Abuja — " Can we continue to believe that there is no long-term plan to take over the reins of power of the Nigerian state?" asks Matthew Hassan-Kukah, bishop of Sokoto in the aftermath of the massacres that took place between 23 and 26 December in Plateau State.
Around 200 people were killed and 500 wounded in coordinated attacks on around 20 villages. At least 200 families were forced to leave their homes and take shelter in camps for displaced people.
The attacks were attributed to Fulani herdsmen. In the so-called Middle Belt, the area that traditionally marks the border between the north, inhabited predominantly by Muslims, and the Christian south, there have been repeated clashes and massacres in the past between the Fulani, nomadic Muslim shepherds, and the sedentary, farming and Christian population. In a series of statements reported in the Nigerian press, Bishop Kukah outlines a picture that goes beyond traditional land conflicts or religious rivalries.
According to the bishop of Sokoto, the recent massacres are part of a plan to destabilize the Nigerian Federation. "These killings are just a preface. These killings are no longer acts by herders and farmers over grazing fields. No, there is more and we as a nation will do well to face this threat before it is sunset. No evil lasts forever. The world defeated Slavery, Apartheid, Nazism, Racism, and forms of extremism", says Bishop Kukah adding: "We may pretend that we are not at war, but truly, a war is being waged against the Nigerian state and its people. God forbid, but we could snap anytime, anywhere and for any reason." According to the bishop of Sokoto, to deal with this situation it is necessary to go beyond the purely military approach based only on "guns and bullets" but to "urgently redesign the architecture of national security" on the basis "a solid and in-depth intellectual analysis and mapping of a country's goals and even ambitions, its local, regional or global position in the world". Finally, Bishop Kukah addresses a few questions to those responsible for state security: "We have questions crying for answers: Who are these killers? Where are they coming from? Who is sponsoring them? What are their grouses and against whom? What do they want? Whom do they want? Who are they working for? When will it all end? Why are they invincible and invisible? Who is offering them cover? Are we condemned to live with this and hand this broken nation to our children? Should we all just become inoculated and sedated to make all this bearable? Who will supply the opium to dull our pain? Are we sleepwalking to self-destruction?".
