An inexcusable fact.
An inexcusable fact.
I magine knowing that the very act of going to a religious service would likely result in violence and death. It has happened here in the United States but, mercifully, is not the norm, even as vandalism on churches is on the increase. In Nigeria, churches have been sent letters warning them to shut down or face “ferocious” attacks. That’s some Christmas card. And it may be thanks to the United States that they were sent. Just before Thanksgiving, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to arrive in Nigeria as part of his tour of Africa, Nigeria was cruelly and infuriatingly removed from the list of “Countries of Particular Concern” for religious freedom by the U.S. State Department.
Christians in Nigeria rightfully feel abandoned by the United States. In a distressing new video released by the Religious Freedom Institute, Bishop Stephen Dami Mamza, of northeast Nigeria, says he finds the perplexing move to de-list Nigeria “really disheartening.” “All Christians in Nigeria are feeling very bad about it,” he adds, because the violence may be worse than it ever was.
In 2014, the area was devastated by Boko Haram violence. Half his Yola diocese was under occupation. Others whose homes were destroyed by its murderous rampage fled. Some of them tried to go back in 2016, but there was nothing there for them. With their homes and farms gone, and no source for food, they returned to his diocese for care.
Mamza says he is hard-pressed to find a family that has not lost someone to that murderous violence — he lost his elder brother, cousins, and uncles. He says people are traumatized, and they remain surrounded by people who hate them.
Any attempts to explain away ongoing Fulani terrorist attacks as economic disputes is a lie, as far as Mamza is concerned. The terrorists come at night, and they attack the farms of Christian families. “It is just because they are Christians.”
“They are using Islam as a cover,” the bishop says.
The designation as a Country of Particular Concern is for nations where there are “systematic, ongoing egregious violations of religious freedom, among other cruelties to the human person because of religion.” The bipartisan United States Commission on Religious Freedom immediately said it was “appalled” by the State Department’s move. USCRF exists in part to advise the U.S. government about the list, and the State Department ignored their recommendation to keep Nigeria on the list.
“How is Nigeria different than the Nigeria of two years ago?” Mamza asks. “The persecution here is more intense now than ever.” In the video, he asks the U.S. State Department to explain what data they used, because they do not reflect what Nigerians are living under. He is saddened that the Biden administration didn’t actually talk to Christians in Nigeria before making its move.
Eric Patterson of the Religious Freedom Institute also warns against explaining away the violence in Nigeria as a result of old ethnic rivalries or climate change or political oppression or competition for scarce resources. Listen to the perpetrators, he says — they say their motivation is religious — they want Christians dead.
The Religious Freedom Institute recently held a virtual panel that should embarrass all Americans: “America’s Indifference to the Plight of Nigerian Christians: A Conversation about U.S. Policy.”
“There are a set of overlapping catastrophes happening in Nigeria,” Patterson said.
For more than a decade, Boko Haram, Islamic State of West Africa, and criminal and terrorist organizations have murdered 90,000 of their fellow citizens — their fellow Sunni Muslims, the Shia minority, and Christians. In the middle belt of the country, the plight of Christians is dire. Last year, over 4,000 Christians were killed. This year, 4,000 Christians will be killed. They are targeted largely because they are Christian.
He pointed out that last month, a group of violent Islamists burst into an evangelical church, dragged out five young men, and then videotaped their execution. On the video, they said that the reason that they were doing this was that the five men were Christians.
The U.S. ambassador to Nigeria has dismissed concerns about the violence against Christians, using the scarce-resource explanation. During the panel, Nina Shea from the Hudson Institute pointed out that we are watching “a growing spreading, bloodied disintegration of northern Nigeria.” It’s happening in a country that is America’s “most important partner in Africa.” Nigeria has the continent’s “largest population, the largest economy,” and we are “its largest donor.” If it continues unabated, it will both destabilize the country and radicalize it, and “create incalculable human misery.”
“This is a U.S. national-security threat that the United States is completely missing,” She said. And the de-listing of Nigeria is a “betrayal” of what we stand for as a country.
Robert Destro was the assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from September 2019 to January 2021, and he’s a law professor at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. He was on the ground in Nigeria in the previous administration and says the current administration is “hostile” to the reality of the Christians there. “Even if it is climate change, climate change doesn’t explain why ISIS is involved,” he has pointed out.
Remember these long-suffering people this Christmas. Watch the short video on YouTube of the Religious Freedom Institute:
Look in the faces of some of the people we have abandoned — and the courage of Bishop Stephen Mamza, who says God will bless you for your prayers for them. Keep an eye on what is happening and educate people to create moral pressure for our government to undo this injustice.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.