UPDATED: NSCIA Blames Climate Change, Poverty, and Mass Unemployment for Security Crisis
CPC designation, pretext to destabilise Nigeria, it declares • Faults alleged Christian genocide
The Nigerian Muslim Ummah under the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has attributed the security crisis in the country to climate change, poverty, and mass unemployment.
This was just as it described the designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) by the United States President, Donald Trump, as a ploy to destabilise the country.
President Trump had, penultimate Friday, premised his action on alleged persecution of Christians in the country.
Addressing journalists on Sunday in Abuja, the General Secretary of NSCIA, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, declared that the declaration of Nigeria as CPC was part of a coordinated plot by the United States to destabilise the country.
The NSCIA equally rejected the claim of Islamist invasion, attributing the violent crisis in the Middle Belt to ecological challenges thrown up by degraded pastures and dried-up water sources in the far-northern Sahelian belt. It also identified poverty and mass unemployment of youths as instigating criminality.
“If the violence in some parts of Nigeria is not religious, what are the real drivers? The first is ecological. As the International Crisis Group has detailed in multiple reports, relentless desertification and drought, products of climate change, have degraded pastures and dried up water sources in the far-northern Sahelian belt. This is not an ‘Islamist invasion’; it is a desperate southward migration of herders seeking survival.
“This climate-driven migration forces herders into direct and often violent competition with sedentary farming communities over dwindling resources of land and water. Historic grazing reserves have been lost to expanding settlements, and traditional conflict resolution mechanisms have eroded. This is the flashpoint for the farmer-herder crisis in Plateau, Benue, and other Middle Belt states.
“The second driver is criminality. In the North West, North East, and South East, banditry is fueled by overlapping factors of grinding poverty, mass youth unemployment, drug abuse, porous borders, and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons over the decades. Crucially, as researchers have noted, it is also driven by illicit artisanal mining of solid minerals. Criminal syndicates and bandits sack villages and displace populations, creating an ungoverned space for their illegal mining operations. This is a violent, organised crime racket for resources, and there is nothing Islamic about it. In the Zamfara, Katsina, and Sokoto axis, Muslims have lost more than 1,200 souls to the same bandits, who answer to crime, not tribe or faith.
“The United States Department itself, in its 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, stated that banditry and other criminality, not animosity between particular religious groups, were the primary drivers of inter-communal violence. This is not a religious war.
“This agenda is not hidden. We refer to a recent op-ed from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a prominent United States foreign policy think-tank. In this article, the author, Michael Rubin, asks two questions in the same breath: First, ‘Is there a Christian genocide?’ and second, ‘Just as Somaliland’s independence has become a United States’ national interest, would Biafran independence also augment regional security?’ The geopolitical objective is the fragmentation of Nigeria to achieve the avowed mission of the separatists, in line with the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra’s (IPOB) agenda.”
Professor Oloyede faulted the narrative of genocide against Christians as he told newsmen that the terrorist groups behind the scary security situation across the country are blind to religion.
He said: “For the avoidance of doubt, what Nigeria faces is a complex and tragic perennial security crisis that brings immeasurable pain to all its citizens, regardless of faith or ethnic persuasion. From Katsina to Borno and from Benue to Plateau, as well as in Kaduna and Kwara, Nigeria bleeds through gruesome savagery against Muslims and Christians, Imams and priests.
“Non-partisan experts have refuted this blackmail, and Amnesty International, which methodically investigated the insecurity in Nigeria, had stated that there is ‘no evidence of a religious motivation’ to characterise it as genocide. According to Isa Sunusi, the Director of Amnesty’s Nigeria programme, ‘I don’t think President Trump has any facts. I don’t think he has had a good briefing about the nature of this conflict.’
“Senior researchers like Samuel Malik of the pan-African think tank, Good Governance Africa, have also stated that ‘there is no credible evidence of a state-led or coordinated campaign to exterminate Christians, which is what genocide is’.”
The Forum called on the Nigerian government to redouble its efforts to protect its citizens, regardless of faith, destroy the bandits and terrorists, expose and hold the domestic instigators of this divisive lie accountable, and shame the foreign lobbyists against Nigeria.
“We commend the resolve of the government to, with dignity and honour, engage the United States and the rest of the international community on how to eliminate terrorism and banditry in Nigeria and, indeed, in the sub-region,” it stated.
Trump’s threat, a wakeup for Nigerians to unite against terrorism — Oba Ladoja
Meanwhile, the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Rashidi Ladoja, has described Trump’s threat on Christian genocide as a wake-up call for Nigerians to unite in the fight against terrorism.
Oba Ladoja stated this while receiving the President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Bishop Francis Wale Oke, at his palace in Ibadan over the weekend.
According to the traditional ruler, it is over a decade ago—specifically since the twilight of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in 2014—that Nigeria has been battling with the scourge of terrorism.
“Many people have been killed and property worth inestimable amounts of money destroyed. Multitudes of families, particularly women and children, have been displaced. Kidnappings have taken place,” he said.
Earlier, Bishop Oke congratulated Oba Ladoja on his emergence as the 44th Olubadan and prayed to God to give him wisdom and knowledge to discharge his obligations as Olubadan.
Lawyers urge introspection, not military action
Also, a stark ultimatum from Trump last week, threatening military invasion of Nigeria over the alleged “Christian genocide” in the country, has ignited a fierce debate among legal luminaries.
The threat, issued in response to persistent allegations of targeted killings, has been roundly condemned by legal experts as a violation of international law, while being simultaneously reframed as a crucial wake-up call for the Federal Government to fortify its security apparatus.
Trump’s threat stipulated that if the Nigerian government failed to address the killings, the United States might intervene militarily, going in ‘guns-a-blazing.’
Reacting to the threat, Dr Abiodun Layonu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), dismissed the legality of the United States President’s utterance.
“There is no legality,” Dr Layonu maintained, stressing that the threat itself constitutes a clear violation of international law, including numerous United Nations treaties and provisions.
“The international law generally and its specific instances are certainly against the threat issued by the President of the United States,” he stated, but quickly shifted the discussion to the non-legal realities.
Dr Layonu advised the Nigerian government to engage with the United States through quiet and loud diplomacy and view the threat as a call to action, specifically in seeking greater cooperation from international friends for essential military assistance.
Chief Malachy Ugwummadu, another legal luminary, echoed the sentiment on international law but focused on the nation’s diminished standing on the global stage. He pointed to the fundamental principle of national sovereignty, which dictates that no other country has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of another.
Institute treason charges against Nigerians who allegedly reported to US — Group
On its part, the National Patriotic Elders for Peace and Harmony of Nigeria has called on President Bola Tinubu to institute treasonable felony charges against Nigerians who allegedly reported claims of Christian genocide to the United States, accusing them of undermining the country’s sovereignty.
In a statement signed by its president, Dr Bature AbdulAziz, the group described such actions as unpatriotic and detrimental to national unity, stressing that Nigeria has adequate institutions to handle its internal security challenges.
“Nigeria is a sovereign country with sufficient laws and legal backing to take care of every concern of its citizens,” Dr AbdulAziz said. “Reporting to other countries downgrades the sovereignty of the nation, and anybody who does that should be punished,” it stated.
The body also urged northern governors to convene a regional security summit involving traditional rulers, religious figures, and community leaders to tackle the rising insecurity in the Northern region.