For months, Christian Solidarity International has been urging the United Nations to fulfill its mandate to prevent genocide in Nigeria. In the past month, another 150 Christians have been killed in separate attacks across the Benue State, according to youth leader Daniel Adakole.
Adakole says the “piecemeal” attacks occurring on an almost daily basis have displaced thousands of rural farmers in the area regarded as the country’s food basket. According to Benue State officials, close to two million internally displaced persons were living in camps in the state in March 2022.
“Benue has turned to a shooting range for these jihadists and the government is doing nothing to stop them,” lamented Adakole.
Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom has consistently accused President Muhammadu Buhari – himself a Fulani Muslim – of turning a blind eye to the attacks in Benue.
Dr. John Eibner, the president of CSI, warned that “Nigeria has experienced a spike in atrocity crimes committed against Christians” since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s decision last November to remove Nigeria from the U.S.’ own list of “countries of particular concern.” CSI has been pressuring both the Biden Administration and the United Nations to respond to the situation in Nigeria which Eibner has said is now “at the threshold of Genocide.”
In December 2020, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court reported that there was “reasonable basis” to believe that sectarian terrorist groups in Nigeria and the Nigerian Armed Forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. CSI issued a Genocide Warning for Nigeria in January 2020, and operates a website, www.nigeria-report.org, to spread awareness about the crisis of sectarian violence in Nigeria.
