the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague to open
investigation into the ongoing #SouthernKadunaGenocide.
This was the high-point of CRA’s consultative meeting which ended in
Abuja on Saturday.
CRA in a statement by Tom Chiahemen, Interim Director of Publicity
lamented the continuous killings and annihilation of indigenous
Christians in Kajuru, Chikun and other local government areas of
Southern Kaduna.
The statement also noted with concern the nonchalant attitude of both
the federal and Kaduna state government and said they cannot be absolved
of complicity.
This is heightened by the fact that both the President of the county and
governor of Kaduna are not only Muslims but have presided over
government policies that did not protect the interest of Christians.
It is time for the Prosecutor of the ICC Ms Fatou Bensouda, to set up a
fact-finding panel in order to end the pogrom before it is too late.
What is obvious is that the Nigerian state has failed to protect the
Southern Kaduna indigenous Christian communities and the situation is
deteriorating on daily basis.
In some instances, villagers have reported sighting helicopter dropping
strange people and parcels in the bush which they believed to be weapons
for the terrorist ahead of attacks.
The killings in Southern Kaduna has all the semblance of the 1994
Rwandan genocide. The time for the ICC to act is now before it is too
late.
The CRA said it had taken Judicial notice of the fact that the Kaduna
State Government, under Administration of Governor Nasiru Elrufai, has
not only been silent over these killings, neither has he visited any of
the destroyed villages nor visited those taking shelter in various
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camps in the area.
The CRA recalls that in February 2019, Governor Elrufai was quick to
announce alleged killings in the area where he reeled out
unsubstantiated figures that were later disputed by the Police and Army.
Yet, the same Governor, who, some months ago, visited victims of
Banditry in Birnin Gwari and even apologized for his government’s
inability to protect the people as the chief security officer of the
state, has not found it worthy to do same to Christian dominated
Southern Kaduna where indigenous Christians are being killed almost on
daily basis, the statement noted.
Against this background, the CRA is forced to believe or view the
ongoing pogrom as nothing but a deliberately orchestrated genocide aimed
at exterminating indigenous Christians from their ancestral lands and
taking it over by a certain armed ethnic and religious group.
CRA commends the efforts of the leadership of the Southern Kaduna
People’s Union who have been proactive in responding to the needs of
these hapless communities by rallying support and distribution of relief
materials to the victims.
Statistical information at the disposal of CRA indicates that from 2018
to date, no fewer than 15,000 Christian children, women, old and young
have been maimed and killed by armed groups alleged to be Fulani
terrorists in Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue and Taraba states while
the Federal and State governments have been unable to protect them.
This is in addition to another 620 people who have been brutally
murdered, according to documents obtained by CRA from The International
Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law (ISCLRL).
No fewer than 32, 000 Christians have been killed in the last 10years.
The report also warned that militant Fulani herdsmen and the Boko Haram
have intensified their anti-Christian violence in the Middle Belt and
Northeast regions of Nigeria with the burning or destroying of Christian
centers of worship and learning. In addition, hundreds of homes have
been destroyed.
It is time for all Nigerians, all men and women of goodwill to rise up
and speak against this evil which, if left unchecked, will set this
country on fire, the statement noted.