Coordinated military style attacks ravaged 15 communities in some local government areas of Plateau state from 23rd - 24th June, 2018, which resulted to the death of 233 persons with many others injured and several properties destroyed while thousands of villagers were displaced.
Below is the list of districts, communities and people killed in the attack
(Intersociety, Nigeria: 7th July 2018)-The central Government of Nigeria headed by Mr. Muhammadu Buhari-a retired major general; has continued to make inflammatory, diversionary, deceitful, threatening and other injurious statements over the orgy of ethno-religious and state killings in Nigeria. These are followed by complicit government policies and conducts, which see the killings escalating and worsening in the country day in day out.
Despite several expert recommendations and pieces of advice given or offered to the central Government of Nigeria arising from research findings of various local and international research and investigative groups on how to end the ongoing killings by Government and non state actor Jihadist armed groups in Middle Belt and old Eastern Nigeria and fish out the perpetrators and bring them to justice; the Buhari Administration has not only failed woefully to heed or act on such independent expert recommendations, but also clannishly chosen to remain inescapable complicit in same.
The Chairman of the US Congressional House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights and a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Chris Smith, has requested that President Buhari should publicly speak out in condemnation of mass killings of Middle Belt Christian farmers in their ancestral homelands by the MACBAN-sponsored Fulani herdsmen militia. The powerful US congressman made his wish known while welcoming the release of the State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report by Secretary Pompeo’s announcement of a Ministerial Committee to Advance Religious Freedom scheduled for July 25-26, 2018. The committee on religious freedom, which shall be constituted in late July 2018, shall focus on collating reports of mass extrajudicial killings throughout Nigeria since the outset of the Muhammadu Buhari's presidency.
TEXT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ELDERS FORUM (NCEF) ON THE CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS TO CONFLICTS IN NIGERIA HELD AT THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN CENTRE, ABUJA, ON FRIDAY 22ND JUNE 2018 AT 4.00PM
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press,
The National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) welcomes you to this Press Conference which is aimed at expressing its concerns about the state of the Nigerian State as well as propose solutions. As this Press Conference coincides with the 67th World Congress of the International Press Institute (IPI), taking place in Abuja, the NCEF wishes to appreciate Journalists worldwide for their immense contribution not just to provide information, but for acting as guardians of freedom, justice and equity in nations of the world. Without the Journalists, dictators and tyrants would have made the world unbearable for the human race. As Christians, we pray that the protection of the Almighty God shall rest on the Journalists, worldwide.
TEXT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ELDERS
FORUM (NCEF) ON THE CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS TO CONFLICTS IN
NIGERIA HELD AT THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN CENTRE, ABUJA, ON
FRIDAY 22ND JUNE 2018 AT 4.00PM
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press,
DEMOCRACY IS THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA
PRESENTED BY BOSUN EMMANUEL AT CATHOLIC MEN’S GUILD ANNUAL CONFERENCE, CATHOLIC CHURCH OF ASSUMPTION, FALOMO, IKOYI, LAGOS HELD AT MUSON CENTRE, ONIKAN, LAGOS, ON SATURDAY 16TH JUNE, 2018 AT 10.00AM
PRESENTED BY NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ELDERS FORUM AT RCCG MEGA POLITICAL CONFERENCE ON FRIDAY 15TH JUNE, 2018 AT REDEMPTION CAMP LAGOS
Nigeria is currently embroiled in myriad of crisis and distresses that stagger the imagination. For careful observers, it is a mystery how the country still exists. National distresses range from corruption to insecurity, unemployment of gigantic proportions, collapsed social infrastructure and dysfunctional institutions, kidnapping, drugs, armed robbery, ritual killings, human trafficking, unimaginable poverty, bastardized democratic institutions, conflicting Constitution, and other unbelievable social ills.
There Is intense debate on the cause of the distresses. To some observers, the problem of Nigeria is corruption while others believe it is militocracy, the interference of military in politics and governance. Some generous observers simply put it as bad governance and are very sure that if the right people are in charge of government, the nation would be straightened out. This group place very high premium on the emergence of a new political class dominated by youthful intellectuals.
Since the proclamation of the 8th Assembly, I have noticed a consistent effort to emasculate the National Assembly, particularly the Senate. This matter has assumed an alarming intensity in the recent weeks and I am getting really worried for our democracy.
First effort, was the challenge to the power of the Senate to confirm certain executive appointments. Both the constitution and other extant laws gave powers to the Senate to approve, confirm or ratify specific appointments from ministerial through Commissions, Security service leadership, Boards and Agency leadership. But we have seen some effort to deny this power of the Senate. The classical and subsisting case is the refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to replace Ibrahim Magu as the Chairman of EFCC after the Senate rejected his nomination twice due to adverse reports from a sister Security agency-DSS. Three years down the line, the President has ignored the Senate and has kept Magu on the job, effectively rendering the Senate irrelevant and impotent.
Since I arrived here the day before yesterday, the attacks have continued daily.
Three people returning from the same funeral I attended for the murdered priests were brutally butchered by the Killer Herdsman on Tuesday.
In the governor’s speech I included in my last update, 492 people had been killed by the Herdsmen. By evening of the same day, the death toll had risen to 495 from the latest attack.
Every well-meaning individual believes that peace should be the collective effort of everybody in Nigeria, but to our dismay, some saboteurs are out there doing everything humanly possible to disrupt the peaceful coexistence and set the people of Nigeria against each other especially the Christians against the Muslims.
Zainab Bulus Bawa is a 16 year old Hausa Christian Girl from Kugawa of Kubau LGA, Kaduna State Nigeria, who is now forcefully taken away from her parents, spellbound, converted to Islam and married her off by the Village Head of Anchau, Alhaji Idris Yusuf, Alhaji Usman Idris Kugawa and the Islamic leaders of that area without the consent of her biological parents. Saleh Idi Magami is a young Hausa Muslim man that goes to the Hausa Christians settlement of Kugawa on an unknown mission. Kugawa is a Hausa settlement of Both Christians and Muslims. Both of them have a history of living peacefully with each other, but the Muslim side are on the verge of destroying this peaceful co-existence by the support of the district and village heads of Anchau that are now sponsoring their Muslims brothers to commit evil against the Hausa Christians and then use the Muslims leaders to rally round and cover it with religion. They also use the LGA security team and the executives to support them, threaten and inflict pains on the Hausa Christian settlement of Kugawa.
· January 1 – 73 killed in Logo and Guma LGAs in Benue
· January 1 – 2 killed in Awe LGA, Nasarawa
· January 1 – 25 Killed in Keana LGA, Nasarawa
· January 3 – 3 killed in Markurdi, Benue State
· January 4 – 6 killed in Wukari in Taraba
· January 4 – 1 killed in Gassol LGA, Taraba
· January 5 – 4 Killed in Lau LGA, Taraba
· January 5 – 15 killed in Tse Akombo, Tse Vii and Tse Agule vilages in Benue
· January 6 – 55 killed in Lau LGA in Taraba State
· January 8 – 3 killed in Sardauna LGA, Taraba
· January 8 – Two policemen killed in Logo, Benue State
· January 13 – 10 killed in Birnin Gwari LGA, Kaduna
· January 13 – 1 killed in Makurdi LGA, Benue
· January 14 – 1 killed in Bassa LGA, Plateau
· January 14 – 1 killed in Ibi LGA, Taraba
· January 16 – 5 killed in Madagali LGA, Adamawa
· January 16 – 5 killed in Guma, Logo and Okpokwu LGAs Benue
· January 18 – 11 killed in Madagali LGA, Adamawa
· January 21 – 1 killed in Barkin Ladi LGA, Plateau
· January 21 – 6 killed in Juman LGA, Adamawa
· January 23 – 9 killed in Ardo Kola, Adamawa
· January 24 – 4 killed in Kaiama, Kwara
· January 25 – 15 killed in Bassa LGA, Plateau
· January 26 – 3 killed in Bassa LGA, Plateau
· January 26 – 2 killed in Ukum, Benue
· January 29 – 1 killed in Guma, Benue
· January 31 – 1 killed in Jema’a LGA, Kaduna
· January 31 –9 killed in Birnin Gwari, Kaduna
· February 1 – 4 killed in Gassol, Taraba
· February 2 –10 killed in Song, Adamawa
· February 5 – 2 killed in Guma, Benue
· February 6 – 8 killed in Obi, Nasarawa
· February 8 – 6 killed in Shellen, Adamawa
· February 10 – 2 killed in Benue
· February 10 – 3 killed in Bassa, Plateau
· February 11 – 4 killed in Jema’a, Kaduna
· February 12 – 2 killed in Guma, Benue
· February 26 – 12 killed in Kajuru, Kaduna
· February 27 – 20 killed in Demsa, Adamawa
· March 1 – 15 killed in Saradauna, Taraba
· March 4 – 20 killed in Saradauna, Taraba
· March 5 – 25 killed in Okpokwu, Benue
· March 7 – 2 killed in Takum, Taraba
· March 8 – 11 killed in Bassa, Plateau
· March 9 – 9 killed in Bokkos, Plateau
· March 12 – 26 killed in Bassa, Plateau
· March 13 – 7 killed in Guma, Benue
· March 13 – 1 killed in Lokoja, Kogi
· March 14 – 32 killed in Daima/Omala, Kogi
· March 14 – 6 killed in Bassa, Plateau
· March 15 – 5 killed in Takum, Taraba
· March 19 –10 killed in Omala, Kogi
· March 20 – 11 killed in Birnin Gwari, Kaduna
· March 22 – 3 killed in Jos South, Plateau
· March 24 – 5 killed in Makurdi, Benue
· March 30 – 6 killed in Jema’a, Kaduna
· April 4 – 6 killed in Chikun, Kaduna
· April 4 – 4 killed in Takum, Taraba
· April 4 – 10 killed in Gwer West, Benue
· April 5 – 5 killed in Dobga, Taraba
· April 5 – 30 killed in Gwer West, Benue
· April 5 – 50 killed in Offa, Kwara*
· April 7 – 4 killed in Bali, Taraba
· April 7 – 2 killed in Agatu, Benue
· April 8 – 5 killed in Birkin Ladi, Plateau State
· April 8 – 5 murdered in Obi, Nasarawa
· April 8 – 4 killed in Keana, Nasarawa
· April 9 – 1 killed in Guma, Benue
· April 10 – 10 murdered in Benue
· April 10 – 51 killed in Wukari, Taraba
· April 12 – 2 killed in Markudi, Benue
· April 12 – 2 murdered in Birnin Gwari, Kaduna
· April 13 – 5 killed in Bassa, Kogi
· April 14 – 4 killed in Logo, Benue
· April 14 – 78 murdered in Obi, Nasarawa
· April 17 – 1 killed in Logo, Benue
· April 18 – 4 killed in Bassa, Plateau
· April 19 – 1 killed in Kutigi, Niger
· April 19 – 1 killed in Gwer West, Benue
· April 20 – 31 killed in Guma, Benue
· April 25 – 19 killed in Gwer East, Benue
· April 25 – 38 killed in Guma, Benue
· April 25 – 7 killed in Awe, Nassarawa
· April 28 – 14 killed in Birnin Gwari, Kaduna
· April 29 – 5 killed in Gwer West, Benue
“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Is. 58: 1
In view of the mixed reactions to the report of misconducts in CAN, the National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) deems it necessary to highlight crucial issues at stake so that emotional outbursts do not becloud facts. It is clear there are visible attempts to utilize emotional manipulations to distort and distract from the real issues at stake.
The NCEF visited the British High Commission in Abuja as part of its efforts to provide solutions to the crisis in Nigeria. The National Christian Elders Forum is aware, before the visit, of the role the British played in skewing leadership advantage to the Islamists of northern Nigeria, particularly the Fulani Muslims. The NCEF wanted to place on record its efforts to enable Britain review its policy of racial discrimination in view of modern day realities. However, it would appear that Britain remains unperturbed.
Therefore, it is clear to the NCEF that it is the responsibility of Nigerian Christians to resist Islamists’ attempt to replace Democracy with Sharia in the country and transmute Nigeria into an Islamic Sultanate. During the visit, NCEF invited the British Government to understand the issues unfolding in the country and assist in the following ways:
