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UK House of Lords warns against a ‘Rwanda situation’ happening in Nigeria

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UK House of Lords warns against a ‘Rwanda situation’ happening in Nigeria

The vexed issue of killer herdsmen across states in Nigeria, especially in the North-Central, was on Friday debated in the United Kingdom’s House of Lords.

Lord Alton of Liverpool, raised the debate, demanding to know what was Her Majesty’s Government’s assessment of the situation in Nigeria, where innocent persons are being killed by suspected armed Fulani herdsmen.

Alton said that the UK government should recall the concern “raised on 24 March, by the highly respected former Army Chief of Staff and Defence Minister, Lieutenant General Theophilus Y Danjuma, who stated that the armed forces were, ‘not neutral; they collude’ in the, ‘ethnic cleansing in … riverine states’, by Fulani militia.

He further recalled how Danjuma had, “insisted that villagers must defend themselves because, ‘depending on the armed forces’, will result in them dying, ‘one by one. The ethnic cleansing must stop … in all the states of Nigeria; otherwise Somalia will be a child’s play.’”

Alton then warned against UK government waiting for a genocide, as happened in Rwanda to repeat itself in Africa’s most populous nation, before acting.

He said, “Can the Minister tell us whether there is a strategic plan and what representations have been made directly? I know that finding solutions is complex, but there is nothing to stop the Minister calling on the Government of Nigeria to recalibrate security arrangements and to resource their forces as a matter of urgency, in order to offer sufficient protection to vulnerable communities.

“As I close, I thank the noble Lords who are participating in today’s debate and go back to where I began: to the more than 200 people, mostly women and children, who were killed in sustained attacks on 50 villages by armed Fulani militia just this past weekend. People are dying daily.

“On 18 June, the Archbishop of Abuja referred in the Telegraph to what he described as ‘territorial conquest’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ and said: ‘The very survival of our nation is at stake’.

READ ALSO: KILLINGS: Buhari, are you for Nigerians or not?, Okogie asks

“This alone should serve as a wake-up call. Are we to watch one of Africa’s greatest countries go the way of Sudan? Will we be indifferent as radical forces sweep across the Sahel seeking to replace diversity and difference with a monochrome ideology that will be imposed with violence on those who refuse to comply?

“We must not wait for a genocide to happen, as it did in Rwanda. Ominously, history could very easily be repeated.”

The Nigerian security debate was supported by the rest of the Lords as they took time to narrate the situation in Nigeria.

They resolved to begin necessary actions to end the herdsmen menace in Nigeria in order to prevent another Rwanda saga.

 

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