Human
rights watchdog group International Christian Concern (ICC) released a
report earlier today profiling Nigerian Governor Nasir El-Rufai and
analyzing his years-long pattern of punishing Christian communities in
Kaduna State. While militant groups contribute to religious persecution
in Nigeria, No Protest Allowed highlights another major source of persecution in Nigeria—the government.
Since
taking office as Governor of Kaduna State in May 2015, El-Rufai has
repeatedly endangered Christian communities by ordering them into strict
lockdowns. These lockdown orders—which trap villagers in their
homes—prevent villagers from organizing early warning
systems and make militant attacks even more deadly as villagers no
longer have the warning they need to flee impending attacks.
Despite
international condemnation of these lockdown orders, El-Rufai has
continued to punish Christians using this technique. In 2020, he locked
down a Christian-majority agricultural area for over two months during
planting season. Militants, taking advantage of his lockdown
orders, killed over 100 Christian villagers during that time.
In addition to chronicling several of these lockdowns, No Protest Allowed exposes
El-Rufai’s immense wealth and his family’s extensive international
travel including to London, Paris, New York, Dubai, and the Caribbean.
Dubbed
the “reformist governor” by the Economist,
El-Rufai’s carefully-groomed image as a man of the people began to
crumble as ICC researchers combed through the El-Rufai family’s social
media presence. While El-Rufai has loudly publicized his decision to
enroll some of his children in Kaduna’s public school system, ICC
researchers found that he quietly sent at least one of his children to a
private school in Canada where annual tuition is about $44,000 USD per
year. Another social media post showed his family drinking sparkling
apple juice infused with 24kt gold flakes at the Burj al Arab hotel in
Dubai.
Nigeria goes to great effort to cast itself as a
beleaguered nation struggling valiantly against sectarian violence.
Secular democracy, the narrative goes, is the guiding principle
governing Nigeria—any deviation from that is the fault of malicious
nonstate actors intending to spoil what they cannot control.
Nigeria
does suffer from sectarian violence—it is estimated that Boko Haram is
responsible for over 35,000 deaths and that Fulani militants have killed
from 20,000-50,000 in the last decade or so—but the idea that the
government is an impartial player doing its best to promote justice and
freedom for all is simply wrong.
A self-proclaimed admirer of
China’s Den Xiaoping, El-Rufai recently resurrected a military-era rule
regulating pastors and their sermons. The regulations are striking similar to Chinese regulations and do not bode well for the future of religious freedom in Kaduna.
“El-Rufai’s actions endanger thousands and help to illustrate the deeply problematic nature of government persecution in Nigeria,” said Jay Church, the report’s author and ICC’s Advocacy Manager for Africa. “ICC
hopes that the international community takes note of El-Rufai’s
consistent pattern of persecution in Kaduna State and responds
accordingly. We call on the U.S. and others to sanction El-Rufai for his
egregious violations of human rights and hope to see those sanctions
come about in the near future.”
