Violent targeting of both Christian and Muslim civilians is intensifying in Nigeria. According to the recent report entitled “Violence and Religious Freedom in Nigeria,” published by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan U.S. government commission, the violations of religious freedom by nonstate actors has increased in the west African nation. Even though Nigeria’s constitution articulates the freedom of religion and belief, with the government’s security incompetence there is no safety bar to protect civilians.
According to the report, military and police officers are poorly equipped and often do not receive salaries. Instead, they sell weapons and prey upon civilians. Federal officials have shown an unwillingness or an inability to curb the widespread corruption but rather “allow, encourage, and even partner with vigilante groups and self-defense militias to supplement their poor capacity.”
Along with poor security, there has been prominent violence at the hands of militant Islamist and armed criminal groups: identity-based violence, mob violence, and violence impacting worship, which significantly impact Nigerians’ religious freedom. In 2021, Nigeria placed eighth in the world at risk of experiencing a new mass killing event according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Early Warning Project.
The report appealed to the U.S. Government to send a special envoy or include Nigeria “as a priority country for the Atrocity Prevention Task Force” in response to the International Religious Freedom Act and the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act. Both acts require the U.S. Government to take action against atrocity risk and religious freedom violations.
On September 28, USCIRF held a hearing entitled “Religious Freedom, Violence, and U.S. Policy in Nigeria” inviting four civilian/NGO witness panels.
Commission Chairman Nury Turkel and Vice-Chairs Abraham Cooper and Commissioner Frederick A. Davie offered opening remarks. They then turned to the panels’ testimony.
Witness Oge Onubogu, director for West Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace, emphasized that Nigeria’s overlapping conflicts have killed thousands. Onubogu agreed that these conflicts come from government inability.
“These ongoing crises, plus pervasive corruption and violent crime, are rooted in a disconnect between government and citizens,” The U.S. Institute of Peace director said.
Emmanuel Ogbudu, senior monitoring, evaluation and learning manager with Mercy Corps, continued to testify. Ogbudu’s research reveals that, unlikely our notion, the violence decreases along with religious lines, which supports the fact that this violence is driven by insecurity and weakened social cohesion.
Even though there was no supporting evidence offered that religion causes people to carry out violence, Ogbudu argued that religious identities could stir up conflict through religious leaders and ordinary individuals.
Ogbudu further explained that religious leaders politicized religion to make people act, which features even more during an election period. Moreover, misunderstandings between different religious people can become significant religious disputes as they make solidarity claims to get support for their arguments. One of Ogbudu’s interviewees said: “[Conflict] starts with something as little as misunderstanding between two people of the opposite religion, but later turns into religious violence so the perpetrators can get back up.”
However, Ogbude asserted that the religious leaders have played a role in resolving conflicts among Nigerians and recommended “training religious leaders (and other local leaders) in negotiation and dispute resolution” and “increasing the effectiveness and accountability of security and service provision.”
Witness Barnett, a nonresident fellow with the Hudson Institute, summarized that Jihadists and bandits have different motivations for violence. While Jihadists deliver violence to civilians pursuing their religious ideology, most bandits are motivated by both material and political ambitions, which “can be more violence against civilians than Jihadists.”
“The victims of both bandits and jihadists are not confined to one religious or ethnic group: These victims include Muslims, Christians, and practitioners of traditional religions,” Barnett insisted.
After the panels’ testimonies, Turkel asked why Nigeria is experiencing poor governance issues that threaten religious freedom there.
“I think Nigeria has had a long history of poor governance, and this is a very complex situation,” the director at the Institute of Peace answered. When the violence continues, and no one is held accountable, victims are prone to become perpetrators under the government’s inability.
Commissioner Davie asked the panels’ thoughts on the USCIRF recommendation: sending a special envoy to Nigeria and redesignating Nigeria as a country of particular concern (CPC), a designation by the U.S. Secretary of State. CPC status can bring non-economic policy or even an economic measure into Nigeria to stop the particularly severe violations of religious freedom.
“It’s important for peacebuilding efforts to understand why some of these communities are grieving and also be able to help open a path for the Nigerian government to engage more effectively with these groups,” Onubogu stated.
Onubogu believed that a deep understanding to address the different conflicts are necessary to ensure that it does not create more damage in the communities “because from some of these groups, with some of these grievances, these [recommendations] easily become breeding grounds for extremist ideas.”
Hopefully, the U.S. government will adopt the USCIRF recommendations and the panels’ advice as they engage with the Nigerian government.
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