If you are in the US, please consider using this template (or ideas from it) to send to your Senators and Representative. Thank you.
Dear (NAME)
I’m writing to express concern about US Nigeria policy that could be harmful to the Fulani people group.
Nigeria is a country of many ethnic groups in conflict with one another. These different groups vie for the attention of the US government to take their side as they oppose other groups over land conflicts. Several Igbo organizations promoting Biafran independence are doing this, as are some ethnic groups in the middle belt states such as Benue, Plateau, and Kaduna.
Many middle belt majority Christian ethnic groups have experienced chronic emotional trauma and even generational trauma from the overall level of violence, insecurity and lawlessness in Nigeria. Several factors cause this violence including criminal gangs, land disputes between ethnic groups, and local vigilantism by armed youth. Over the last two decades in many Nigerian states armed youth, farmers versus Fulani herders, have engaged in cycles of violent retaliation. This trauma has led many leaders of majority Christian ethnic groups to feel growing prejudice and hostility against the Fulani people group.
Educated Nigerian Christian leaders have many connections in the US which they have used to propagate messaging blaming Fulani in evangelical media and in fundraising messages from US Christian non-profits. And some members of Congress have visited Christian leaders who were traumatized by attacks and who influenced the wording of HR 7457 and H Res 860 to blame Fulani ethnic militias for the insecurity in Nigeria. The reality is that the ethnic groups of these leaders have armed youth vigilantes who have attacked Fulani. But a normal reaction of people who have experienced loss and emotional trauma in violent conflict is to blame the ethnic group who attacked them and view their own ethnic group as innocent victims. That dynamic has been seen all over the world, with Hutu-Tutsis in Rwanda, Israel-Palestine, Serbia-Bosnia, and many more places.
I want the US government to support relief for displaced people and peacebuilding efforts in Nigeria. The US government should not sanction the Fulani people group while supporting the ethnic groups that attack Fulani.
Thank you
(SIGN YOUR NAME)