Government has ‘terrible lack of realism’ regarding Islamist violence in Nigeria

Crossbench peer Lord Alton has accused the British government of a “terrible lack of realism or understanding” in its response to ongoing violence by Islamist militants in Nigeria.

Nigeria has the biggest population in Africa and is roughly equally divided between Christians and Muslims. Open Doors currently ranks it the seventh worst country for anti-Christian persecution on this planet, with more Christians killed for his or her faith every yr than all other countries combined.

Deadly attacks occur all yr round but sometimes intensify during Christian festivals like Christmas and Easter. Last yr one Catholic bishop in Nigeria went thus far as to say Christmas attacks by militants were becoming “customary” in parts of the country.

In the newest of many outrages, an ISIS affiliated group killed 29 people in a village in Nigeria’s north-eastern Adamawa state.

Writing on X, Lord Alton said the attack was “an affront and a terrible tragedy for bereaved families”, adding “too lots of these limitless attacks have been ignored and followed by impunity and a scarcity of accountability or justice”.

“You can trace the training and beliefs of IS Jihadists back to the ideology-driven Sudanese regime that succeeded in destroying their very own country,” he said. 

Lord Alton took issue with Britain’s Africa Minister, Baroness Chapman’s answer to a parliamentary query on what support Britain is providing to Nigeria to stop such attacks.

While welcoming government claims that the protection of spiritual minorities in Nigeria “stays an ongoing priority”, Lord Alton criticised the failure of the federal government to pinpoint Islamist extremism because the explanation for the violence.

On X, he wrote that “following yet more deaths today, the refusal to call Jihadism, for what it’s, reveals a terrible lack of realism or understanding by [The Foreign and Commonwealth Office] about what’s driving the carnage”.