The Chief Executive Peace & Social Justice (PSJ UK), Mr. Ayo Adedoyin has warned that the situation in Nigeria is unravelling, and its president of five years, Muhammadu Buhari appears to be making things worse.
Adedoyin, campaigning against the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, has also warned that Africa’s most populous state is moving closer to a failed with the increasing attacks in different parts of the federation.
He gave the warning in an article he wrote for the United Kingdom based Telegraph, published on May 28, lamenting that the clouds were darkening over Nigeria.
He noted that Nigerian government had announced that it was unable to afford food imports, precisely when it needed them most.
He said: “The coronavirus pandemic has surged to almost 10,000 confirmed cases, and killed roughly 250 people, including the president’s Chief of Staff. Yet this is the least of my dual-country’s problems.
“It is experiencing widespread food shortages, the rebirth of Islamic State (Isil) in West Africa after having being dislodged from Syria and Iraq, as well as political corruption, a media in thrall to President Muhammadu Buhari and – on top of all this – deadly diseases besides coronavirus, such as malaria.
“Given the wasteland developing in Nigeria, home to 200 million people, one might have sympathy for its leader. But Buhari, an ex-military general, is seen in many quarters as somewhat complicit in the multiple layers of insecurity that bedevils the country.”
He said Buhari came to power in 2015 on a wave of hope from voters who looked up to him as the man to eradicate the twin evils of corruption and insecurity.
He wrote: “Today, however, many would say that he has made both evils worse. Buhari’s native clansmen of mainly migratory Fulani herders have been largely accused of working hand-in-hand with Islamic State West Africa (Iswap), currently rampaging through sub-Saharan Africa and orchestrating the brutal slaughter of innocent citizens, many of whom are Christian farmers.
“These farmers are attacked not only for their land resources, but for practising a heretical faith in the eyes of Islamist extremists. Twelve of Nigeria’s nineteen northern states are under Sharia (Islamic law), and Christians in these states face discrimination.”
He cited the report of the International Committee on Nigeria (Icon) which recently reported that Boko Haram had killed 43,242 Nigerians since 2010 while Fulani jihadists had slaughtered 17,284 Nigerians since 2010, bringing the combined total to 60,526.
He said: “The true number is feared to be far higher owing to mass burnings, chaotic attack aftermaths, disappearances and population displacement.
“It is shocking that all this is happening in a key Commonwealth member state and Africa’s largest economy, whose leader boasts a close relationship with Prince Charles.
“Icon reports there have been 7,558 terrorist-related incidents in the last decade, with the insurgency far worse in Nigeria than in the surrounding West African countries.”
He said that long before the murder of farmers was taken into account, it had already become a massacre of Syrian proportions.
According to him, the news that Nigeria could not afford to import food from abroad shed more light on the suffering that the agricultural implosion would have on the whole country.
He stated that the Islamist-inspired massacres of Christian farmers, who have contributed immensely “to Nigeria’s agriculture and domestic food production, mean that the threat of starvation hangs over the millions who have managed to escape the killing fields.
“Tragically, many of the most vulnerable in need of food are fleeing the violence and congregating in internal displacement camps prone to widespread coronavirus transmission.
“It makes us question what Nigeria and Buhari’s regime is doing with around £300 million a year of British taxpayer money in the form of foreign aid, especially if Nigeria can no longer afford food imports.
“While the latest food crisis is virus-related and has been triggered by the crash in the oil price, one cannot completely ignore the pre-existing plight of vulnerable farmers, and the government’s failure to protect them from a nascent Islamic State hungry for power and resources.”
