fulanis which may inadvertently or advertently mushroom into pogrom or Rwanda-type genocide that we did not believe could happen and yet it happened.
3. similar attacks against any other tribe or ethnic group anywhere in the country initiated by rumours, fears, intimidation and revenge capable of leading to pogrom;
4. violent uprising beginning from one section of the country and spreading quickly to other areas and leading to dismemberment of the country.

It happened to Yugoslavia not too long ago. If we do not act now, one or all of these scenarios may happen. We must pray and take effective actions at the same time. The initiative is in the hands of the President of the nation, but he cannot do it alone. In my part of the world, if you are sharpening your cutlass and a mad man comes from behind to take the cutlass from you, you need other people’s assistance to have your cutlass back without being harmed. The mad men with serious criminal intent and terrorism as core value have taken the cutlass of security. The need for assistance to regain control is obviously compelling and must be embraced now.

• Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu