By Peter Duru, Makurdi
The National President of the Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, says the resolve of President Donald Trump of the United States on the killings in Nigeria is a welcome development that would help the Nigerian government be on its toes.
He regretted that the Federal Government had failed to use its capacity to stop the killings, describing the remark by the American President as a necessary push for decisive action.
Dr. Pogu, who was reacting to President Trump’s strong-worded statement on Nigeria, said the scale and frequency of attacks, sometimes “a hundred, two hundred, and even up to three hundred people are killed at a time are unprecedented in Nigeria and amount to an indictment of the authorities for allowing violence to persist.
“The government to me is the issue, it is an indictment on our government that the government has the capacity to handle the problems of this country but it has not,” he said.
Dr. Pogu placed responsibility for many of the attacks on Islamist and militia groups, saying attackers “are known, whether they are Boko Haram or Fulani militia, they are all Muslims, they are jihadist groups.”
He accused some of these groups of openly declaring a jihadist agenda and of targeting communities on religious and ethnic grounds.
“The Fulani herdsmen militia is just like the jihad. They came to Hausa land, took over their traditional institutions. Now they are killing the Hausa who are predominantly Muslim and they are taking their land,” adding that the violence in the North West and North Central, and in the Middle Belt, has been allowed to continue “for over 10 years.”
On the question of who is being targeted, Dr. Pogu said “when some Nigerians say both Muslims and Christians are being killed, the question is by who? It is by Muslims. There is no Christian militia in the North attacking Muslims,” he said, arguing that it was primarily Christians who had appealed to the US and the international community for help.
Dr. Pogu described the U.S. action as “a welcome development that has forced the Nigerian presidency to respond.” He urged President Bola Tinubu to “wake up, give marching orders to the military” and to remove any political or institutional obstacles preventing security forces from regaining control of ungoverned areas.
“The issue is hypocrisy has reached a level that what Trump has done is the best for Nigeria. Our military has the capability to flush these people out if there is political will and if compromisers within the security forces are weeded out.”
On the prospect of foreign troops, Dr. Pogu said that deploying international forces would require a new resolution but noted reports that, beyond the United States, “a parliamentarian in the UK has also indicated that if it requires troops they are also coming and will join in.”
He framed such international attention as a helpful motivation for the government to act.
Dr. Pogu also expressed alarm over what he described as the operation of two competing legal frameworks in parts of the country. “Our constitution guarantees the right of freedom to worship and we have two operating constitutions in this country. While we have the Nigerian constitution we have Sharia constitution also operating in some states,” he said.
He urged the Federal Government to confront the parallel enforcement of sharia where it undermines the Constitution and security.
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