Nigeria And The Genocide Debate… By Bolanle BOLAWOLE
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“All the “five specific acts that are considered as acts of genocide once they are committed with genocidal intent” are prevalent in the North of the country today. In other words, all the ingredients of genocide are complete in the malicious soup that Nigeria’s Muslim North has cooked since the unfortunate presidency of Buhari, beginning in 2015. And it is genocide on two fronts, not just one.
“The first is the genocide being perpetrated by fundamentalist Islamic groups like ISWAP and Boko Haram, whose aim is to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state, first in the North and then all over the country. For these radical Islamists, Christians, traditionalists, animists and moderate Muslims not subscribing to their radical religious tenets are viewed the same way and must be wiped out. For them, moderate Muslims are as much an enemy – even worse enemies – than non-Muslims! And that is historical, both nationally and internationally.
“All over the world, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims are sworn foes because of this. Radical Islamists loathe moderate Muslims. When Uthman dan Fodio began his jihad in 1804, other Muslim rulers and Muslim states were not spared. To justify their jihad, the Sokoto jihadists accused the Hausa states and their rulers of not being ascetic or puritanical enough, just as Boko Haram and ISWAP accuse other Muslims today to justify their own jihad. It is this killing of moderate Muslims in the North that has blind-folded and or jaundiced the eyes of some to ignorantly or mischieviously deny the genocide that is ongoing in the Muslim North.
“The second angle of ongoing genocide in the North is the one being perpetrated by Fulani herders, bandits and terrorists who have engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing of non-Fulani populations in the North (the Middle Belt inclusive) to seize their land and corner their resources. Such conquered territories are then renamed and resettled, with the conquerors taking possession while the conquered people are shipped away into IDP (Internally-Displaced Persons’) camps strewn all over the North.
“Yes, there were herder/farmer clashes in the past and there also were religious riots, but the ongoing genocide was started by Buhari and his henchmen for political-cum-religious reasons. The administration of incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu inherited it – he did not create or start it. But whether his defence architecture, at the head of which perches Fulani Muslims, will deliver Pax Nigeriana, remains in the realm of conjectures. In the same vein, whether his appeasement policy, scantily-concealed in his recent reshuffle of Service chiefs, will succeed – when a similar appeasement policy of the Western powers towards Adolf Hitler ultimately failed with disastrous consequences – remains to be seen!”
Are genocidal acts ongoing in the country? Specifically, are there genocidal acts directed or targeted singularly or majorly at Christians? Some say, yes; others say no. To start with, what is genocide? Google defines genocide as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. It is a crime under international law, and the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide outlines specific acts that can constitute genocide” These include “killing, causing serious harm, imposing conditions to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children.”
Raphael Lemkin reportedly coined the term “genocide” in 1944 while the United Nations established it as a crime under international law in 1948. The core element of genocide is “the specific intent to destroy a group, not just to harm it.” Such targeted groups are also defined by national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.
The 1948 UN Convention identifies five specific acts that are considered as acts of genocide once they are committed with genocidal intent. These are: Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing on the group measures intended to prevent procreation or birth by the group; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
In every genocidal act, therefore, there are perpetrators on the one hand and victims on the other. In some instances, the government in power may itself be the perpetrators of genocidal acts against a section of its own population for any or a combination of racial, religious, cultural, political or economic reasons. The complicity – and/or duplicity – of governments supporting, perpetrating or perpetuating genocidal acts may be brazen or tacit. They may deny openly while supporting underneath. They may also divert attention to extraneous factors (e.g. poverty) or tone down what is happening in official narratives to, for example, farmer/herder clashes.
Religious riots and genocidal acts
The suffering of Nigerian Christians in the hands of their Muslim compatriots, especially in the northern parts of the country, is as old as the country itself. Simplistically referred to as religious riots, they have reared their ugly heads in virtually every major city of the North. For you to know how serious the matter is, this is what Google said when I asked the simple question of how many religious riots have been witnessed in northern Nigeria: “It is impossible to provide an exact, comprehensive number of all religious riots in Northern Nigeria, as many incidents have occurred over decades, often intertwined with ethnic and political conflicts, and not all have been formally catalogued or reported consistently. Instead of a single number, the situation is characterised by recurrent and widespread outbreaks of violence (Google’s own emphasis) that have varied in intensity and cause.” Google then went on to list a few of the religious riots to include the 1953 Kano riot (which is older than the country itself!), the Maitatsine uprisings of the 1980s, which occurred across many Northern Nigeria cities, including but not limited to Kano (1980), Kaduna (1982), Bulum-Ketu (1982), Jimeta (1984), and Gombe (1985).
Between 1980 and 1990, Google says “numerous clashes occurred in this period, such as those in Kafanchan (1987), Ilorin and Jere (1989), Tafawa Balewa (1991), and Zango-Kataf (1992). These were often ethno-religious, involving conflicts between largely Christian ethnic minorities and Hausa/Fulani Muslims over land and political power.” Google adds that since the return to democracy in 1999, “the adoption of Sharia law in several (indeed, many) northern states (has) led to a significant increase in (religious) violence. Such violent acts include but are not limited to “the 2000 Kaduna riots (Sharia clashes), which killed thousands; the 2001 Jos riots where hundreds to thousands were killed; the 2002 Miss World riots in Kaduna, which caused over 200 deaths; the 2004 Yelwa massacre and subsequent reprisal attacks in Kano; the 2008 and 2010 Jos riots, both resulting in significant casualties”.
Not done yet, Google says the Boko Haram insurgency (since 2009),”while more of an armed rebellion and terrorist campaign than traditional riots, has generated widespread violence with religious motivations, leading to thousands of deaths and millions of displaced (persons) across the North-east and Middle-Belt regions.” Google adds that “the total number of such incidents is in the hundreds, with one report citing approximately 80 episodes of violent riots in Jos alone between 1999 and 2004. The ongoing nature of these conflicts, sometimes labelled as genocide by aid organisations and local leaders, means that violence persists.”
Note the word “genocide”! Well, if aid organisations, being largely foreigners or people not resident in the areas of conflict, do not know what they are saying, we should expect local leaders, who bear the brunt of the atrocities, to know what they suffer from. Who wears the shoe,, as they say, knows where it pinches!
Note also that the Boko Haram and other insurgencies continue unabated in the North, with the terrorists/insurgents/bandits controlling swathes of territories now and again, according to the testimonies of governors, law makers, traditional rulers and other local leaders. And when this happens, the insurgents do not establish churches; instead, they raze them, proclaim Sharia and Islam and establish their fancied “Islamic Republic” over the areas so captured by them. Whether Boko Haram, ISWAP, Fulani herdsmen and bandits, they all proclaim Islam. None of them subscribe to or proclaim the Christian religion or ideology.
Genocide and blasphemy
Nigerians are by now familiar with the horrific and horrendous killing of people, mainly Christians, non-Muslims or those who convert from Islam to Christianity, by Muslim hordes in the North, on the allegation of what they often describe as blasphemy against Islam’s Prophet Muhammed or the Quran. Again, I asked Google how many of such killings have taken place in the North. Flabbergasted, Google replied: “It is not possible to provide an exact number of persons killed for blasphemy in northern Nigeria, as data is not systematically collected and reported. However, there have been numerous documented instances of mob violence and extrajudicial killings in response to perceived blasphemy, often driven by religious extremism”.
Recent examples of blasphemy killing listed by Google include that of Gideon Akaluka (Kano, 1994), beheaded with his spiked head paraded on the streets of Kano; Christiana Oluwatoyin Oluwaseesin (Gombe, 2007), falsely accused of tearing a Quran; a 50-year-old man (name unknown), in Kano, 2008; Christian traders (Niger state, 2016), who were burnt alive; Bridget Aghahime (Kano, 2016), a 74-year-old Christian trader beaten to death by a mob after a minor dispute was escalated into a blasphemy accusation; Eunice Elisha Olawale (Abuja, 2016), a female Christian preacher murdered by a mob while preaching in the morning near her home; Deborah Samuel Yakubu (Sokoto, 2022), a Christian student stoned to death and her body burnt by a mob of fellow Muslim students; Usman Buda (Sokoto, 2023), a butcher, stoned to death under circumstances similar to Yakubu’s; Ammaye (Niger state, 2025), even though a Muslim herself, was lynched and burnt to death after an exchange of words with a young man was interpreted as blasphemous; and Yunusa (Bauchi, 2025), killed by a mob in the Nasaru community allegedly for making blasphemous remarks.
Google concludes that, “In many of these cases, law enforcement was either overpowered by the mob or (they) hesitated to intervene, and perpetrators have often been discharged without trial, leading to a culture of impunity that perpetuates such violence.”
No fair hearing is given to anyone so accused; no opportunity to defend oneself is allowed; the accusers are the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and the executioner! Once someone is accused of blasphemy, jungle justice is swift; the chances of escaping, even when one is innocent, are virtually non-existent. And in all the cases, perpetrated majorly against Christians, non-Muslims and converts from Islam, no appeal can be made to any authority for reprieve. On the issue of blasphemy, the entire Muslim North speaks, acts, and moves like one man! The surest road to untimely, sudden, tragic, and painful death in the Muslim North is to be accused, even if falsely, and even if premeditatedly, of blasphemy. None of the perpetrators of this heinous crime, often manipulated against Christians, is arrested or prosecuted. When they are arrested, a mob attacks and sets them free. In the few instances they have been taken to court, they are quickly discharged and allowed to roam the street freely!
Sometimes I wonder how non-Muslims live in the Muslim North! Twelve (12) states in the North, beginning with Zamfara, practice Sharia; these are: Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Bauchi, Borno, Jigawa, Kebbi, Yobe, Kaduna, Niger and Gombe. The greatest disservice that retired Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo did this country as civilian president in 1999 was not to lift a finger when Zamfara led the Sharia states to establish what observers have dubbed political Sharia, which is used to befuddle hapless citizens, foment trouble, and blackmail and destabilise the country. Sharia is seen by many to apply mostly to poor Muslims while the powerful and well-connected Muslims ride roughshod over it.
Buhari’s legacy
From the above, the atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion predates Independence on October 1, 1960, and incidents of religious riots dot the entirety of the North’s landscape. Their entire territory drips with the blood of the innocent. Violence drapes their sky. But we have stomached it all this while! Why, then, the sudden outcry against what, ordinarily, has become part and parcel of our national life – our lot, which we have been forced to bear these many decades? It is because, blinded by the ambition to become our president, Muhammadu Buhari, after three failed attempts, became desperate. Thinking that the sitting president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, would not relinquish power, Buhari and his Fulani henchmen prepared for war. They imported Fulani terrorists from all over the world, armed them, and stationed them in locations all over the country. The wind, however, was taken off their sail when Jonathan conceded defeat without lifting a finger and without proddings from any quarters. Getting the terrorists to quit, however, became an issue. And once they had shown copy-cat Nigerians that taking to crime pays more than engaging in lawful activities, criminal ventures have since become a free-for-all.
As rightly stated by the Presidency, some are in this criminal venture for pecuniary gains, even if they camouflage their true intentions. There are the puritanical Muslims who want to establish a radical Islamic state. For such, Christians are the primary target; animists and moderate Muslims are not spared either. Those grabbing land may not be ascetic Muslims but their goal and those of the empire-builders converge in that the local population, mostly Christians, must first be extirpated before they can achieve their goal. So, Nigerian Christian leaders who insist that there is ongoing genocidal war against Christians in the North are correct. Westerner observers and governments who buy the genocide narrative can also not be faulted. But the genocide is targeted not only at Christians but also at other locals with the intention of taking over their land.
Conclusion
All the “five specific acts that are considered as acts of genocide once they are committed with genocidal intent” are prevalent in the North of the country today. In other words, all the ingredients of genocide are complete in the malicious soup that Nigeria’s Muslim North has cooked since the unfortunate presidency of Buhari, beginning in 2015. And it is genocide on two fronts, not just one. The first is the genocide being perpetrated by fundamentalist Islamic groups like ISWAP and Boko Haram, whose aim is to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state, first in the North and then all over the country. For these radical Islamists, Christians, traditionalists, animists and moderate Muslims not subscribing to their radical religious tenets are viewed the same way and must be wiped out. For them, moderate Muslims are as much an enemy – even worse enemies – than non-Muslims! And that is historical, both nationally and internationally. All over the world, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims are sworn foes because of this. Radical Islamists loathe moderate Muslims. When Uthman dan Fodio began his jihad in 1804, other Muslims rulers and Muslim states were not spared. To justify their jihad, the Sokoto jihadists accused the Hausa states and their rulers of not being ascetic or puritanical enough, just as Boko Haram and ISWAP accuse other Muslims today to justify their own jihad. It is this killing of moderate Muslims in the North that has blind-folded and/or jaundiced the eyes of some to ignorantly or mischieviously deny the genocide that is ongoing in the Muslim North. The second angle of ongoing genocide in the North is the one being perpetrated by Fulani herders, bandits and terrorists who have engaged in systematic ethnic cleansing of non-Fulani populations in the North (the Middle Belt inclusive) to seize their land and corner their resources. Such conquered territories are then renamed and resettled, with the conquerors taking possession while the conquered people are shipped away into IDP (Internally-Displaced Persons’) camps strewn all over the North. Yes, there were herder/farmer clashes in the past and there also were religious riots, but the ongoing genocide was started by Buhari and his henchmen for political-cum-religious reasons. The administration of incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu inherited it – he did not create or start it. But whether his defence architecture, at the head of which perches Fulani Muslims, will deliver Pax Nigeriana remains in the realm of conjectures. In the same vein, whether his appeasement policy, scantily-concealed with his recent reshuffle of Service chiefs, will succeed – when a similar appeasement policy of the Western powers towards Adolf Hitler ultimately failed with disastrous consequences – remains to be seen!
Former editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-chief of The Westerner news magazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.
