Church call to investigate Army chief for collusion in the Jos massacres: The Church of England Newspaper, April 9, 2010 p 7.

Maj. Gen. Saleh Maina, GOC Nigeria's 3rd Armoured Division

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Religious Liberty Partnership (RLP) has called upon the Nigerian government to suspend the officer commanding the country’s Third Armoured Division based in Jos and has demanded an investigation into his conduct during last month’s massacre of Christians in Northern Nigeria.

The call to suspend Major General Saleh Maina came at the close of the RLP’s meeting in Larnaca on March 31. The RLP, a coalition of 21 Christian organizations from around the world concerned with religious liberty and persecution, expressed its deep concern over the Nigerian government’s handling of the sectarian violence in the Plateau State.

It also underscored the solidarity of Christians in the West with those in the developing world, asking “all Christians worldwide” to join in “prayer and action” recognizing that all believers are part of “One Body united in Christ.”

The area’s top military commander has come under sharp criticism for his handling of the Jos crisis which has left hundreds dead. A Muslim and member of the Fulani tribe, Maj. Gen Maina has been charged with pro-Muslim bias by allowing Muslim gunmen to attack Christian villages with impunity, but using troops to protect Muslim villages from reprisals.

Last month the former chairman of the Nigerian Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Domkat Bali, accused Maj. Gen Maina of taking sides in the crisis. “[Maina] is playing games with us, and that [pro-Muslim officers] are part of the problems.”

Gen. Bali told This Day the government should “remove Maina, because he has shown bias for Islam and it is a dangerous thing not just for Plateau, but for the whole country. The moment this country is broken along religious lines, there may be no Nigeria any more. Especially as it regards the military, because the ultimate force bringing Nigeria together is the military.”

News and television broadcasts from the fighting showed that some soldiers had taken part in the attacks. However, Gen. Bali said the uniforms and equipment of these “fake soldiers” showed they were rebels from Niger and Chad. The army should have disarmed these men, he said.

“The people I saw were boys that could be stopped and their weapons collected from them. But what I saw on the screen, (the fake soldiers) and the Army were virtually operating together, and the army did not arrest or stop them,” Gen Bali said.

In its “Cyprus Statement” the RLP called upon the Nigerian government to launch an investigation into the “army’s inadequate enforcement of the curfew, and its failure to provide protection to vulnerable communities” in the North.

Maj. Gen. Maina should be relieved of his command “pending an investigation into the reasons for these failures, and into serious allegations of partisan behavior on his part,” the statement said.

Nigerian Christians should “promote and practice non-violent responses” to the attacks, the RLP said, while Christians worldwide should “stand with our brothers and sisters in Nigeria in prayer” and engage Nigerian missions abroad, challenging them to “ensure the Nigerian government takes timely and effective action” to halt these abuses.

Mervyn Thomas, head of Christian Solidarity Worldwide and RLP Chairman, said: “The Cyprus Statement calls amongst other things for the perpetrators of violence to be brought to justice.

“If these people continue to kill with impunity, the violence will escalate even further, and will eventually endanger the entire nation,” Mr. Thomas said.