Subject: Armed raiders capture people in Niger state – still think this is about faith and cattle???
Date: 17 February 2021 at 11:33:40 GMT
Cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Further to my recent email on the subject of BBC coverage of deaths and injuries in Ibadan, please see attached video, released by the armed Fulani raiders who have captured a number of souls in Rafi village area of Niger state. These kind of events are happening with monotonous regularity in Nigeria now.
I trust the BBC will live up to my expectation and that of the thousands of Nigerian-British licence-fee payers that the BBC will do justice to the truth of what is happening in Nigeria – beyond Boko Haram and beyond any kind of known conflict that can be said to originate in misuse and abuse of religious principles as the BBC claims.
This type of insurgence is of a different order altogether – beyond what the 300+ British army currently in Nigeria can deal with. I hope they are not the ones advising President Buhari to pursue policies of integration – and that so far without any acknowledgement that those killed and injured are in fact victims in need of justice – rather than some sort of equivalent brand of terrorist.
These armed Fulani-led raiders (armed these days with rocket launchers) want no less than capture of land and people and theft of civilised life and destructive acquisition of illegitimate benefits. You cannot appease them by means of recompense for loss of cattle they do not have or by goving them jobs with the Army and the police or by sudden Presidential decree of awarding them land and bussing them into various parts of the country without any due consideration for people already legitimately living there, as has happened in Nigeria in recent times.
I trust I am making myself clear as to what I expect from the BBC? I have also copied this to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for their attention in the hopes of stronger action from the Foreign Secretary cc.my MP and the Shadow Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of Stae for Defence for their information and any supporting action or enquiry they may care to make.
I trust the BBC has at least asked the Foreign Secretary for an interview on these matters?
I will also be circulating what I have written to Nigerian organisations I know, seeing it as the least I can do to draw attention to the true nature of what is going on in Nigeria and as I said in my last email, across the Sahara and in neighbouring countries to East and West of Nigeria in Mali and Central African Republic with regard to armed Fulani incursion – with and without cattle – and so far without any recognition of the need for justice as part of the path to peace (as recently mediated by the UN with the involvement of the French government and other agencies)(See Aljazeera reports on this). Previous attempts along similar lines have unsurprisingly failed to hold. The reason is clear:
Without truth there can be no justice and without justice, there can be no peace.
The BBC has an important role to play in reporting of truth. If these were European citizens I do not think they would be expected to lie down together with the aggressors in quite the same way!
Yours in urgent haste,
Jo Wealleans