The Bauchi state authorities ought to launch Rhoda Jatau from jail and drop all costs towards her, as a matter of urgency. Her continued imprisonment is a stain on Nigeria’s picture as a democracy.
The failure of the Nigerian state to reside as much as its statutory tasks of defending the lives and property of its residents; its failure to punish atrocities and dastardly crimes dedicated within the title of defending faith, its failure to construct a simply, free, truthful, and equitable nation, the place no individual is discriminated towards on the idea of faith, tribe, tongue, creed, or sexual orientation, is on the epicentre of this ecosystem of impunity that has supported the bodily and judicial lynching of Christians in Nigeria since 1994.
On the morning of 12 Could, 2022, Deborah Yakubu, a younger Christian scholar of the Shehu Shagari School of Training, Sokoto, was surrounded by a braying mob of Islamic fanatics and lynched earlier than rolling cameras on the allegation that she had blasphemed towards Islam. Her killers filmed themselves within the act, and circulated this throughout varied social media platforms – a spectacle that will proceed to traumatise anybody who watches the gory video.
Eight days later, on 20 Could, 2022, the Nigerian authorities, in Bauchi, arrested one other Christian girl, Rhoda Jatau, on one other allegation of blasphemy. She was alleged to have shared a message in her work WhatsApp group, condemning the homicide of Deborah.
The message denouncing Yakubu’s homicide, which Jatau shared, was a response of conscience to the trauma of watching a fellow human being lynched earlier than rolling cameras. Nobody of their proper conscience could be unmoved within the face of such jolting inhumanity.
That, for the Nigerian authorities within the Sharia state of Bauchi, constitutes blasphemy. Not the general public homicide of a human being.
This, and lots of different actions and omissions of the Nigerian state, nourish and maintain the suspicion in varied quarters that the Nigerian state, dominated by Muslims on the federal degree and throughout the 12 Northern states, which launched Sharia in 1999, doesn’t solely harbour an agenda to Islamise Nigeria however it’s now lively within the enterprise of Christian persecution.
The truth that two Christian ladies sharing messages in WhatsApp teams, within the northern a part of Nigeria should pay for this – one along with her life, the opposite along with her freedom – is due to an Islamic militant theocracy that’s about to run over the entire of Nigeria.
Deborah Yakubu was murdered by an Islamic mob. The failure of the state to guard this harmless younger girl from her murderers might be excused on quite a lot of grounds. However nothing can excuse the failure of the state to safe justice for Deborah.
Two of her assailants, Bilyaminu Aliyu and Aminu Hukunchi, have been arrested on 16 Could, 2022 and arraigned earlier than the courts. The Nigerian Police in Sokoto, which was the prosecuting authority, by no means cared to point out up in courtroom throughout a number of sittings, prompting the trial courtroom to dismiss the case and set the murderers free.
The Nigerian state allowed the murderers of Deborah Yakubu to get away by not even getting into an look to prosecute them. That nobody was held to account for the homicide or that there was no diligent prosecution of the murderers, makes mockery of justice. It may well solely be interpreted because the Nigerian state’s sanctioning of Deborah Yakubu’s homicide.
That was not the primary time Nigeria had failed its Christian residents killed by Islamic fanatics.
In December 1994, an Islamic mob murdered and beheaded an Igbo Christian named Gideon Akaluka in Kano. The muderers paraded the streets of the town together with his head on a pike. Akalaluka had been arrested after some Muslims accused his spouse of utilizing pages of the Koran as bathroom paper for his or her child. His lawyer later claimed that he had proof indicating that the lady alleged to be Akaluka’s spouse was not his spouse, and that Akaluka was not even round when the alleged blasphemy was dedicated. The Cops who arrested Akaluka assured him that his detention could be for his personal security. Nonetheless, opposite to their assurances, a Muslim mob prised him from Police custody with out resistance, after which lynched, beheaded, and paraded the streets together with his head on a pike.
Akaluka was neither tried nor given his day in courtroom to face his accusers earlier than a jury. He was denied that chance by a mob that constituted itself into the accuser, decide, jury, and executioner, in a rustic that’s speculated to be ruled by legal guidelines.
Although a preferred Nigerian, who rose to change into the governor of the Nigerian Central Financial institution, in addition to an Emir in one of many northern Nigerian states, was rumored to be the mastermind of that homicide, nobody was known as to account for that crime. Not even the Police commissioner below whose watch the crime was dedicated.
That failure to carry anybody accountable paved the best way for a number of different impunities and lynchings of Christians which have continued until at this time. One of the crucial brazen examples of this occurred between June and December 2016 in Kano State, Nigeria.
On 2 June, 2016, Bridget Agbahime, a 74-year-old Nigerian Christian girl was lynched at Kofar Wambai market in Kano, the most important metropolis in northern Nigeria, by an Islamic mob. She was additionally accused of blasphemy. She was stated to have prevented a fellow dealer, who’s a Muslim, from performing ablution or washing himself in preparation for prayers, in entrance of her store.
The police arrested two suspects, Dauda Ahmed and Zubairu Abdullahi, in reference to the homicide. The State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje promised justice. The Police later arrested three extra suspects, Abdulmumeen Mustafa, Abdullahi Abubakar, and Musa Abdullahi, all of who have been subsequently charged on the Justice of the Peace courtroom in Kano for culpable murder, amongst different counts.
The failure of the Nigerian state equipment and safety structure to arrest and prosecute the lads behind all these atrocities and genocidal crimes towards Christians, even when a few of them recorded themselves within the act, coupled with its pace in prosecuting Christians like Rhoda Jatau, has grown to create an ecosystem of impunity, which empowers Muslims to kill Nigerian Christians at will.
On 4 November, 2016, the Kano State authorities entered a “Nolle Prosequi” on the case. The Chief Justice of the Peace, Muhammad Jibrin, on the recommendation of the Kano State Lawyer Basic, discharged the case and ordered the discharge of the suspects. The state claimed that the suspects had no case to reply, main a preferred Nigerian social critic, Chido Onumah, to lament that, “the true tragedy here’s what seems to be the connivance of Kano State and its establishments, and by extension, the Nigerian state, to uphold the demise sentence handed on Bridget Agbahime.”
In distinction, this similar Nigerian state, which did not shield Gideon Akaluka, Bridget Agbahime, Deborah Yakubu, and a number of different Christians killed by Muslim fanatics, is in Bauchi State marshalling formidable sources to prosecute Rhoda Jatau, whose solely crime was condemning the brutal homicide of Deborah Yakubu.
To this finish, the lives of Christians within the Northern components of Nigeria are not well worth the worth of peanuts. They’ve change into endangered species in that a part of Nigeria, as there is no such thing as a day that Christians usually are not harassed and terrorised, both bodily or verbally, in Northern Nigeria. The surroundings to reside, navigate their public lives and safely observe their religion is rising extra poisonous than ever.
Within the North, Christians are lynched on the flimsiest of excuses, normally couched as accusations of blasphemy. In Central Nigeria, they’re dealing with extinction, kidnap-for-ransom, and genocide. Within the South, Christians are massacred of their homes of worship, like in Owo, Ondo State; additionally, they’re kidnapped on the roads, and sacked from their villages, like in Aguamede in Enugu State.
The Center Belt deserves a particular point out. It’s now a territory besieged by militants with Islamic affiliations and genocidal aspirations. The mission to wipe out the indigenous Christian inhabitants of that fertile triangle, working from Southern Kaduna by way of the plains of Plateau right down to the River Benue basin, and usurping their land, is in full swing.
Only recently on Tuesday, 16 Could, Fulani-jihadist militants are alleged to have staged a genocidal massacre within the Mangu space of Plateau State, massacring as many as 85 individuals, and setting a number of villages on fireplace.
As is normally the case, nobody has ever been convicted of murdering Christians in Northern Nigeria below the guise of faith. No Fulani militant or bandit or terrorist has ever been convicted by the Nigerian state of the atrocious crimes dedicated on Christian villages.
All these maintain the suspicion that both the Nigerian state is complicit in these crimes, or it’s now within the enterprise of Christian persecution.
That the Nigerian model of Islamic extremism is thoroughgoing misogyny, and views non-Muslim ladies as objects to both be transformed to Islam, killed, or used as intercourse slaves, is not information. Boko Haram even claimed as a lot. It was reported that it claimed that, “the wives and daughters of infidels or pagans are legit booty and will be bought into slavery”. Experiences from escaped Chibok and Dapchi ladies kidnapped by Boko Haram additionally attest to this.
Each human society has its share of extremists. However that Islamic extremism, which glories in destroying Christian lives, properties, and livelihoods, and desecrating the our bodies and souls of Christian ladies, is actively tolerated by a democratic Nigerian state, supposedly ruled by legal guidelines, within the twenty first century, is worrying, particularly for a multi-religious and a various nation like Nigeria.
The failure of the Nigerian state equipment and safety structure to arrest and prosecute the lads behind all these atrocities and genocidal crimes towards Christians, even when a few of them recorded themselves within the act, coupled with its pace in prosecuting Christians like Rhoda Jatau, has grown to create an ecosystem of impunity, which empowers Muslims to kill Nigerian Christians at will. That the state in Northern Nigeria, now punishes the free speech of Christians however permits murderers of Christians to go scot-free has been a long time within the works.
Nigeria, one of the crucial strategic nations in Africa, has for scores of years been within the crosshairs of militant Islamic jihad. Muslim terror teams, propelled by the caliphate aspirations of world jihadism, made a landfall in Nigeria. With assist and financing from the Wahhabi petrodollars situated in Saudi Arabia, teams like Boko Haram developed to problem the Nigerian state and threaten the lives of Christians in Northern Nigeria since 2009.
Since then, Islamic bandits, fixated on Christian our bodies, land, and property as booty, have been working uninhibited in these ungoverned areas deserted by the Nigerian state within the North, whereas Muslim-Fulani militants, bent on grabbing Christian land and demographically displacing them, have flooded the Center Belt with atrocious crimes.
All these are due to the ecosystem of impunity talked about earlier.
Rhoda’s imprisonment reeks of a medieval trial-by-ordeal. The courtroom appears to be below stress to frustrate the course of justice on this case. She is denied bail and remanded in jail custody, which is consuming away at her spirit and resolve. Her life in jail is just not even assured, as there have been stories of makes an attempt by Islamic mobs to waylay her on her option to courtroom and lynch her.
Lest we neglect, for one full 12 months now, Rhoda Jatau has been on trial. For three hundred and sixty five days, this mom of 5 has been denied the consolation of her household and there’s no decision of the case in sight.
Jatau, a 46-year-old well being employee in Warji native council of Bauchi State, was arrested and charged below sections 114 and 210 of the State Penal Code, and Part 24 Subsection 1b(i) of the Cybercrime Prohibition Act of 2015, with inciting public disturbance, thrilling the contempt of a spiritual creed, and cyberstalking.
Bauchi is without doubt one of the 12 Northern Nigerian States that adopted the Islamic Sharia into their penal code in 1999.
Blasphemy, which below the Sharia in some instances, carries a demise sentence on conviction, is just not solely a violation of worldwide legislation but in addition the elemental human rights provisions within the Nigerian structure, which in Sections 38 and 39 shield the liberty of thought, conscience, and faith, in addition to the liberty of expression.
The courtroom refused to grant her bail on a number of events, citing public security issues. However a speedy dispensation of the case is just not a serious concern of the Bauchi courtroom, because the trial has been stricken by pointless adjournments and different irregularities, which sluggish it down, making certain that Rhoda stays in jail and away from her household.
The prosecution has continued to frustrate her potential to litigate on this case; failing to offer her legal professionals with the proof towards her, to allow them put together their defence, thereby infringing on her proper to a good trial – the one elementary human proper that’s absolute.
Rhoda Jatau’s imprisonment reeks of a medieval trial-by-ordeal. The courtroom appears to be below stress to frustrate the course of justice on this case. She is denied bail and remanded in jail custody, which is consuming away at her spirit and resolve. Her life in jail is just not even assured, as there have been stories of makes an attempt by Islamic mobs to waylay her on her option to courtroom and lynch her. She lives in fixed concern for her life and that of her household, which aren’t out of hurt’s manner, as they expend their meagre sources supporting her by way of this ordeal.
{That a} girl like Rhoda Jatau might be in jail and on trial over an accusation of blasphemy, in a rustic that prides itself as a democracy, within the twenty first century, is surprising, to say the least.
Rhoda’s plight and using blasphemy as a motive for persecuting Christians in Nigeria is constructed upon the identical ecosystem of impunity, which has been allowed to normalise the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, below the federal government of Muhammadu Buhari, a Fulani muslim.
The failure of the Nigerian state to reside as much as its statutory tasks of defending the lives and property of its residents; its failure to punish atrocities and dastardly crimes dedicated within the title of defending faith, its failure to construct a simply, free, truthful, and equitable nation, the place no individual is discriminated towards on the idea of faith, tribe, tongue, creed, or sexual orientation, is on the epicentre of this ecosystem of impunity that has supported the bodily and judicial lynching of Christians in Nigeria since 1994.
The one crimes dedicated by individuals like Deborah Yakubu and Rhoda Jatau are the burden of being born in a rustic the place their fellow countrymen who’re Muslims, view them as a sport to be hunted down for his or her religion.
The tales of Rhoda Jatau and Deborah Yakubu are indicative of the depths of evil potential, when militant Islamofascism meets misogyny, in an ecosystem of impunity.
The Bauchi state authorities ought to launch Rhoda Jatau from jail and drop all costs towards her, as a matter of urgency. Her continued imprisonment is a stain on Nigeria’s picture as a democracy.
Franklyne Ogbunwezeh is a Nigerian and a Senior Analysis Fellow & Director for Genocide Prevention on the Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Switzerland.
