Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
As controversy still trails the recent viral video of the immediate-past Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, a coalition of Nigerians living in the United Kingdom, has demanded his immediate arrest, investigation and prosecution over genocidal attacks against Christians in Southern Kaduna under his watch.
The Coalition also demanded the investigation and prosecution of the ex-Governor at the International Criminal Court, ICC, if found culpable in the genocidal murder of Christians in northern communities, and open propagation of radical Islamism.
The coalition, in a press statement issued Sunday, also “totally condemned the inciting and genocidal statement,” in a viral video credited to the former Governor.
According to the statement jointly signed by Dr Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor Olorogun, Theodore Ochuko Arayki, the coalition challenged El Rufai to disown the said video if it had no link with him.
The statement read: “The Nigeria’s mainstream and social media have been awash with a statement from a video clip of the former Kaduna State Governor strongly linking him to such inflammatory, inciting, and genocidal statement.
“Since then, the Coalition has waited to see if the former Kaduna State Governor could publicly deny or clarify himself – all to no avail. A lot was said in the video clips statement made by the former Gov before his handover to the new Kaduna State Governor.”
The coalition further said that: “The statement was also a clear confirmation of the remote and immediate causes of endless butcheries and property violence systematically targeted at defenseless Christians and their properties in Nigeria especially in Southern Kaduna and Middle-Belt.
“It further confirms that the butcheries have nothing to do with the so called “Farmers-Herders Clashes.”
According to the statement, “the inaction and conspiratorial roles of the country’s security forces in the butcheries and property violence including indiscriminate burning down or destruction of tens of thousands of churches and Christian schools were also brought to the fore and inescapably exposed as having been fully presidentially backed or sanctioned for deepening of ‘State Jihadism.’”
Accusing el-Rufai and his cohorts of championing state jihadism, the Coalition called on the leaders of the Southern Kaduna, the Middle-Belt, and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) “to ensure that he does not go scot-free.”
The Coalition recalled that the ex-Governor “publicly threatened the 2019 international independent election observers with going back or returning to their countries in body bags.”
It, therefore, called on the ICC “to arrest and prosecute Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai” to explain his role “over crimes against humanity and genocide in Southern Kaduna, Middle-Belt and other parts of the country.
The coalition also wanted el-Rufai investigated to know if he had any link with the atrocities of Fulani jihadists who “invade, occupy, kill, rape, abduct, disappear, loot, plunder, burn, destroy and Islamise.”
The coalition renewed its call for the election petitions tribunal to correct the obvious manipulations of the 2023 elections pending before it.
It urged “Nigerians to stand solidly with those that want a country that works,” adding that it still firmly stands its May 15 press statement in London.
