Christian genocide and the danger of mischaracterisation, By Femi Fani-Kayode

The sad reality of Nigeria is not a “Christian genocide” but the genocide of BOTH Christians and Muslims by a handful of savage and barbaric terrorist militias that falsely claim to be Muslims, but that do not in actual fact represent any faith… They represent only Satan, their insatiable bloodlust and sadistic, depraved, delusional, psychotic and psychopathic disposition.

There is no one in Nigeria who has spoken up for the rights of Christians, against their marginalisation and persecution, and warned about the reality and dangers of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamist terror, more than I have done over the last 30 years.

Whether it be the sharia debates, the debate on the secularity of the Nigerian State, the debate on the plight of Christians in Northern Nigeria or the debate on ethnic and religious hegemony and domination, I have been deeply involved and invested in these matters right from the beginning.

In each of these prolonged and often acrimonious and volatile debates, I have played a leading role and held my corner.

For those who doubt this, the records are clear and I suggest that they go back and read all that I have written and said about these vexing issues over the last three decades.

I have also made it perfectly clear over the years that it would be an honour for me to sacrifice all, including my life, in defence of my faith, and that will never change. That was my position then and it is my position today.

My knowledge about the experiences of Christians in Nigeria is extensive, and my insight and understanding of the history of our country is next to none.

This places me in a unique position and gives me the ability to speak with authority about the ongoing debate on whether or not what we are witnessing in Nigeria today is indeed a “Christian genocide.”

In the last three weeks, I have written two widely published essays on this matter.

The first is titled “The fiction of Christian genocide and the conspiracy against Nigeria” and the second is titled, “A Warning To Senator Ted Cruz.”

For those who have not read them already, I recommend them both in order to get a clearer and deeper perspective on the matter.

This contribution is my third to this increasingly contentious and volatile debate, and I sincerely hope that it brings more insight and understanding to the issues under consideration.

Permit me to get to the meat of the matter.

There is no doubt that Christians are being targeted and slaughtered in massive numbers in Nigeria.

No one can deny that. It is a reality that we as Christians have lived with for many years.

What needs to be understood, however, is that in the last 15 years, as many Muslims have been targeted and slaughtered by the same group of heartless terrorists as well.

To mischaracterise what is going on in our nation as a “Christian genocide” is a knee jerk and emotional reaction to a very complex and profound problem.

It is an eloquent testimony to the sordid and divisive disinformation, misinformation and falsehood that those who insist on describing it in such terms have resorted to.

It is a gross, perfidious and unforgivable mischaracterisation of the facts on the ground, a Goebellian misrepresentation of reality, and a perverse inversion of the truth.

It is also a specious, simplistic, shallow and flawed perspective, which is deeply rooted in ignorance, mischief, malevolence, malice, deceit and intellectual dishonesty, which does not in any way define the very real problems or provide a lasting solution to the monumental challenges that Nigerian Christians are facing. This is designed to divide us and pave the way for a well-orchestrated and carefully scripted attempt to destabilise our nation, thrust us into a volatile season and cycle of mutual suspicion, sectarian violence and calumny, and set us up for an unconstitutional regime change before or by 2027.

To insist on perpetuating and propagating this mischaracterisation and falsehood is an extremely dangerous path to tread which, if care is not taken, will ultimately make matters far worse.

For example, the frantic public call by Mr Eric Prince (the notorious founder of the discredited American private security company of murderous and savage Western mercenaries that wreaked havoc in Iraq after the American invasion, known as Blackwater) to the Vatican, the Pope, prominent Christian leaders from all over the world, and President Donald Trump, to “fund and support” a private Christian army, which he will gladly put together and lead to come to Nigeria to “protect the Christian community and kill Muslims,” is not only irresponsible and unhelpful but is also fraught with many dangers.

Again, the call by US Congressman Chris Smith to Trump to “arm Christians in Nigeria with American weapons” and use the American Airforce to “bomb Muslim communities in our country,” will lead to a further escalation of violence and open armed conflict between hitherto law-abiding Christians and Muslims, who are not only fully integrated but who have also lived peacefully together over the years. Sending arms to aide one community and US war planes to bomb the other cannot possibly augur well for us.

To send arms to the Nigerian government to assist in our fight against the terrorists is one thing and would, of course, be a welcome and laudable initiative and development, but to send arms and private mercenary armies from the West to fight for Christians in our country and kill our Muslim brothers, or for Christian communities to receive arms directly from the Americans, whilst the Muslims are bombed out of existence by Western jets, is madness and an open invitation to chaos and fratricidal butchery in Nigeria.

It would indeed mark the end of our country as we know it and the beginning of a civil war, which will last for the next 50 years and which will have cataclysmic consequences for the Nigerian people, the west African sub region, the African continent, and indeed much of the world.

Such insane and provocative rhetoric from the likes of Prince and Moore must cease forthwith. They do not love our country more than we do and we must not allow them to light a fire or ignite a bomb that will consume us all.

Outside of this, the mischaracterisation of our situation has an additional three obvious and immediate consequences.

First, it negates the idea that Muslims are being targeted by the same terrorists that are killing Christians.

Second, it belittles and underplays the massive loss of Muslims lives and suggests that those lives count for nothing.

Finally, it runs the risk of further dividing our people along religious lines by casting all Muslims as the perpetrators and only Christians as the victims.

This cannot augur well for the unity of our country and for our collective fight against terror.

The American and Western leaders who are propagating and spouting it, with the help of the CIA and their local assets, obviously have an insidious hidden agenda and a sinister ulterior motive for doing so.

You do not have to be a bright bulb or a professor of world history to appreciate that.

All you need to do is to have a little common sense, a good memory, an understanding of the times we are living in and to observe what the Americans and their Western allies have been doing in the Middle East, North Africa and indeed much of the world ever since 9/11.

The sad reality of Nigeria is not a “Christian genocide” but the genocide of BOTH Christians and Muslims by a handful of savage and barbaric terrorist militias that falsely claim to be Muslims, but that do not in actual fact represent any faith.

They represent only Satan, their insatiable bloodlust and sadistic, depraved, delusional, psychotic and psychopathic disposition.

Some of them, like Boko Haram, ISWAP, Al Qaeda and Ansaru, operate mainly in the North, murdering and displacing both Christians and Muslims with impunity and no remorse, whilst others, like ESN, who claim to be championing the cause of Christians and Jews, operate mainly in the South-East, again murdering and displacing both Christians and Muslims.

They, like the Haramites and their genocidal partners in crime, do not represent any faith other than that of the devil who has sent them.

Our duty, as Christians, is to foster national, religious and ethnic unity by closing ranks with our Muslim brothers and fighting our common enemy, which these terrorist groups represent.

Anything less than that will only divide us further and take us down the brutal and bloody road to Kigali and, God forbid, a Rwandan-style and horrific showdown and a genocidal storm of cataclysmic carnage.

Our security agencies have worked extremely hard over the last two years in containing the scourge of terror that has afflicted us.

This is proved by the fact that a record number of terrorists have been killed and many of their most dangerous and wanted commanders and leaders have been captured and detained.

We must commend and encourage them in their endeavours. However much more needs to be done.

We are a nation at war and the Federal Government must do far more by breaking the ranks of the terrorists with an iron