Cardinal Onaiyekan on Nigeria's massacres: Insecurity crisis raises serious questions

By Deborah Castellano Lubov

Cardinal John Onaiyekan is suggesting that latest attacks in Nigeria's Plateau State, which manifested in coordinated massacres over a series of villages during the Christmas holidays, raises serious questions and requires a concrete response.

In an interview with Vatican News, the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja expressed this, noting that while the insecurity crisis and killings are "nothing new," that this recent incident causes greater cause for concern as it suggests there may be more organization behind these events.

The Pope drew the world's attention to the horror during his Angelus on 31 December, as he decried that "unfortunately, the celebration of Christmas in Nigeria was marked by serious violence and many victims." Assuring his prayers for them and their families, the Pope prayed: "May God free Nigeria from these atrocities!"

The Cardinal thanked the Holy Father for mentioning the situation openly on Christmas Day in Saint Peter's Square. "We are not proud to have our Nigeria mentioned with these kind of atrocities, but we thank the Holy Father for bringing it to the attention of the international community."

As the UN also said the series of deadly coordinated attacks raised a serious alarm, the Cardinal laments that now "there is no part of Nigeria that is really safe."

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Q: Cardinal Onaiyekan massacres throughout Nigeria's Plateau State between the 23rd and the 26th of December killed some 200 people and wounded some 500 others. In the wake of these deadly coordinated attacks on some 30 villages, that caused more than 200 families to leave their homes and take shelter in camps for displaced people, how would you say these attacks reflect the insecurity crisis in the country?

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. We have been saying this for the past ten years. And the government has been assuring us that they are on top of the situation. Billions, billions of naira have been budgeted every year for security. The whole place is full of security agents. Soldiers, policemen, checkpoints all over the place. And yet, the criminal or of militants or whatever they are, terrorists, are able to commit the kind of atrocity that we saw on Christmas Day. This particular one, this particular last incident, which involved no less than 200 persons, were killed, and 37 villages razed to the ground. And the eyewitness report states that all the villages were attacked at the same time, which means it was a coordinated, well prepared, and well executed act of, people are talking of, mass murder. And, there is also a suggestion that the those who carried out these crimes were also people who were living with the indigenes of these areas. They are neighbors with whom they have been having quarrels. Now when we hear government saying that they are investigating the matter, we are skeptical because we do not believe that it is possible for this kind of crime to be committed without anybody, without being able to find out who is behind it. How did they get armed? Who is arming them? Who is training them? and What are they seeking to achieve? The people who have been the victims are largely those whom we call the original owners, the indigenes of the land, are mainly Christians and farmers.

The accusation is against Fulani settlers who come with their cows, and of recent, these herdsmen have become very weaponized. We do not know whether it is the same herdsmen that we are familiar with, or whether these herdsmen have been infiltrated by armed terrorists. The second suggestion seems to be the case. But even if that is the case, God made us to know, and find a way to stop it. Human lives cannot just be allowed to be wasted like that.

We thank the Holy Father for actually mentioning our case openly on Christmas Day in Saint Peter's Square. We are not proud to have our Nigeria mentioned with these kind of atrocities, but we thank the Holy Father for bringing it to the attention of the international community.

Q: What responsibility is the government to play amid all of this?

We don't know what the present government will do. What we know was that the last government was completely irresponsible. In fact, there are some people have suggested that the last government headed by President Buhari was complicit in these atrocities. We can't understand how the same thing can continue with a new government, with a new president who comes from a different part of the country, even though the new government is the same party that was ruling us for eight years.

Now, we don't know whether these atrocities will again be swept under the carpet like others before it, or whether the virulence of these atrocities, the one that was committed this Christmas, this last Christmas Day, will, force those concerned to move and do something seriously, concretely, to change the narrative.

Q: What needs to be done? What's contributing to this, that needs to be combated?

In my own opinion, what needs to be done simply is this: Find out who are the groups that are angry, or who have reasons to want to kill their fellow Nigerian citizens. We must identify them. And call them to order. And, there is a whole lot of conspiracy theories around one of them, which seems to be the most feasible, is that henchmen now want to occupy territories which are being shown for long occupied by farmers. So they by constantly harassing and killing them, destroying their villages and even taking over their farms and using them. They hope that way to expand their land and occupy the territory, and then throw the original inhabitants into IDP camps, or let them find somewhere else to go to. If this is this, if this is the if this is the reality, then government must know who is behind it, and who is organizing them. And obviously maybe the people organizing them are known. They are too highly placed to be touched, in which case we don't have a good government. There should be nobody too highly placed that we should not be able to call his name, bring him to judgment and punish them so that the nation can live in peace. We are only seeing the case of the massive, massacre in Jos, but generally in Nigeria, there is terrible state of insecurity. Every time we are traveling by road, we are always afraid that we may be stopped on the road, kidnapped for ransom or robbed in one way or the other. And there is no part of Nigeria now that is really safe.

Q: How so?

Despite the fact that there are security agents all over the place, we do not understand what is happening. Our country was not like that before. I grew up in this country. I'm now 80 years old. Until I was 70 years old, we didn't have this kind of problem. All this is a matter that started ten years ago. We. We are reluctant to even give it a religious coloring, but I'm afraid there is no way to avoid it, because there is definitely an art. There's a dimension of Islamic terrorism and fanaticism. And again, no matter how delicate it is, we must address it and call the Muslim leaders to account for what is being done by these criminals. The general answer of our Muslim leaders is to say these people are not Muslims. They are criminals. They are not doing what they are doing for the sake of Islam. But we do know that when they go on a rampage, they are shouting Islamic slogans Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar. And therefore they have those who preach to them in their mosques and who tell them what to do. So we must face that aspect of it. There is, of course, the ethnic dimension and the economic dimension, but we have no excuse to allow this to continue to happen.

Q: Pope Francis specifically mentioned the violence in Nigeria, both during his Urbi et Orbi address on Christmas Day and also during the Angelus.

He calls it a horror. He calls it a horror and it is true. It's horrible. Yes. And that message of the Pope was spread through many, most of, the Nigerian national newspapers. The whole country heard that. They said even the Pope has waded into our affair of insecurity. It's something that we are all ashamed of. We are still waiting because this happened almost more than a week ago. We are still waiting to see. So far we have not heard of any major people who have been arrested, or any clear explanation about what happened, who did what, why they did it, etc... Meanwhile, those who have been killed, may God rest their souls, have been buried. Those who are bereaved have been licking their wounds, and, looking to heaven for assistance.

Q: Your Eminence, are Nigerians generally aware therefore of the Pope's praying for them, and his closeness?

Yes, yes. Actually, our people have a very high regard for the Pope and that he should single us out for mention on that day. But for those who have been injured, it is a great consolation to them. I don't know how the perpetrators will consider or think, or say about the Pope, the Pope's intervention. That is their own problem. But we who are Christians and even other Nigerians, even Nigerian Muslims, who do not believe, who do not agree, with this way of behavior, are all grateful to the Pope for raising our problem to the attention of the whole world, because they know that when the Pope speaks, not only the more than 1.4 billion Catholics of the more than 2 billion Christians, all over the world are listening, but almost the entire humanity is listening.