Genocide In Nigeria: A United Nations Tribunals Is Long Overdue

 By Dianam Dakolo 

It is exactly one month now since the appearance of the Trinidadian-American singer and actress, Nicki Minaj, at the United Nations to make a case for global action against genocide in Nigeria, perpetrated by Fulani bandits and herdsmen and Kanuri terrorists against Christian communities in the North of the country.

We have also had a United States Congressional Committee on a fact-finding mission to Nigeria. Snippets of its findings and conclusions are now public knowledge - that genocide in Nigeria is real and horrific, and that top government functionaries and the security agencies, particularly from the tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari up till date, have been manifestly complicit. 

So good that the US has since designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, and follow-up action by Minaj, the US Congress and several other international groups, were swift. There was momentum and it brought huge relief not only to the grieving Christian families and communities of the North but to all people of good conscience. 

That momentum has to be sustained through concrete action to deliver Nigeria from the fiendish clutches of murderous hordes of Fulanis of the Sahel brought into the country in 2011 and 2015 by Fulani politicians desperate to grab the machinery of government under the asinine presumption that Great Britain in 1960 handed this country to their race. 

Once they steamrollered their way to power at the federal level in 2015, the politicians encouraged the hoodlums to take Nigeria as their home, beginning with the dubious Visa-on-Arrival policy of Muhammadu Buhari. 

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which came into force on 12 January 1951, is explicit under Article II as to what constitutes genocide, while Article III states unambiguously that 'Genocide' and 'Conspiracy to Commit Genocide' are punishable. 

While millions of Nigerians are excitedly awaiting United States military action to combat and flush out the Fulani hoodlums from our soil, I believe that the United Nations needs to activate the appropriate machinery for comprehensive inquiry into the Fulani menace in Nigeria. 

Close to a million Christians have been displaced and their villages taken over by Fulani invaders, armed and supported with logistics by top government functionaries and ranking security officers, as established in the findings and conclusions of the US Congressional Committee. 

As the entire world is aware, hundreds of female students abducted by Fulani bandits from a Catholic School in Maga, Kebbi State, and elsewhere in the North, are still in captivity. While their parents and families, as well as other concerned citizens, continue to grieve over the horrors to which the children are exposed, there is no sign that the Federal Government or organs like the National Assembly are concerned enough, as it remains business as usual. 

A United Nations Tribunal on Genocide in Nigeria is long overdue, given the intensity and extensiveness of the atrocities, and the fact that the backers and financiers are top-level government officials and ranking military/police officers, who are untouchable by the standards of our jurisprudence. Let the UN come in and salvage what is left of our country.

*Mr. Dakolo is a commentator on public issues