M/Belt Concerned Citizens dialogue on President Trump’s Nigeria’s CPC tag,  insecurity 

It proved to be a robust, informed discussions at a webinar organized by the Middle Belt Concerns to take a hard look at how the country finds itself at the morass of the President Trump’s administration threat of sending troops to Nigeria to wipe out Islamists allegedly killing Christians in Nigeria,  leading it to tag Africa’s most populous nation  as a “Country of Particular Concern” on Religious Persecution. 

Mr.  Ler Jonathan-Ichaver (Co-Convener, Middle Belt Concern & Founder, Sesor Empowerment Foundation)  moderated the  important conversation with Steven Kefas of the Middle Belt Times, Zariyi Yusuf , a scholar  and citizen reporter as core discussants, where they gave a powerful renditions of their experiences as citizen reporters and critical observers and victims of the complex ethno- religious crisis.

Other participants presented informed understanding of the complex nature of the crisis, one of the core participants pencilled down to discuss his own understanding of the crisis, Rev. Fr. Remigius Ihyula, former Executive Director, Foundation for Justice, Development & Peace Makurdi  and former Chaplain, Benue State University), could not make it.

Foregrounding the discussions was the Friday’s U.S authorities designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern with the American President decrying genocide against Christians in the country. A day later, he threatened military invasion to stop terrorists if the situation does not change. Many in the Middle Belt greeted the news of the CPC Designation with cautious optimism.  The region is hard hit by these killing after over a decade of sustained terrorist attacks resulting in thousands being killed, entire communities displaced and many unable to farm and in IDP camps.

Stevens Kefas of the Middle Belt Time set the ball rolling as lead discussant, using his personal experiences as a victim and chronicler of the Fulani genocide against the Middle Belt people.

According to him, the mainstream media had not done justice to genocide against Southern Kaduna and by extension the entire Middle Belt region as the media tend to toe the official narrative. This observation led him in 2011 to becoming citizen reporter and by 2021 he started Middle Belt Time.

Investigations took me to different parts of the North West and the Middle Belt, where he witnessed ethnic cleansing of the Hausa population and the people of the Middle Belt by Fulani herdsmen but which the federal government chose to tag bandits .

In 2019 his activities drew the ire of the Nigerian authorities and he was arrested and spent a total of 160 days in detention. His experience in incarceration further exposed him to the hypocrisy and complicity of the Buhari administration in killings against Christians.

Jihad and Ethnic Cleansing

According to him, from the police station where he was taken to when arrested in Port Harcourt he was flown to Kaduna where he met bandits already arrested on charge of kidnappings, though they participated in killings in Southern Kaduna and in Plateau.

From there he said the police started playing pranks as the arrested bandits were well taken care of, with one of them boasting that they would soon be released so that they could go back to Mali. True to his words, they were all released a few days later without the federal government levelling charges on them, not to talk of taking them to court.

Instead, the victims of these Fulani pogroms, who organized vigilantes across Southern Kaduna and other parts of the Middle Belt, some of them minors rut in detention without any charges preferred against them.

He observed that most arrested terrorists were never taken to prison but surreptitiously released. He noted that even terrorists, who murdered first class chief of Adara were well fed and taken care of in detention before they were released.

In his surreptitious journeys across troubled zones of the Northwest and Middle Belt, he observed that the Moslems often killed by terrorists are Hausa, and the mosques often set on fire are those where Hausa Moslem worshipped, saying that what is happening is clear case of Jihad in the Middle Belt and ethnic cleansing in Northwest against the Hausa.

Recall Buhari time in 2020, the US also designated Nigeria Country of Particular Concern,but nothing happened, but times have changed.

He noted that in the current U.S sabre rattling, the government seems rattled.

When Buhari was there, according to him, northern elite, clerics and politicians didn’t give a hoot to the 2020 designation but are now crying foul when a Southern President is in power, with the fiery Sheik Gumi calling on President Tinubu to cut off ties with Trump.

Tinubu’s Complicit Officials

He lambasted the Tinubu administration for playing politics with security and people’s lives, saying a lot of his contacts and bandits he met always linked Nation Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, to protection for the bandits. Same he said of Matawalle, the Minister of Defence. He noted that Tinubu’s mistake was in handing over security architecture to compromised individuals, adding that as long as this status quo continues bandits will continue to wreak havoc. He linked the removal of General Musa to his opposition to Ribadu’s doctrine of negotiations with terrorists.

On whether Trump’s interventions will lead to chaos, he noted that it was the failure of federal government that prompted Trump, adding that any American raid or boots in the North against bandits will lead to reprisals against Christians not by terrorists but by hardliners in the North.

He said already northern elite are changing the narrative to mean a planned attack against the North. On whether a scenario of American presence will lead to a debacle witnessed in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, he advised caution, preferring that the Americans should give Tinubu conditions, such as changing the top political leadership of the security architecture like replacing Ribadu and Matawalle.

He noted that intelligence report a few weeks ago about 5000 Lakurawa terrorists entered Sokoto. He recalled that during Jonathan era, the Sultan of Sokoto said an attack on Boko Haram was an attack on Islam, and only on Saturday Sheikh Gumi called Trump the big Daddy of Christians, saying God is the defender of Moslems in the country.

Kefas noted that a commander told him in Bokko that a hardline military commander, who was hard on terrorists was allegedly relieved of his command on the authority of Ribadu.

Zariyi Yusuf, a scholar and citizen reporter toed Kefas line, and in addition  noted that between 2019 and 2025 in a comprehensive report, out of 31,000 civilians killed by terrorists in the Middle Belt, about 22,000 were Christians while 8000 were Middle Belt Moslems, who were considered not Moslem enough.

He noted that the attacks are planned and executed with ethno- religious agenda, unlike the narrative in official circles of farmers/ herders conflict. Even in places like Zamfara or Sokoto where Moslems are in majority, one would have expected Moslem casualties to be high if the killings are random but at the end of the day more Christians are always killed.

Other speaker like Professor Olufunke Okome drew on her experience when she was on Sabbatical in Jos, blaming the state and federal government for not doing enough.

Kola Eye also blamed government,  saying the Americans should not come but provide intelligence, then force the Tinubu administration to name the sponsors and take action against them.

On the whole they expressed worry over direct interventions by America, saying it could lead to debacle as fighters from Mali and Sahel region will sneak to Nigeria to join the bandits terrorists to fight the Nigerian government in the guise of resisting the Americans. They all expressed the need for the Tinubu administration to do more to end the killings by giving a timeline to military commanders. But the government should also provide the ammunition, motivation to frontline troops.