Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, has dismissed claims that Nigeria’s current wave of violence amounts to a religious war, stressing that Nigerians, not Christians or Muslims, are being killed.
Speaking on ARISE Televisisu’s,The Morning Show, program on Tuesday, Akinyemi said the killings across parts of the country should not be defined along religious lines, insisting that the crisis is one of national survival and unity.
“Don’t let us get into this internal civil war, religious civil war. Christians are not being killed, Muslims are not being killed, Nigerians are being killed. And for the first time, we are getting a superpower who says, I want to help you to clean out this mess that we have not been able to clean out all these years,” he said.
Addressing concerns over reports of genocide in Nigeria, Akinyemi urged that discussions around the crisis be guided by “common sense” rather than legal technicalities.
“Let us not adopt a legal approach to the definition of genocide. If you come to Lagos and you kill 1,000 people, people may say, well according to the Geneva Convention that is really not genocide. 1,000 people, there are millions of people in Lagos. If you go to my village, kill 1,000 people, there are probably going to be only five people left, and that will be genocide. So it’s a common sense definition we should adopt in dealing with this matter of Nigeria,” he said.
The former minister maintained that those denying the extent of killings in Nigeria were detached from reality, urging them to experience the situation first-hand.
“If you live in the middle belt and you say there’s no genocide. Then you don’t know what you’re talking about. These people who say there’s no genocide in the middle belt, I would suggest they go and live in the middle belt, in Kogi, in Jos, or wherever, for 100 days, and then they will come back onto the program and tell you their experience,” he said.
Speaking further, the former foreign affairs minister, said the best advise so far is that of pastor Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, who advised president Tinubu to approach the issue diplomatically, by appealing to president Trump to give him more time and within that period, order his service chiefs to deal with both the terrorists and their sponsors.
Akinyemi acknowledged the fact that Christians are being killed by Muslims, while the Muslims are being killed by their fellow Muslims, urging Nigerians to rather decry the senseless killings in the country
On the controversy surrounding US President Donald Trump’s recent comments threatening to “clean out” the crisis in Nigeria, Akinyemi said Trump’s position had been widely misunderstood.
“Trump didn’t say he was coming to invade Nigeria, to occupy Nigeria. He said he was coming to help us to clean out the mess that we have not been able to clean out all these years,” Akinyemi stated.
He warned against interpreting Trump’s statement as a move towards invasion, saying it was an offer of assistance to address Nigeria’s prolonged insecurity.
The former minister also cautioned, just along the same line from pastor Adeboye, that Nigeria should not expect tangible support from global powers such as China, Russia, or the European Union beyond verbal commitments.
“Verbally, China, European Union, Russia, they will all come supporting you verbally. But from our experience of what Ukraine has been going through, confronting America with verbal support is not going to do us any good,” he said.
According to him, what Nigeria needs now is not empty promises but decisive domestic action.
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“What we should be asking now is, what should the Tinubu administration do? I believe that it should now be the government and its security forces should show a willingness, a determination, and the ability to confront these people, and to get it done,” he said.
Akinyemi also recalled how foreign military collaboration failed during the Chibok girls’ abduction in 2014, citing infiltration within Nigeria’s security ranks.
“When the Chibok girls were picked up by the Boko Haram, the Americans came in quietly with the support of Jonathan, at the invitation of the Jonathan administration, and in collaboration with the Nigerian troops… When the Americans sent the reconnaissance aircraft over the camp, what did they find? Boko Haram militia were wearing masks, which means somebody within the Nigerian army had link to the Boko Haram. The Americans fooled out. They were not going to subject their troops to this,” he revealed.
He therefore called for a thorough purge of the country’s security forces to eliminate sympathisers of terrorist groups.
“We must clean out, from within the Nigerian troops, people who seem pathetic towards the Boko Haram, or whatever it is,” he said.
Akinyemi urged the Nigerian government to show seriousness in tackling insecurity to dissuade any foreign intervention.
“If you want to stop Trump from doing what he says he wants to do, the Nigerian administration must show a determination to clean out this ourselves,” he emphasised.
He warned that if the government continued to downplay the crisis, the cost of inaction would be devastating.
“If we don’t get any assistance and we don’t have the ability and the willingness to confront these things, we’re going to die,” Akinyemi warned.
