March 29, 2024
News Nigeria

Blinken’s blinkered actions have accelerated Nigeria’s anti-Christian pogroms

BY MICHAEL RUBIN

Shortly before Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Nigeria during his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa, the State Department, without explanation, removed Nigeria from its religious freedom watch list.

The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was ” appalled .” The problem in Nigeria, after all, has not just been the Boko Haram and Islamic State Western Africa Province terrorism that receives most Western press and policy attention. The challenge has extended to the rather more pernicious targeting of Christians .

“Christian communities were hit particularly hard in the country’s Middle Belt, with nonstate armed actors attacking at least 11 churches and Christian ceremonies,” the U.S. commission wrote . “Survivors report that Fulani-affiliated armed groups used religious rhetoric while conducting myriad attacks on predominantly Christian villages in Kaduna State. Kidnappers also reportedly deliberately targeted Christians for abduction and execution. The Nigerian government has routinely failed to investigate these attacks and prosecute those responsible,” the commission’s 2021 report found. That does not even include the 115 people killed by Nigerian security forces between March and June 2021, according to Amnesty International .

Immediately before Blinken’s visit, repression of Christians accelerated further. A video circulated on social media, for example, showed Nigerian soldiers opening fire on houses in Nigeria’s Ebonyi state, a predominantly Christian region, on Nov. 1, 2021, and celebrating when civilian structures begin to burn.

Shortly after Blinken’s brief visit, Sahara Reporters, a New York-based outlet that publishes Nigeria-focused reports outside the country’s censorship bubble, published an article exposing a Nigerian Department of State Services agent allegedly complicit in torture and extrajudicial killings, including of children, in southeastern Nigeria. Such videos and investigations belie the State Department’s talking point that violence against Christians is actually due to the climate-driven migration of ethnic Fulani and Muslim herdsmen into largely Christian-farmland.

Perhaps Blinken simply wanted to ingratiate himself to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, a man whose legacy rests in perpetrating genocide a half-century ago. If that was his strategy, it failed. It is now clear that in the wake of his visit, Buhari and Fulani militias simply accelerated repression of Christians.

Gunmen, for example, attacked Christians in the Imo state and later abducted and murdered the heir to one of the state’s ancient kingdoms, dumping his body in the market square. On Christmas Eve, soldiers disrupted a church service in Enugu state, arresting a mason whom they mistakenly accused of being an underground commander. Other credible reports of attacks on churchgoers have made national headlines and involved senators in the fray. Then, just after new year, Fulani “herdsmen” dressed in military uniforms reportedly sacked a community in predominantly Christian Edo. Nigerian security services have also summoned a Catholic priest after he prayed for a detained Biafran leader. The list is just the tip of the iceberg.

Perhaps the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria misled Blinken, or the secretary of state believes fostering cooperation trumps human rights. Either way, Foggy Bottom’s strategy has failed. Rather than increase U.S. leverage or foster respect for human rights and religious freedom, Blinken’s actions have convinced Buhari that he can act with impunity. In effect, Blinken signaled open season on southeastern Nigeria’s Christians.

During his Nov. 18, 2021, visit to the Nigerian capital Abuja, Blinken bumped forearms with Buhari, a photo-op the State Department believes advanced American interests in Africa’s most populous country. Nigerians outside Buhari’s ethnic and Islamist circles, however, interpret the photo a different way. Rather than partnership, they see an embarrassment akin to the late Donald Rumsfeld’s Reagan-era handshake with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

For Blinken, that photo need not be the final chapter. Rather than let his pride triumph, it is time Blinken admit his error and return Nigeria to the religious freedom blacklist.

Michael Rubin ( @mrubin1971 ) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *