Nigerian Bishop Julius Yakubu Kundi declared this week that Kaduna State in northern Nigeria faces “near-anarchy” because of an ongoing assault against the Christian population by Muslim extremists.
Thousands of innocent Christians, especially in southern Kaduna, “are being massacred without any provocation by the well-known Fulani terrorists, under the watch of a democratically elected government, sworn in to protect the lives of all citizens,” Bishop Kundi told the Pillar Catholic in an interview published Monday.
In 2022 alone, six priests from Bishop Kundi’s diocese of Kafanchan, in southern Kaduna State, have been kidnapped and last month one of them, Father John Mark Cheitnum, was killed by his abductors.
“For more than 5 years now, we have witnessed a deliberate and calculated attempt at wiping out and displacing major indigenous ethnic groups in the northern part of Nigeria,” the bishop said.
While the dramatic situation of insecurity in Kaduna state is not something new, “it is important that we keep repeating it at any given opportunity,” the bishop said.
Kundi went on to underscore the important role of the media to keep the sufferings of Nigerian Christians before people’s eyes.
“We want the world to know the true story of how our people are being slaughtered, marginalized and impoverished,” he said. “That the Fulani terrorists keep overrunning our sleepy and peaceful communities in the night and leaving behind them trail of massacre and destruction of properties.”
“The world must know that genocide is taking place in southern Kaduna, and life has become for us very short and difficult,” he added.
An international response is also needed to assist the victims of “the pogrom against the persecuted Christians and other innocent victims of the ongoing terrorism in Nigeria,” he declared, noting that the land “is drenched with so much innocent blood.”
“An honest assessment of the security situation in Kaduna, therefore, is that life for us has suddenly become short, brutish, and difficult,” he said. “Our joy is stolen.”
The bishop also had harsh words for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is himself a member of the Muslim Fulani ethnicity.
“We are faced with a situation of near total breakdown of law and order, which suggests the absence of leadership,” Kundi said, noting that elsewhere such a situation would call for impeachment of a president or the declaration of state of emergency, whereas in Africa, this does not happen.
“Any concerned citizen that calls for the resignation or impeachment of a president in Nigeria is tagged as an enemy of state, or even hunted and blackmailed,” he added.
We have “openly accused the government as responsible for this menace,” the bishop said, adding that Church leaders have called for the president’s resignation.
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