Some members of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords, the British upper legislative chamber, have petitioned the Commonwealth over the persistence of insurgency and farmer/herder crisis in Nigeria.
The lawmakers, in a letter dated September 14, 2020, addressed to the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland, said failure of the Federal Government to protect Nigerians was a breach of its obligations under the Commonwealth Charter.
Those who signed the letter to the Commonwealth scribe include Baroness Cox, Lord Alton of Liverpool, Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws QC, Jim Shannon, MP, Lord Williams of Oystermouth ( a former Archbishop of Canterbury) and Lord Carey of Clifton, also a former Archbishop of Canterbury.
Others are Lord Bishop of Coventry, Dr Christopher Cocksworth; Lord Bishop of Truro, Philip Mounstephen; Lord Stoddart of Swindon; Lord Anderson of Swansea; Lord Cormack; Sir Geoffrey Nice, QC; Ayo Adedoyin of International Organization for Peace and Social Justice, and Ewelina Ochab of Coalition for Genocide Response.
Mervyn Thomas, CSW; Dr Khataza Gondwe, CSW; Neville Kyrke-Smith of Aid to the Church in Need (UK); Dr John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International and Ann Buwalda of Jubilee Campaign also signed the letter.
Referencing a report by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, the lawmakers said thousands of civilians have been killed and that “elements of the Nigerian government may be complicit in violence”.
The lawmakers asked that a probe be carried out into the killings and at the least ensure “adequate protection and aid for those suffering the loss of family members and the destruction of their homes and livelihoods.’’
The letter, which said that some of the signatories had met and spoken with Nigeria’s former Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), quoted news reports attributed to him to the effect that the armed forces are not neutral and that they collude in the ethnic cleansing in riverine states by Fulani herders.
“He insists that villagers must defend themselves because ‘depending on the armed forces’ will result in them dying ‘one by one’. The ethnic cleansing must stop,” it quoted Danjuma as saying.
It, however, conceded that the signatories “recognize the important distinction between the Fulani in general (a diverse group of millions of people with hundreds of clans) and the sub-group of well armed, radicalized Fulani who carry out attacks.”
The letter, titled “Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide?” read: “We write to highlight urgent concerns about escalating violence in Nigeria, where attacks, led by Boko Haram, Fulani herders and other Islamist militia continue in northern and central-belt states, with reports of increasing violence in the South-East.
“The state’s failure to protect its citizens is a clear breach of its obligations under the Commonwealth Charter in respect of human rights.
“There is now an urgent need to ensure adequate protection and aid for those suffering the loss of family members and the destruction of their homes and livelihoods, and to end impunity by ensuring that complaints related to human rights violations are promptly, independently, and impartially investigated and those responsible are held to account after fair trials.”
The parliamentarians further asked that the issue be raised with the Commonwealth ministerial action group.
“We write, therefore, to ask whether you are able to respond on behalf of the Commonwealth and to raise these urgent concerns with the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group. We would be very willing to meet in person (or perhaps more practically online via zoom) to discuss how we might proceed,’’ the lawmakers stated.
But reacting, the All Progressives Congress (APC), asked the United Kingdom group, led by Baroness Cox of the House of Lords, to focus on the problems facing their country and leave Nigeria alone.
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of APC, Mr Yekini Nabena, told newsmen that each country has its own fair share of insecurity and other challenges.
Noting that the violence in Southern Kaduna, some parts of the Middle Belt and other states of the federation could not be described as genocide, Nabena advised the UK to also begin to look at the bright side of things in Nigeria.
In its reaction, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said that the security alert in the country raised by the British parliamentarians was an indication of a vote of no confidence on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government by a highly respected member of the international community.
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Diran Odeyemi, said the Federal Government’s inability to run Boko Haram terrorists out of town showed that Buhari’s pledge to deliver on security has failed.
The party also called on the government to take the fight against terrorism to the criminals in their enclaves, lamenting that in the past few years, many Nigerians died recklessly owing to government’s failure to secure them from the hands of their killers.