By
Most Rev. Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe
Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Makurdi
Being a speech presented at the Candle Light Procession and Inter-denominational Service organized by Vanguard Against Tiv Massacre (VATIM) and Community Development Coalition (CDC) in collaboration with Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)
At
The National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja
Introduction
I feel greatly honoured to be invited by the Benue sons/daughters to be part of this peaceful march and address the nation/world/human race here in Abuja, the capital of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Giving the recent ugly developments in Adamawa, Kaduna and very recently in Benue state, and the persistence of violence in our country, this gathering resonates with the challenges we face as a country in making responsible moral choices in the perilous and trying times in which we live, with ever spiraling cycles of sectarian violence. On a day such as this, we need to tell one another a thing or two, we need to look the other person in the face and say what we feel inside. I feel some furious anger, some hot anger inside me; yes we need to be outraged by events happening in our country or else, we will descend into total anarchy, with our pious or meaningless hypocrisy of political correctness. As a thank you for giving me this privileged opportunity to share some thoughts with you at this trying moment in the Benue valley, I bring you best wishes of the government and people of Benue.
It is seemingly impossible to maintain one’s equilibrium after witnessing the massacre of innocent and defenseless people in the face of harsh economic conditions. However, our role as God’s ministers is that of inspiring hope if we as a people accept responsibility for the situation in our country as divine chastisement. The pain is much and the wounds will take time to heal; without faith we cannot please God (Heb. 11:6-17) and this faith must be practical, (Jas 2:18). As leaders, the challenge we face demands that we take practical steps of faith to heal and restore the hope of the people. As leaders we must demonstrate the required tenacity to remove the national humiliation from our citizens whose dignity and rights have been abused.
THE NIGERIAN SITUATION
Let me begin by agreeing on one thing; no-one with any knowledge of the matter can underestimate the importance of this issue. According to Dennis Healey (British Politician).
History can be a dangerous guide, he argues, but it is practically the only useful guide we have. It is a far better guide than ideology, on which people otherwise tend to rely in interpreting the present and guessing about the future. But if you use history as a guide you must examine the differences from the past as well as the similarities.
For a long time in the history of our country we have been famous for trying our best to maintain the unity of our country through political and religious correctness. I am a son of a peasant farmer, who was also an astute politician, community and God fearing Church Leader. I must acknowledge that I have the privilege of enjoying the two sides of life: the rural and the urban. These are two worlds of hot anger and correctness. When the correctness does not work, you apply the hot anger by calling things by their names. This is what I learned from my father.
For a country that has known different types of violence ranging from civil war which came up at the dawn of our independence, to armed robbery, kidnapping, ethnic crisis, religious clashes, political killings orchestrated by political thuggery; Niger-Delta militancy, to other forms of violence; herdsmen terrorists, Boko Haram etc, which have brought a new and similar dimension to our experience of violence in Nigeria. According to Bishop Lucius Ugorji.
Its members combine the murderous suicide tactics of terrorists with guerilla modes of operation accompanied by virulent attacks…with impunity they kill and maim innocent people indiscriminately. The unspeakable evil made vivid in the horrific images of human beings butchered like animals; instills fear and trembling, traumatizes the populace and fuels a culture of violence which affectsthe psyche of young Nigerians.
This is not just murder, which displeases God, but this is genocide. When women even pregnant women and children are gruesomely murdered, then the attacks become genocidal and this is precisely what is happening in Benue. The Christian church totally condemns any assault, directly or indirectly on any human life, be it Tiv, Idoma, Fulani or any tribe as this is a direct transgression against God and humanity.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI points out that “those who kill by acts of terrorism actually despair of humanity, of life, of the future. In their view everything is to be hated and destroyed. (Benedict XVI address in Cotonou during his visit. 19th November, 2011). On the same note, St. Pope John Paul II has this to add:
…when terrorist organizations…attack defenceless and unsuspecting people they show clearly the death-wish that feeds them…terrorism is built on contempt for life. For this reason, not only does it commit intolerable crimes, but because it resorts to terror, it is itself a true crime against humanity. (St. Pope John Paul II, 2002 message for World Peace).
I call on the federal government led by President Buhari to deal decisively with these attacks. The reverberation of these attacks in different parts of the country with the latest in Benue only spells one thing – division. This situation if not carefully and swiftly handled is capable of degenerating into a war situation. When those who are attacked feel not sufficiently defended by those who have sworn an oath to defend them, then the only option left is the rise to self-defense. This will simply bring about proliferation of arms and that becomes chaotic for a nation like Nigeria.
The insufficient actions and at times inaction (what I consider CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE) only point to a nod or an encouraging body language to the perpetrators of these attacks.I call on the United Nations, the European Union, and indeed the entire international community to come to the aid of the Tiv nation and the Benue people who are facing attacks in the magnitude of a genocide. Let me warn that the population of Nigeria is too big to manage a refugee situation; a stitch in time saves nine! (Let me share this story of a professional goalkeeper in a village. There was a fire outbreak in a four storey building in a particular village, and the fire began from the ground floor, people were jumping out from the windows, doors and any available opening. Right at the topmost floor, there was a woman who was nursing a baby of about a month old. She had the difficulty of jumping out and leaving the child behind, and any attempt to come out with her baby, the two of them would be burnt. So, neighbours came and were shouting, calling to throw the child down and she would not want to be deceived. So, they went and called in a famous goalkeeper in the village who was known for professional goal keeping. When the woman saw the goal keeper, she became happy and confident that her baby will be in safe hands. At that instance, she threw the baby down and the goalkeeper caught it rightly, and everybody applauded. In the euphoria that followed, the goal keeper thought that he was in the football pitch and forgot he was carrying a baby. Out of excitement, he kicked the baby back into the burning fire. This is our situation in Nigeria. We vote for our leaders with very high hopes, thinking they would be our messiahs. But on getting into leadership positions, they take us back into oblivion.)
STATISTICAL FIGURES
At this juncture I will like to briefly furnish you with some facts and figures regarding the refugee situation currently in Benue State. With the resurged violence of 1st January, 2018, record in Logo and Guma LGAs it is officially stated that over 73 persons, women, men and children were slain, although local sources put the figure at over 100 (those whose corpses were recovered.) The method of killings and degrading treatment given to women and children ranging from body part harvesting, beheading, torture, rape, strangulation, infanticide among others recorded can only be likened to genocidal activities like that of Rwanda in 1994 as well as those of ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
The conflict has reduced the human rights profile of the communities as over 100,000 have been displaced from Mbagber, Ukemberagya/Tswarev, Turan, and other council wards.
Currently, adhoc shelters are being sought as follows:
LGA
ADHOC IDP CAMP
ESTIMATED POPULATION
Logo
UBE Centre Ugba
1, 706
RCM Primary School
341
LGEA School, Abeda
1, 507
NKST School Abeda
234
Ashi Polytechnic Anyiin
5, 478
NKST Anyiin
12, 468
Guma
LGEA School Gbajimba
6, 829
St. Francis Church Daudu
5, 456
UNHCR Shelter Daudu
4, 300
LGEA School, Torkula
3, 685
Total
42, 067
The data above may however be far below actually displaced persons as many households sampled reported that more than half of displaced persons were living with relations rather than camps. Perceived population of IDPs is placed at 140,000 in Logo and 93,000 in Guma.
Most of the camps are poorly constituted, lacking coordination. IDPs use classroom blocks as shelters with poor facilities making them vulnerable to preventable deceases.
Water supply is short in the IDP caps as the IDPs continue to rely on water sources of communities thus increasing the burden and competition over resource use. Food is in gross short supply because attempts made to return to the villages to mobilize food are repelled by the armed herdsmen who currently occupy those communities.
4. TERRORISM
“Terrorism” is the institutional violence of a fundamentalist. The word “terrorism” is politically and emotionally changed and this greatly compounds the difficulty of providing a precise definition. According to Bishop Lucius Ugorji, “since one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, there is no generally accepted definition of the term.
However, common definitions of terrorism refer to those violent acts, perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal, that are intended to create fear (terror) and which deliberately target or disregard the safety of civilians. (cf Lucius Ugorji, a paper presented on the Christian Response on Fundamentalism.)
Terrorists can come from any social, political or religious group. It is very common among religious terrorists to hear rhetoric about “pure evil” or “Satan.” By characterizing their perceived enemies as satanic, they tend to justify hatred and even mass slaughter.
Herdsmen terrorists
Things have been moving so fast that in this country that it is very difficult to keep up with them. The future of Nigeria is now impossible to predict; in fact you can say that if you are not confused you do not know what is going on. It is like pressing the fast rewind button on a video recorder and wondering whether it will stop in 1960, 1967 – 1970s, the 1980s -1990s (days of the military era) or when? Certainly I think anybody with a sense of history must reflect on the lessons of the past and not on ideologies. And if we do a good reflection, we will start by asking the right question. Hence, according to Dennis Healey:
The moment you have got the question rightly formulated, the possibility of a solution is imminent. Our duty now is to define that question, and to start working out the answer (Dennis Haeley: English politician, paper presentation, 27th February, 1984, London, England).
The simple question is; when has the Fulani herdsman started carrying sophisticated weapons “AK47 and not a staff as is typical of shepherds or pastoralists/nomads?This is a characteristic feature of shepherds as contained in Psalm 23:1,4 with your crook and staff, you lead them to greener pastures and not with AK 47, Revolver, or Pump Action Guns. Thus we classify this group of erdsmen as terrorists. They are out for ethnic cleansing going by their mode of operations. And there is no other word to describe it better than to say what is happening is genocide!
In my estimation, this is not something that should be taken for granted by anybody. We cannot remain silent in the face of this gruesome murder/massacre of the Benue people. Words by government leaders are inadequate when confronted with the absolute immorality and senselessness of the murder of these people. We look for rational understanding of something that is beyond human comprehension. We seek definitive answers. We demand that action/proactive action be taken now to bring those involved to judgment and stop further bloodshed.
The style of killings left no one in doubt that it was a manifestation of absolute evil. According to Gerhard Schroder, German Chancellor 1998-2006 talking about the holocaust on 25thJanuary, 2005, in Berlin has this to say:
Evil is not a political or scientific category but after Auschwitz, who could doubt that it exists, and that it manifested itself in the hate driven genocide carried out by the Nazi regime?
He continued;
“Noting this fact does not permit us to circumvent our responsibility by blaming everything on a demonic Hiltler. The evil manifested in the Nazi ideology was not without its precursors. There was a tradition behind the rise of this brutal ideology and the accompanying loss of moral inhibition. Above all it needs to be said that the Nazi ideology was something that people supported at the time and that they took time in putting into effect.”
If one would ask; who owns this herds of cattle, is it the Fulanis in the bush or those in political offices. Who buys these weapons for them?And why are they carrying about unlicensed weapons? It is easy to know why the leaders of our country are keeping quiet; as long as the destruction lasts.
The past cannot be overcome, it is the past. But its traces and above all, the lessons to be learned from it extend to the present. There will never be anything that can make up for the horror, the torment and the agony that took place in Guma/Logo local government areasof Benue State on the early hours of 1st January 2018. It is only possible to provide the families of those who died and the survivors a certain amount of compensation.
It is true, the temptation to forget is very great, because many of us are perhaps interested in making statements that are politically correct and not facing the reality of the injustice and the desecration of human dignity by the herdsmen possibly based on their ideologies.
At this point, it is good for our leaders to know that:
“The United Nations Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide was a direct effect on the holocaust on international law. It requires people of different cultural, religious, and racial origins to respect and protect life and human dignity throughout the world. (The convention was framed by the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in December 1948, and came into force in January 1951.)
This law is binding on Nigeria as a member state under the United Nations and so we demand that the perpetrators of this genocide in Benue and other parts of the country must be brought to face the law.
LET THIS KILLINGS BY THE HERDSMEN TERRORISTS BE REMEMBERED FOR A PURPOSE
Remembrance of the sad event of the killings by the herdsmen terrorist and where it has happened in this country is an essential component in fashioning the future. The speech this evening in the National Ecumenical Centre does not limit itself to lamentations over human wickedness, nor to dwelling on the message of hope in adversity provided by Psalm 2 – a sacred text for all religions. By the words of this Psalm, we know that faith can be applied practically to forestall the evils perpetrated under a godless ideology. These words of the ancient Psalm rise from our hearts:
I have become like a broken vessel. I hear the whispering of many-terror on every side-as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. but I trust in you O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”
Using the words of St. Pope John Paul II in his address to the Jews in Jerusalem on 23rd March, 2000 says:
We are overcome by the echo of the heart-rending laments of so many. Men, women, (the aged), children, infants, cry out to us from the depths of the horror that they experienced. How can we fail to heed their cry? No one can forget or ignore what happened; no one can diminish its scale.
We wish to remember those our brothers and sisters, our children and women and our parents. We wish to remember them for a purpose, namely to ensure that never will evil prevail. How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God. Only a godless ideology could plan and carryout the type of disgustful killings of fellow human beings.
But amidst all this pain which we are going through now; we believe and trust in God and our Lord Jesus and recognize that:
Not even in the darkest hour is the light extinguished. Thus the entire bible, though well aware of the human capacity for evil, also proclaims that evil will not have the last word. Out of the depths of pain and sorrow, the believer’s heart cries out: “I trust in you, O Lord; I say you are my God, in you O Lord, I have taken refuge, deliver me in your righteousness. Psalm 31.
As a Christian, and a Catholic, my religion teaches me and my spiritual experience demands that we overcome evil with Good. We remember, but not with the desire for vengeance or as an incentive for hatred. For us, to remember is to pray for peace, and justice for all.
RECOMMENDATIONS
One of the initial steps recommended is to conduct a rapid needs assessment to determine required immediate support.
The federal and state government should mop up all the adhoc camps into few central IDP camps and put in place a camp a management system as well as facilities.
Food and non-food items should be supplied to IDPs at the camps and within communities. Supplies should address the food needs of children differently from adults.
Security should be reinforced at the IDP camps to forestall attacks and other crimes associated with insecurity at the camps e.g. trafficking in persons and drugs.
Psychosocial First Aid should be provided for survivors wit stress symptoms like flash suicidal ideation and severe post traumatic stress disorder.
Basic health care support should be provided especially immunization and anti/post-natal services for children and expecting mothers. Specific attention should be paid to de-worming, flu attacks and other communicable diseases like Hepatitis B.
A national dialogue on pastoralism and insecurity should be convened to develop strategic roadmap to ending armed violence by herders. Priority should be on breaking of mercenaries and smuggled migrants, financing networks for the violence, hate speeches etc. a charter of commitment to end the violence should be developed and signed by security agencies, leadership of pastoralist organization and other key stakeholders.
A truth and justice reconciliation programme should be launched to promote forgiveness, healing and reintegration. The models used in Rwanda and Sierra Leone following genocide and civil war respectively should be adopted. Religious leaders in the state should facilitate this process.
CONCLUSION
Pope John Paul II admonished us on the need for peace in these words: “Do not be afraid to take a change on peace, to live peace…peace will be the last word of history.” “Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.” And in Cf words of Nelson Mandela, “The sight of freedom looming on the horizon should encourage us to redouble our efforts.”
Dear friends in Christ, Albert Einstein once said “the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch them without doing anything.” It is my hope that our efforts here today will be able to yield the desired results as we continue to work towards bandaging the wounds of our people and giving them hope.
Together with you this evening, I bow my head before the victims of the crisis whose 73 corpses we buried on 11th January, 2018 in Makurdi. Even if one day the names of the victims should fade in the memory of mankind; their fate will not be forgotten. They will remain in the heart of history.
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