How Gumi is fuelling religious war with his utterances —Panya

President, Evangelical Church of Wining All ECWA, Reverend (Dr) Stephen Baba Panya, speaks with ISAAC SHOBAYO on the prevailing insecurity and economic situation in Nigeria, among other issues.

Sir, what is your assessment of the prevailing situation in the country?

As a nation, we are no doubt in the most difficult times of our nationhood. Nevertheless, in line with Biblical injunction in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, we have been enjoined as Christians to rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, believing it is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. We do this in faith knowing and believing in God’s promise in Romans 8:28 that in all things God is working everything together for our good, because we love Him and are called according to His purpose.

 

Looking at the reality in the country, the economy is in crisis; insecurity pervades the nation. What is the way out of this logjam?

A cursory observer of events in Nigeria would attest to the fact that the security situation in Nigeria and all other developmental indices, especially the economy, have worsened and continued to worsen daily. Consequently, Nigeria is being taunted as a failed state. Furthermore, the increasing number of ethnic nationalities or regions openly agitating for self-determination as sovereign states is a clear pointer to how susceptible we are to the centrifugal forces of religion, ethnicity and regionalism.

With the seeming inability of the Federal Government to deal decisively with the heightened insecurity across the country, and the massive occupation of ungoverned spaces by criminals, non-state actors have taken the centre stage in a bid to protect their people from murderous criminals while also exploiting the situation to pursue their quest for self- determination.

The debilitating impact of insecurity and COVID-19 pandemic is further compounding the already depressed economy.  As it is now, farmers are no longer able to go to farms due to insecurity, while the rate of unemployment, especially youth unemployment, is on the increase. Considering that agriculture is the mainstay of the economy in terms of employment and strategic contribution to the general wellbeing of citizens, and the fact that unemployment fuels greater insecurity as many of the jobless youths resort to criminality, Nigeria will continue to experience a vicious cycle of insecurity and remain in a cauldron, if these challenges are not addressed.

 

Despite the efforts by government to tackle insecurity, the situation continues to deteriorate with the emergence of other troubling dimensions to the crisis (cuts in).

If we must be sincere with our efforts at dealing with the situation, then a number of issues must be considered and addressed. Boko Haram and ISWAP have destroyed tens of thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of Nigerians. It is unfortunate that many Christians and Christian communities have been deliberately targeted and destroyed. It is clear that these terrorist groups are gradually but tactically expanding their activities and making incursions into other parts of the North and even beyond. The apparent lack of unity in the fight against these terrorist groups and the inability of government to deal decisively with them within the shortest possible time have emboldened them to do more havoc.

 

But do you subscribe to the notion that this conflict started as Fulani herdsmen and farmers’ clashes?

Historically, Fulani herdsmen and farmers have always had conflicts which were easily resolved. However, the magnitude and dimension these conflicts have taken in recent years show that there is more to it than mere conflict on water and grass. What we are seeing today is simply terrorism under the guise of herders/farmers’ conflict. Unless these Fulani killer-herdsmen are treated as terrorists, the situation will continue to persist. Also, the seeming silence of government on their activities gives the impression of tacit support akin to what happened between the regime of Omar Al-Bashir and the Janjaweed terrorists in Sudan. It is a well-known fact that this unholy alliance was what eventually led to the emergence of South Sudan. We must not allow this situation to repeat itself in Nigeria. Miyetti Allah as a group has been the official and most vocal voice and force behind the activities of the killer-herdsmen. They not only give justifications for their terror activities but also work hard, in addition to the narratives by some highly placed government officials, to sell them to both local and international communities as the victims of the recent bloodshed in Nigeria. But the calibre of weapons they use and the sophistry of their operations leave more questions than answers. It also leaves one baffling how, for the first time in history, the ‘supposed victim’ is highly armed with military grade weapons while the ‘supposed hostile communities’ are littered with mass graves, refugee camps and high economic impoverishment as a result of paying millions of naira in ransom for their kidnapped relatives, if at all they are lucky to receive them alive. This is the case in Southern Kaduna, Plateau State, Benue State and generally in the Christian dominated Middle Belt region of Nigeria.

 

Miyetti Allah often distanced itself from all these deadly attacks; is there any evidence to prove their complicity?

Miyetti Allah,  on many occasions, has not only owned up to attacks on innocent Nigerians but also given justifications for such attacks. As a result, many have called for its proscription, but to no avail. They are fast becoming a government within the constituted government of Nigeria. The attempted assassination of His Excellency, Dr. Samuel Ortom, the seating governor of Benue State, amounts to introducing another very dangerous dimension to the security challenge, which if not properly and decisively handled, can threaten the corporate existence of Nigeria. It is noteworthy that the faceless Fulani Nationality Movement (FUNAM) has owned up to this dastardly act. Nevertheless, the decision of the security agencies to thoroughly investigate the assassination attempt is commendable and it is our hope that measures will be taken to unravel those behind the attack and to begin the process of rebuilding the long-deteriorated trust between government and the people.

It has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between Fulani herdsmen, bandits and even Boko Haram members, because their antics are basically the same, and it may be only the underlying dominant driving motives that may differ. While money is more of a driving force for bandits, land grabbing and territorial expansion is more dominant for the Fulani militia, and religious motive more dominant for Boko Haram. However, the utterances of self-acclaimed negotiators and so-called mediators like Sheikh Gumi, are clearly efforts to stir the bandits towards a religious war. Nothing less can be deduced from his statement to the Fulani militia that he was reliably told it was Christian soldiers that treated them harshly and killed them. This is totally condemnable and it would have been expected that government would totally condemn his clandestine mission while relevant security agencies would have done the needful.

 

Sir, the dust over the Tangele stool in Gombe State is yet to settle as the Christians in that community are alleging imposition of a Muslim candidate

A more worrisome development is the use or more accurately, the misuse of government machinery in favour of one religion over the other. This is the case with regards the imposition of a Muslim candidate as chief, against the popular choice of a Christian candidate, over a community that is over 90 per cent Christian in the Tangale chiefdom of Gombe State. This is clearly a forceful imposition on the psyche of Nigerians that there is dominance of one religion over the other or that the adherents of other religious beliefs are second-class citizens. This is oppressive and only succeeds in sowing hatred and bitterness and creating a false sense of superiority of one human being over another. Similarly, of serious concern is the attempt by the Kwara State government to impose the use of hijab in Christian schools in the state. It must be clear that the careful use of the term, ‘grant-aided’ schools, being publicized by the state government and some media outfits would not insult the common sense of Nigerians to make them see Christian schools other than what they have always been. Ten schools were shut down by the state government in an attempt to bully the Christian schools into adopting the use of hijab and the staff of the schools are being intimidated into returning to work under the new law which infringes on the Christian ethics of running mission schools. We appeal to government at all levels to stop the use of state powers to favour one religion over another.

 

What is the way out of all these? 

On the hijab issue in Kwara State,  I am calling on the state government to return all mission schools to their owners without granting any aid. Let missions› schools be administered according to the tenets of their faith and anyone who voluntarily chooses to enrol their wards there must be ready to abide by the established rules and regulations of the schools. On the Mai Tangale stool, we understand that this has been challenged in the court of law. We encourage the good and peace-loving people of Tangale to continue with this legitimate and peaceful means of seeking redress, trusting that God will use the courts, adjudged as the last hope of the common man, to ensure that justice is done, so that the popular choice of the people can be honoured.

We  also watched with joy the effort and urgency that the federal and various state governments in the North made to rescue the school children kidnapped in Katsina, Zamfara and Niger states. Very sadly, despite several promises by President Muhammadu Buhari and security agencies, freedom remains a mirage for Leah Sharibu and other Christian girls like Alice Loksha Ngadah, Grace Lukas, Lilliang Gyang and the remaining Chibok girls. Not to mention Revd. Polycarp Zango, the eight Redeemed Christian Church of God members  and many other Christians in the captivity of Boko Haram, ISWAP and bandits alike. The president and security agencies need to show more commitment, care and concern for all, irrespective of their religious faith and make effort to free all those in captivity. Above all, to ignore the deliberations and resolutions of the 2014 conference is tantamount to throwing away the baby with the bath water. We, therefore, re-iterate our call that that the 2014 National Conference, which has over 600 resolutions, be implemented because it has substantially addressed these challenges. We urge the Buhari administration to put in place the necessary mechanisms for implementation of recommendations of the 2014 National Conference report. The Executive, Legislature and Judiciary and other stakeholders should work together to actualise this.

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