The Patriot Post® · Do Black (Nigerian Christian) Lives Matter?

In recent weeks, America has been under tremendous social strife following the deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks. Floyd died while handcuffed and immobile as a result of a police officer kneeling on his neck. That officer has rightly been charged with murder. Brooks died from gunshot wounds from a police officer after fighting two cops, then stealing one’s Taser and firing it at him. That officer has wrongly been charged with murder.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, the dominant narrative from the media and Democrats is that racist white cops are gunning down innocent, unarmed black men en masse in America’s streets.

However, there is an area of the world where innocent blacks are truly being murdered in horrific numbers. That would be in Africa’s largest nation, Nigeria, where more than 50,000 African men, women, and children (predominantly Christians) have been murdered over the last decade. And the world has largely ignored the genocide.

As one writer describes the horror, “Heavily armed jihadis suddenly appear in the dead of night. They attack house after house, breaking down doors, shouting Allahu akbar. They shoot the elderly and able-bodied men. They rape, mutilate, and murder women. They kidnap young boys and girls. They torch houses, schools, and churches.”

According to ICON (the International Committee on Nigeria, a research group detailing terrorism in Nigeria), Boko Haram killed nearly 35,000 Nigerians from 2015 to 2020 alone and displaced more than two million Africans from their homes. Boko Haram (the informal name of the Islamic State in West Africa) gained international notoriety in 2014 when its jihadis kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from the Nigerian town of Chibok. Somehow, the terrorists were able to withstand the devastating Twitter campaign (#Bringbackourgirls) waged by former First Lady Michelle Obama and Hollywood celebrities, and the girls remained captive, with many forced to marry the terrorists and bear their children. Within a few months, these girls were all but forgotten.

Just two weeks ago, Boko Haram terrorists launched a barbarous attack on the village of Faduma Kolomdi in northeastern Nigeria. The attackers rounded up the villagers, initially claiming to be Islamic teachers and asking the villagers to submit their weapons. Once the weapons were collected, the Islamist jihadis opened fire, killing 81 people. Video of the slaughter was posted on social media shortly afterwards.

A spokesman for the Nigerian military promised an investigation but, considering that these attacks have been occurring for more than a decade, killing tens of thousands, such promises are of little comfort to the persecuted.

Meanwhile, between 2010 and 2020, Fulani jihadis murdered approximately 17,000 Africans. The Fulani are the world’s largest nomadic group, comprised of roughly 20 million people covering Nigeria, Mali, and other parts of western Africa.

Jihadist Fulani herdsmen have migrated in recent years from the predominantly Muslim northern Nigeria to the predominantly Christian south, using terrorist tactics in attacks on Christian farming communities, murdering men, women, and children indiscriminately.

These attacks have only increased over the last year. On March 2, Fulani terrorists attacked a Christian missionary outpost, where eight were kidnapped and 3,000 displaced. On March 24, Fulanis murdered at least 20 in two Christian villages. And in April, Fulani jihadists killed six children and a pregnant woman in north-central Nigeria.

The increasing murder and violence led Christian Solidarity International to issue a genocide warning for Nigeria in January: “The conditions for genocide exist in Nigeria, with Christians, non-violent Muslims, and adherents of tribal religions being particularly vulnerable. … The increasingly violent attacks and the failure of the Nigerian government to prevent them and punish the perpetrators are alarming. CSI therefore calls on the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to take swift action to uphold this commitment to genocide prevention in Nigeria.”

So far, the desperate pleas of these persecuted black Christians have largely fallen on deaf ears globally.

Last year, President Donald Trump met with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. During a press conference, President Trump stated, “We’ve had very serious problems with Christians who have been murdered, killed in Nigeria. … We can’t allow that to happen.” Thus far, however, the problem has only gotten worse, perhaps because President Buhari is himself a member of the Fulani tribe.

Even in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, more Nigerian Christians are murdered by these terrorists than die from the virus. In fact, with Boko Haram and Fulani terrorists ravaging the country, the lockdown orders are making Christians even more vulnerable.

If black lives truly matter, it is time to prove it. Not by rioting and looting and making martyrs of career felons, but by ensuring deadly force is used on the other side of the world to eradicate these Islamist terrorists who are engaging in the genocide of black Nigerian Christians.