Article

Comment

Freedom of Belief

17 September 2024

5 min read

We need to talk about Nigeria’s brutal war

As Nigerian culture rises globally, why do we ignore seven decades of killing?

Chris Wadibia

Chris Wadibia is an academic advising on faith-based challenges. His research includes political Pentecostalism, global Christianity, and development.

A TV interviewer sits across from a young woman in an outdoor setting

Michael Palin interviews Amina Ali Nkeki, a Boko Haram abduction survivor.

Themichaelpalin.com

Nigeria is the world's largest Black-majority country. Its richly diverse population includes over 235 million citizens, and its global diaspora numbers 17 million people. Famous for their cultural emphasis on education and professional achievement, Nigerians occupy senior positions of leadership and influence in every prominent industry on earth. From Los Angeles to London and Geneva to Rome, the world is replete with Nigerians working to create better lives for themselves, their families, and their communities.

In April 2024, British TV station Channel 5 first aired Michael Palin in Nigeria, a three-part travel documentary hosted by English actor and comedian Michael Palin. The series exposed viewers to the magnificence and difficulties of life in the Giant of Africa. From the destitute, famous floating mega-village Makoko in Lagos to thrilling polo games in the North, the docuseries testifies to how the world remains fascinated by Nigeria, despite the significant geopolitical, socioeconomic, and inter-religious challenges it faces.

Shockingly, one of the gravest of these challenges has escaped the world's gaze for decades. A brutal war has persisted in Nigeria for over 70 years. It has gained scant attention from leading Western media and has been largely ignored by the Nigerian media. Just one short segment of Palin’s series hints at it – when he interviewed a survivor of a Boko Haram abduction of schoolgirls a decade ago.

The war against Christians in Nigeria began in the middle of the twentieth century but was exacerbated by the Biafra War (1967-1970), a bloody civil war from which Nigerian society has never fully recovered. The war led to over one million casualties. Its causes included economic, political, interethnic, and interreligious factors. It brought out the ugly side of religion in Nigeria: violence between Muslims and Christians colonially coerced to cohabitate.

Since 2000, over 62,000 Christians living in Nigeria have been murdered for their faith. The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law reported the killings of over 8,000 Christians in Nigeria in 2023 alone. Perpetrators of these lethal acts of violence include Boko Haram insurgents, Islamic State West Africa Province agents, and militias associated with the Fulani ethnic group. Despite the protracted duration of this unacceptable violence, Nigerian and Western Christian communities continue to turn a blind eye. Monthly attacks against Christians have grown by 25 per cent since 2021 and will likely increase.

Hundreds of miles from these outbreaks of sectarian violence, many Nigerian Christians feel too geographically removed for the violence to feel relevant to them personally.

Get updates

What factors might explain the global apathy towards anti-Christian violence in Nigeria? I have three answers to this question.

Firstly, many Nigerian Christians tend to prioritise other aspects of their identity, like their ethnicity or socioeconomic status, over their religion. This is because for these Nigerians ethnicity is the part of their identity most able to help them access networks, opportunities, and protection in a country where ethnic networks open doors socially and professionally. In 2014, Nigeria, then Africa's largest oil producer, had a continent-leading GDP of $574 billion. In 2024, Nigeria's GDP is projected to fall to $252 billion and its oil production has nosedived. Nigeria is experiencing one of the most debilitating downturns in its economic history.

In a desperate economic climate, many Nigerian Christians find themselves struggling to survive and simply lack the time or energy to support their fellow Christians. Prioritising non-religious features of their personal identity over their Christian faith leads these Nigerian Christians to ignore and emotionally distance themselves from the reality of anti-Christian violence in Nigeria.

Geography also contributes to this emotional distancing. Most murders of Christians happen in the Muslim-majority North of the country and in the Middle Belt, where the Muslim-majority North and Christian-majority South collide. Hundreds of miles from these outbreaks of sectarian violence, many Nigerian Christians feel too geographically removed for the violence to feel relevant to them personally.

Black suffering seems to only matter when linked to the Black Lives Matter movement or civil rights abuses of Black Americans mistreated by an unforgiving American system.

Secondly, the lack of Western Christian interest in Nigerian Christian suffering reflects an ambivalence rooted in a casual Christianity incompatible with biblical Christian solidarity. Christianity, despite misleading popular narratives characterising the faith as a declining religion of antiquity, remains the world’s largest religion by over half a billion followers. People living in Western societies, like the USA, UK, and many European countries, take for granted the civil, political, and legal freedoms they enjoy. They fail to acknowledge the historical spread of Christianity helped create the conditions for these freedoms to emerge. Lukewarm genres of cultural Christianity in the West could not be more different to the pure and authentic faith of Christians in Nigeria killed every day for their loyalty to Christ.

Thirdly, the Western media gaze deprioritises the significance of Black Christian suffering. In particular, the Western media gaze downplays the relevance and the ratings-oriented worthiness of suffering endured by Black Christians living outside of Western societies. White Christian suffering might appear as a footnote on websites of major media outlets. Black Christian suffering will unlikely be mentioned in the content of these platforms at all. Liberal values of Western media actors only drive them to report news of anti-Christian violence when it is linked to politically sexy stories able to increase consumer engagement. Moral outrage of anti-Christian violence, sometime in the historical lifespans of Western media entities, declined in ways no longer justifying its worthiness of headline coverage. Black suffering seems to only matter when linked to the Black Lives Matter movement or civil rights abuses of Black Americans mistreated by an unforgiving American system.

Jesus taught that the ultimate cost associated with being one of His true followers is high. Christians in Nigeria killed for their faith represent some of the best examples of genuine Christianity on earth and will be greatly rewarded for their sacrifices in the New Creation. Jesus teaches his followers to fear spiritual death rather than earthly death. Christians living today should do the same. Christianity’s Bible teaches Satan is the king of our sinful world. Satan delights in violence against Christians because as the ultimate predator he seeks to destroy the children of his enemy. The world ignores the killings of Christians in Nigeria because doing so serves the interests of its master.

The murder of one Christian anywhere globally is an assault on all Christians worldwide. Christians living in peaceful – both socially and religiously – regions of Nigeria (including the Southwest and Southeast) and in the Western world have a religious responsibility to repent of their apathy towards the killings of Christians in Nigeria. Still, more action must be taken. The global Christian community includes many thousands of Christians working in politically and financially influential centres of power globally. These Christians have a sacred duty to leverage their proximity to that power to petition leaders to intervene in any way possible to end the violence against Christians in Nigeria. Until every Christian in Nigeria is safe, the sanctity of the global Christian community will remain blemished.

Article

Character

Comment

Politics

9 July 2024

6 min read

Why the Prime Minister should swear this new oath

A proposed new constitutional instrument is a hopeful recognition of the human condition.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is assistant priest at Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, London.

Keir Starmer stands in the House of Commons and recites an oath from a card held up in front of him.

Starmer swears allegiance to King Charles III, September 2022.

Thank the Almighty, the General Election is over! We have a Prime Minister. We have another cadre of MPs, some old hands and many Young Turks, all ready for the excitement of Parliamentary procedural intrigue and (hopefully) hungry to exercise their power for the betterment of their constituents. As a nation, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. We have emerged, blinking, into the sunlight of what I can only hope is five years of a milder political climate.

What happens next?

Well, today, every MP, new or old, will swear the Oath of Allegiance to King Charles III. This is not optional. Anyone refusing to do so cannot exercise their rights as an MP and will not receive their salary. Ultimately, the refuseniks can have the reality of their election voided. The wording of the oath excels in comprehensive brevity:

I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.

The Monarch is anointed as the protector of the realm, always seeking what is best for Great Britain, and so to swear an oath to be faithful to the Monarch is to swear to seek the best for their realm. It is all perfectly simple and logical.

But is it enough?

It would seem that swearing fealty to the Crown is no longer enough. Now the PM must specifically swear not to lie to the Sovereign and the nation.

Some would argue not. Our political life has been marked by controversy for as long as I have been old enough to be politically aware. MPs expenses, the coalition Government, the Brexit referendum, parliamentary gridlock, Downing Street lockdown parties…Liz Truss! It’s all been like a circus, except all the animals are dead, the clowns just sit around screaming and crying, and the tent burns down. Trust in our political establishment could hardly be lower. Perhaps in light of this, a couple of constitutional scholars have mooted the idea of an extra oath - one for the Prime Minister.

Professor Andrew Blick, of King’s College, London, and Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield have written an open letter, on behalf of The Constitution Society, inviting the new Prime Minister to swear an additional oath specifically for their office.

The oath is intended to act as a confidence booster - an extra promise that the most powerful MP in the land will abide by the conventions of our constitution: Cabinet Government, The Ministerial Code, Civil Service Impartiality, etc. In an effort to restrain the darker impulses of the PM, the oath would also mean swearing to uphold the seven Nolan Principles: Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty, Leadership. It would seem that swearing fealty to the Crown is no longer enough. Now the PM must specifically swear not to lie to the Sovereign and the nation.

In a moment of unattractive despair, I can’t help but let out a depressed sigh.

Yet, I also have hope. This new constitutional instrument would, on the surface, be a morose admission of defeat. We can no longer assume honesty in those who wield the most power and influence. Look deeper and you see a fascinating, and hopeful, recognition of the political (and human!) condition.

The very act of swearing an oath is itself a virtue. It is an act that puts one face to face with absolute truth, goodness, and beauty.

I find this new oath fascinating, and rather cheering, in spite of all my previous electoral gloom, because it clearly speaks to the human need for the transcendent and the eternal. So often our politics seems to be mired in the drudgery of the immediate: will the economy grow in the next quarter, will NHS waiting lists diminish by the end of the calendar year, will the crime stats be favourable any time soon. We rarely hear of any ‘vision’ for our country the looks to the horizon - not even the decade, let alone the voyage into the forever. Yet this oath does just that!

It does so in two ways.

Firstly, by seeking to enshrine the Nolan principles, it recognises the distinction between ‘values’ and ‘virtues’. Values have the veneer of the absolute but are far too easily jettisoned when necessity dictates. Commitment to a value is good, but is in constant competition with other values: openness battles the need for state-secrecy, honesty’s sword is often broken in the face of obfuscation’s onslaught, etc. The holding of values is a static thing, which can wilt and die in the burning heat of reality. A virtue, on the other hand, is something which must be constantly practiced and nurtured. A virtue always looks to its ideal form - a universal perfection of honesty or selflessness. Swearing an oath to uphold the Nolan Principles means committing to operating by them every day, and so allowing them to grow in the individual, becoming easier and easier to live by until the practitioner of virtue struggles NOT to operate in their eternal light.

Secondly, the very act of swearing an oath is itself a virtue. It is an act that puts one face to face with absolute truth, goodness, and beauty. The act of making an oath recognises that our lives and deeds are not simply contingent moments in the pitiless march of time, but that they resound in the halls of eternity.

I think this is why Jesus warns people against swearing oaths in the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. When reading this warning in the light of the serious, radical, and even hyperbolic speech that comes before, it is clear that Jesus doesn’t want us to avoid making promises, but that he realises just how bad we are at keeping them. Swearing an oath (invoking eternity, the absolute, the divine!) means that when we break our oaths we diminish ourselves in the face of God.

“Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.”

This is not a command to avoid promises and promise keeping, but a radical call to live one’s life always in the light of eternity, so that even the simple ‘yes’ is the truest oath one can make.

We need leaders - political and otherwise - who can offer the human soul something more than simply an uninspiring roadmap for five years of moderate economic improvement. We need leaders who can inspire the nation with a vision of eternity. We need leaders who point us to that horizon of the absolute where we do not see individual good acts warring against the forces of apathy and indifference, but see the Good itself illuminating our every moment with hope and joy.

Perhaps an oath - an admission that there is meaning beyond our momentary finitude - is the best way to inject a bit more universality and meaning into a political system that has left this author feeling quite so cold so far.

I shall pray for our new Prime Minister, and for all our new MPs. I shall hold them before the face of God who is beyond all immediate concerns and pray that they may have the vision of our eternal destiny ever in their minds and in their hearts. I shall earnestly intercede that they recognise that their oaths are not simply a formula of words, but a positive spur to lead us into a future that never ceases to grown brighter and brighter with the light of our eternal destiny.