AID TO THE CHURCH IN NEED – In a video, the former governor of Kaduna state admits that his party benefits Muslim communities and does not need the Christian vote. Angered by this statement, Catholic priests have demanded that the current governor distance himself from his predecessor.
Christians in Nigeria are shocked and dismayed by a video of the former governor of Kaduna State admitting that his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), routinely practices religious discrimination.
The video shows Nasir El-Rufai, who ran the state for eight years, speaking to a group of Muslim clerics, with the current governor, Uba Sani, sitting beside him. During his speech, El-Rufai explained to the clerics why he did not include Christians in the local government.
“Those that are not Muslims don’t vote for our party. Most of them. So why should I give them the deputy governor position? I did my calculation, and I knew we could win the election without giving them [that].”
He then insisted that his party has always treated Muslims and Christians fairly, although he seems to define “fair treatment” as the non-oppression of Christians since he openly admits to favoring Muslim constituencies. “Of course, Kubau [a Muslim area] voted for us the most, so I’ll add something to Kubau because they voted for us. What I’ll give Jaba [a Christian area], I’ll increase it for Kubau, because Jaba didn’t vote for us.”
El-Rufai told the clerics, who eagerly applauded him throughout his talk, that he learned this concept from them. “What you Imams and Ulamas taught us is that leadership in Islam is all about justice,” he says, adding that “nobody can say he was oppressed for not being a Muslim. But you’ll prefer the ones who support you.”
The former governor then urges his audience to ensure that Muslims continue to dominate local politics. “So, after Uba Sani finishes his tenure and gets re-elected again, that’ll be sixteen years,” says El-Rufai, who served eight years before passing the baton to the current leader. “Then we’ll have another tenure, which will make it 24 years. That is when everyone will understand and say, ‘Okay, we understand, we know our status’ and ‘we know the Muslims will not oppress us.’ That’s it. And you’ll see that there will be peace. I swear to God, this has been our plan from the first day we started APC in the state.”
In response to these statements, which were also sent to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a group of Catholic priests wrote to the current governor, demanding that he distance himself from El-Rufai. Representatives from the Catholic Diocesan Priests Association in Kaduna, Zaria, and Kafanchan, which are all in Kaduna state, called the comments a “divisive, bigoted, hateful, and completely unstatesmanlike declaration of Islamic political supremacism in Kaduna State and Nigeria.”
Far from feeling that they are equitably treated, the priests say, “We and our congregations have experienced the terrors of ineffective governance, especially in the last 8 years,” and that as priests, specifically, “our association has almost lost count of our members who have been targeted, kidnapped, and killed.”
According to figures collected by ACN, eleven priests were kidnapped in Kaduna State over the past year and a half, the latest on Sunday, June 11. Three of them were murdered; two of the kidnapped priests are still unaccounted for.
This is apart from the several pastors of other Christian denominations and countless Christian communities that are steadily being raided, ransacked, and burnt down, with residents either taken for ransom or slaughtered without any perpetrators brought to book. And there is no support for survivors from the State Emergency Management Agency, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), or from any other government agency. The only official response has been bizarre and inhumane, in the form of accusations that Christians provoked their killers, tagging the atrocities as justified revenge killings,” the priests complain.
“Mr. Governor, this, to every discerning mind, is not only evidence of the discrimination and provocation that most Christian communities and individuals have endured in our state, especially during the reign of former Governor Nasir El-Rufai. It is also an explanation for the many unjust policies of his administration: the uneven distribution of state resources, the wanton killings and kidnappings that afflicted Christian- dominated areas, and the nonchalance and sometimes the scornful response of the government to the distress calls of victims.”
The priests also expressed their dismay at those applauding El-Rufai, writing, “[They] are the same clerics with whom we have been in constant dialogue about how to embed harmony, peace, and mutual respect for our different faith persuasions. They are the same clerics we have called friends and partners in inter-religious dialogue, and now they seem to stab their friends in the back.”
Nonetheless, the signatories to the letter insist, they wish to give the current governor the benefit of the doubt. “We are writing you because we want you to succeed. Religion should occupy the place given it under the Constitution and should never be used as a cover-up for incompetence and failure. The peace and progress of our state should never be traded for some atrocious political expediency. We assure you of our unrelenting support and prayers, trusting that God will give you the wisdom to govern Kaduna State, and give it an enviable reputation among other states,” write the priests.
—Felipe d’Avillez, Aid to the Church in Need. Published with permission.
