- Safiu Kehinde
The Senate has resolved to hold a closed-door meeting in order to agree on a collective response to the United States Congress’ allegation of genocidal attacks on Christians in Nigeria.
This is coming amid the ongoing move by the US lawmakers to designate Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern,”.
According to reports, Representative Riley Moore had yesterday formally asked the Trump administration to blacklist Nigeria and halt to all US arms sales to the country.
The US Congressman’s motion had emerged from weeks of circulation of genocidal claims in Nigeria by the Western media and netizens.
In the wake of the call for the country’s blacklisting, the Senator Ali Ndume on Wednesday raised the motion for a debate on the development.
While presenting the motion before the lawmakers during the plenary session, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, suggested a closed-door session for the deliberation on the US Congress’s allegation.
Akpabio maintained that making the debate public will prove futile due to diverse perspectives and dynamism of the case of insecurity across the country.
“Somebody suggested that we ought to have gone into executive discussion and discuss this, but I don’t think we can win.
“No group can win any discussion on this because it depends on the state you are looking at. If terrorism occurs in a Christain dominated state, most people that will die there will be Christians.
“If it occurs in a Muslim dominated state, most of those who will die there will be Muslims.
“But if it occurs particularly in the North Central, you will notice that it will be targeted at churches maybe because that is what they are able to get. At the end, they will say oh it’s Muslims that kill Christians.
“If it happens in Kano or Born, they will say Christians kills Muslims. The way the whole situation is that we’ve seen it going to the Executive session and get a date for our security summit so we can have closed discussion on these matters.” Akpabio said.
The Senate President expressed concern over the US Congress move on what he described as reaction to a one-sided story.
He proposed the establishment of an as-hoc committee during the closed-door session with the aim of visiting the Congress to educate and correct their impression.
Akpabio clarified that both Christians and Muslims are affected by the insecurity in the country.
“For me, engagement will be the best. When we go into the executive session, we can decide to set up a small ad-hoc committee to go to United States of America and engage our colleague Parliamentarians there.
“And then to also educate them because if you see what these people are doing, most of the are outsiders.
“When they come and start spraying bullets and rockets, they are not throwing rockers into the crowd targeting a particular religion. They are killing Nigerians.
“I don’t know who will now go and sit down and maybe bring the dead bodies and say this one is a Christain, this is from this family and must be a Muslim.
“We are facing a situation whereby these terrorists are trying to terminate the lives of Nigerians and then of course frustrate us from going to the farms and producing food to feed ourselves.
“This discussion will be better in closed session, and I think at the end of the day, we should have a small team that should visit our colleagues and also put the other side.
“Because some people must have gone there to give a one-sided story and at the end it would now look as if only Christians are being killed by terrorists in Nigeria.
“But I can tell you that a lot of Muslims have lost their lives in the last 5-10 years the same Christians have also lost their lives.” He said.
Akpabio further cited the example of the Southeast where the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) armed group unleash terror on their fellow easterners.
This, according to him was not borne out of religious sentiment.
“If you look at what is happening in the Southeast, predominantly Christians, most of those that are killed in the Southeast, including the late husband of the demised icon, Dora Koyede, the way the man was shot dead, will you come and ascribe that to religion? I’m talking about what IPOB is doing.
“You see brothers killing brothers. The sit-at-home that is going on every Mondays that has almost crippled the economy of the region, is it targeted at Christians or Muslims?
“Nigeria has complex security situation and we should actually go out there and educate people so that they will know what to do.
“But when they just come out with a one-sided motion, it means they have a target and that target is to strangulate the economy of Nigeria. That is my personal opinion.” He added.
The lawmakers agreed to hold the close-door session next week Tuesday and come out with an appropriate response to the allegations of Christian genocide in Nigeria by the US Congress.