Nigeria: Religious Violence

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Cox]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide?, published on 15 June.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government welcome the report and the detailed analysis of complex issues of intercommunal violence and terrorism in Nigeria. We condemn all incidents of violence and call on the Nigerian Government to do more to protect victims and hold perpetrators to account. The UK Government’s formal response to the report will emphasise our approach of supporting solutions that tackle the causes of conflict to reduce violence affecting Christian and, indeed, Muslim communities.

[Baroness Cox (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but we cannot ignore the chilling signs of the potential genocide in Nigeria. According to the International Committee on Nigeria, Islamist Fulani herders have killed 19,000 people across the country’s Middle Belt. I have visited four of the devastated villages in Plateau state and stood in the house where they had murdered the pastor.

Therefore, given the escalation, frequency, brutality and asymmetry of such attacks on Christian communities—and, indeed, Muslims—is it not time to give greater effect to our obligations as a signatory to the 1948 genocide convention and our duty to protect?