Nigeria’s former External Affairs Minister and professor of political science, Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi has weighed in on the allegation of genocide leveled against Nigerian by the Senate of the United States, stating that it is one issue that must be taken very seriously by the Nigerian Government.
Insisting that is not a matter of senate of Nigeria versus the erudite scholar in international politics was miffed that the government waited until the matter had gone far in the US Congress before it became an issue of public concerns to Nigerians.
Akinyemi feared the backlash that may attend the development in the form of passports and visa cancellations, ruining the country’s chance of vying for a seat on the security council.
Speaking in an interview on Channels Television Programme, Politics Today on Friday night monitored by Newsmata.com.ng, Prof. Akinyemi also expressed concern over how Donald Trump would take his failure to win the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize which was awarded to a Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, but hailed the selection committee for not allowing itself to be bullied by the US president thus preserving its values.
He feared that the global community may pray a price for it “if Trump decides now to turn his back on developments in the Middle East”.
Recall that five Republican senators in the US namely, Ted Budd, Josh Hawley, Pete Ricketts, Ted Cruz, and James Lankford, had last week written to the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, urging him to consider a re-classification of Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), over alleged continued acts of “violence and terrorism against religious minorities in the Northern part of the country.
Emphasising that the alleged genocide against Nigeria is something that needed to be handled at a much higher level, the former Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, (NIIA) said he was particularly worried that “during the debate and in deciding what action to take, the Nigerian representative in Washington was excluded from the debate. That just doesn’t sound right to me”.
He suggested that Nigeria’s security adviser, Nuhu Ribadu should take it up with his US counterpart and explain issues.
According to Prof. Akinyemi, “Of course, as a Nigerian I’m depressed and I’m upset that the charge of genocide would be leveled at my country. When you compare what is happening in Nigeria with what Netanyahu has done in the Middle East, to now link Nigeria and put us in the same basket with Israel, and accuse us of genocide, I think it’s unjustified.
“And I listened to the honorable gentleman you were talking to earlier, and it is true that there are unsavory developments in this country, especially in the in the Middle Belt that worry us. But it doesn’t amount to genocide.
Mark Gbillah, a member of the House of Representatives from Benue State had described the allegation of genocide against Nigeria as “a big deal” because the actions of the political class invariably affect the rest of the country and the people.
Gbillah said “the oversight of the inactions of the political class” were the cause of “this unfortunate designation”.
The former federal lawmaker said as somebody who is very affected by this spate of insecurity, his community being probably the fulcrum of these incessant attacks and killings, he reasoned that the designation would have occurred “because these actions predominantly have been in areas where they are predominantly Christians – in Plateau State, in Benue State”.
Acknowledging that certain attacks occur in other parts of the country, “but those ones are mainly not what the issues that I believe the US government was referring to”.
Gbillah noted that the people of the state had been crying out that what was happening in Benue and Plateau was genocide given the manner people were being attacked in their homes and burnt alive.
Akinyemi however noted that when words are misused in a way to diminish the impact of whatever it is one is trying to do, “we Nigerians must understand that there are consequences to actions”, adding that “when we run down our own country, and the running down is unjustified, number one, we are demarketing our country.
“Number two, we are demarketing our image. And number three, it’s every Nigerian who then gets affected by what is said and what is unsaid, and this is a classical example of that.
“Now, the charge of genocide is being leveled against our country. It doesn’t help issues; it doesn’t help matters.
“Having said that, it is a signal to Nigerian authorities that perhaps they are not taking this matter as seriously as they should”.
Referencing a news item on one of the broadcast channels earlier in the day about 10-year-old girls being trafficked to Cote D’Ivoire, the octogenarian scholar exclaimed: “Ten-year-old! Now, this has effect on the image of Nigeria. And now we are seeing the impact again on us on our image when now we are being accused, we are being charged with committing genocide against our own people!”
Advising on how to approach the matter, the renowned diplomat suggested that “The Nigerian government must take this issue very seriously. As I said during my intro at the beginning, it’s not just a question for Senate; it’s not Senate versus Senate – at the highest level – Ministry of Foreign Affairs, State Department, National Security Adviser in the United States.
“And this is where some of us had said that we have since we instituted the status of
National Security advisor in Nigeria, we have never really given it, we haven’t accorded it the status it should be accorded.
“But now that the Nigerian Security Adviser had been saddled with internal and domestic security Affairs, maybe he also should take it up at that level with his colleague in the United States and explain matters, and explain issues.
“I don’t know why we have waited until the matter has gone this far in the United States Congress before it has even become an issue of public concern to us in Nigeria because before you know it, they would cancel passports, they would cancel visas, and when you now want to run for security Council positions, this matter will then arise and genocide would now be attached to the name and the status of our country. It’s a matter of deep concern”.
On the Nobel Peace Price, said his worry now is “now that Trump did not get the Nobel Prize, is he going to turn his back on developments in the Middle East, because in a way he’s been driving it to sure that peace returns to the Middle East and hoping that he would then be rewarded with the value of the Nobel Prize”.
On the other hand, he said he was particularly happy, like a lot of other scholars, “that the gravitas of the Nobel Prize has been sustained”, and not “diminished by the committee allowing themselves to be bullied” by Trump.
“Trump is used to bullying people, to bullying nations, to bullying presidents, and finally, a committee stands up to him and says, no, we are not going to allow ourselves to be bullied. I’m very happy about that.
“By their act today, they sustained the value and the gravitas of the Nobel Prize. But we may pay a price for it if Trump decides now to turn his back on developments in the in the Middle East.
“Number two, I’m surprised that people keep talking about how the development in the Middle East is something we’ve never seen before. There have been four or five wars in the Middle East.
“How do people think those wars were brought to an end? It’s by the intervention of presidents in different parts of the world. So, why is everybody talking as if what Trump has done in bringing peace to the Middle East is something that has never been done before?
“We are all allowing Trump to dictate the language in World politics and in peace politics, which I don’t think is justified”.
