Is Nigeria the next Refugee Crisis?

Space Summary

The Twitter Space Is Nigeria the next Refugee Crisis? hosted by Femi_Sorry. Delving into the critical topic of Nigeria potentially transforming into the next Refugee Crisis, Femi Oluwole sheds light on governmental obligations, media influence, and public engagement in mitigating such humanitarian disasters. The discussion navigates through the roles of law graduates, ethical considerations, and international responses to crises while emphasizing the importance of proactive measures and advocacy. By examining root causes, media impacts, and individual contributions, the space prompts reflection on global responsibilities towards displaced populations and the urgency of preventive actions to avert crises.

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Questions

Q: What are some key elements in preventing a potential refugee crisis in Nigeria?
A: Governmental accountability, early intervention, and humanitarian aid are crucial.

Q: How can individuals contribute to preventing genocides?
A: Raising awareness, advocating for justice, and supporting humanitarian organizations are essential.

Q: What role does media play in addressing humanitarian crises?
A: Media coverage can increase public awareness, prompt discussions, and influence policy decisions.

Q: Why is it important for law graduates to engage in humanitarian advocacy?
A: Their legal expertise can support human rights causes, justice initiatives, and policy reforms.

Q: How can nations fulfill their ethical responsibilities towards refugees?
A: By providing safe havens, humane treatments, and support for displaced populations.

Q: How does global dialogue impact responses to potential refugee crises?
A: Open discussions foster international cooperation, aid distribution, and crisis management strategies.

Highlights

Time: 03:12:45
Governmental Responsibilities and Crisis Prevention Discussing the role of administrations in averting humanitarian disasters like refugee crises.

Time: 03:25:10
Media's Impact on Humanitarian Issues Exploring how media platforms can shape public perception and policies on global crises.

Time: 03:40:22
Law Graduates' Advocacy for Human Rights Examining how legal professionals can leverage their skills to champion justice and humanitarian causes.

Time: 03:55:18
Ethical Obligations towards Displaced Populations Deliberating on ethical considerations nations face in supporting refugees and asylum seekers.

Time: 04:10:30
Mobilizing Global Support for Crisis Response Addressing the importance of international collaboration in managing and resolving potential crises.

Time: 04:25:45
Creating Awareness for Humanitarian Advocacy Emphasizing the role of media liaisons in spreading information and stimulating action on humanitarian issues.

Key Takeaways

• Nigeria's situation could potentially lead to a refugee crisis.
• Femi Oluwole highlights governmental accountability and responsibility in preventing crises.
• The importance of addressing and preventing genocides.
• The impact of media coverage and public awareness on humanitarian issues.
• Understanding the role of law graduates in advocating for justice and human rights.
• Challenges and complexities of international responses to crises.
• Exploring the ethical obligations of nations towards refugees and displaced populations.
• The significance of media liaisons for spreading awareness and facilitating discussions.
• Analyzing the root causes and triggers of potential refugee crises.
• Fostering dialogues around global humanitarian crises to prompt action and change.

Behind the Mic

Introduction to the Security Crisis in Nigeria

Hi, everybody. We're just waiting for people to join the live here. We're talking about the ongoing security crisis in Nigeria, whereby thousands of people are regularly being kidnapped and killed, especially in the north, largely around religious violence. We're talking about the kidnappings now at an almost industrial scale. We've been seeing this since the bring back our girls campaign ten years ago, but it's obviously still ongoing and there's lots of evidence to suggest that the nigerian government isn't particularly taking this as seriously as they should. And so we're going to be discussing how we can get the UK government to actually try and use its diplomatic levers that it's got, for example, the recent security pact that they did with Nigeria to pressure the nigerian government to take this issue seriously. So we're just going to wait for this to fill up as we get more speakers and listeners involved.

Addressing the Scale of Violence and Displacement

Chinwe, I've invited you to speak. Just let. If you could all give some reactions, just so you can all hear me. Can you all hear me? Thank you. Thank you. Hi, can you all hear me? Yes, we can. Oh, awesome. Yes. You'Re breaking up slightly there, Femi. Thank you so much for listening. Is it good? Yeah, yeah. Good now, good now? Yeah, perfect. Today we can all see that, but this is something that has been happening in Nigeria, as you mentioned, for over ten years now, we've had tens of thousands of Nigerians slaughtered, kidnapped, children out of school, millions of children out of school, and currently over 3 million people internally displaced within Nigeria. North, central to northeast and northwestern Nigeria. And as we mentioned in the campaign video is quickly spreading across other regions of Nigeria. The insecurity crisis is definitely at a level now by which it is an international crisis. So I'm looking forward to participating in this conversation, sharing our knowledge.

Overview of the Current Government's Efforts

I'm joining on behalf of PSJ UK. So that's the international Organization for peace and social justice, peace building and social justice. And I also have our CEO, Mister Ayo Adedoyin as well. Here we focus on advocating and supporting victims of the violence in Nigeria. So in terms of materially, what can be done? I know I don't want to probably going to talk about this a bunch of times, but what could the nigerian government do better in terms of addressing the security crisis? What are they not doing that they could be doing? So, of course, we have a new government in Nigeria at the moment. So we have President Tinebu, who was elected as Nigeria's president this year, and he has demonstrated intent. He has. He has shown a willingness to tackle this. The problem is, if we don't get to the grips of the actual cause of the violence, it's quite hard to solve a problem that you don't understand.

The Nature of Violence and Government Accountability

And we talk about religiously motivated violence. And some people sort of, you know, think that describing it a genocide is alarmism. But the truth of the matter is that there is a strategic approach to the killings in certain regions of Nigeria that we call the middle belt or north central Nigeria. The nigerian government, for whatever reason, is reluctant to admit or acknowledge that there is what looks like a genocide happening in my belt Nigeria. So the first thing that we would, you know, we have been calling on the nigerian government, and not just nigerian government, the international community as well, is to recognize that what is happening in the middle belt region of Nigeria, north central in Nigeria, is taking on what looks like genocide. That's one. And then we look at the other regions of Nigeria. You spoke about the UK Nigeria security partnership. You know, there's hundreds of millions of UK taxpayers money goes towards Africa to support the security work there.

Challenges with Security Responses

So we need better accountability. We need to know exactly what the money is being used for and how they are tackling the violence in these regions. When we speak to some victims, it's quite shocking. We hear accounts of, you know, slow response from police, slow response from even soldiers, sometimes no response. And it's gotten to the stage now where victims in the communities where this is happening don't actually trust those who are meant to be protecting them. So there needs to be more local community work. They need to go into the communities and speak to the victims and actually really understand what is going on and then believe them, actually believe them when they say that. And off the back of that, proportionally respond to their cries, whether that means 24/7 protection. I'm not an expert, if I'm being honest, in terms of what they need to do in the security element, and maybe I'll draw on IO here.

Understanding the Nature of Kidnappings

But what we do know is that right now it is not. The proportion of their response is not reflecting in these communities. People are still being killed in the dozens on a weekly basis. So in terms of figuring out exactly what the problem is, what's driving this, as was mentioned in the petition video by Nels, often the motivations are financial, political and religious. When you talk about going into those communities and finding out what's went wrong, are these kidnappings being done by people within the communities or from out or going into communities and kidnapping and taking them away? Well, I'm going to say exactly what the victims say to us when we spoken to them. I recall actually speaking directly to a lady whose village had been attacked continuously.

Personal Experiences and Broader Implications

And she met, she spoke of these people coming from outside and actually not knowing what language they were speaking. So, I mean, when you speak to the victims, it really very quickly gets quite sinister, to be quite frank. So she spoke about, you know, not understanding, not recognizing the language and not believing that they were even from Nigeria. And this is why I talk about them, the government, really. And, you know, I'm not in Nigeria. I have to, you know, full disclosure, I'm from the UK. So perhaps they are doing this, but it appears that there isn't. There is not a sort of grassroots investigation speaking to the victim to find out what happens. So they describe people that they don't understand the language, they don't understand what group they are.

Intercommunal Violence and Opportunists

There is in some instances, you know, we've heard of the intercommunal violence between fulani herders and largely christian farmers in the middle Belt region. So that is, that's already known. But what we have seen is that it appears that there are people, terrorists, whatever you want to call them, bandits that are leveraging this, I guess, already volatile situation between these communities to now strategically come into these farming communities and cause havoc, killings, kidnappings and so forth. So in this community that I spoke to this victim, we had all the schools there were shut. They went into the schools. They actually used the school as their headquarters. And in this community, nobody was allowed to go out. Nobody was allowed to go in. Come in.

Communities Under Siege

So you have a community of tens of thousands of people, a village that's essentially under siege by these group of people. The children are not going to school. They have no freedom of movement, and there's nobody that is essentially helping them because the community do not trust the security forces. When we think about what can be done to fix this, you mentioned the issue of the soldiers not really responding quickly enough or not really taking it as seriously as they should. As many of us can remember the NSAR's movement, the over policing, over militarization of the police used by the government as a form of suppression. That suggests that the nigerian government has plenty of resources to enforce security measures when it suits it.

Politics and Security in Nigeria

Is there a political reason why they're not doing all that they can to address this problem? Well, I mean, I can't say. I don't know why it appears that's not happening. I mean, what I don't want to say is that the soldiers are not taking it seriously, because we see we do go to the north. I mean, these soldiers are underinsured. Let's remember they're under instruction. And many of them have actually lost their lives because of this insecurity crisis in Nigeria. So if we move away a bit now from north central, because this, you know, it's a cocktail of security issues in the country, as you've seen in the campaign, if you've had a chance to listen to it. But if we go up to the northeast and northwest, we see that the soldiers are actually very active there and many of them are losing their lives.

The Impact of International Attention

So there's clearly activity, but for whatever reason, that's not reflecting in the middle belt region. Now, one thing I will say, which, and this is a correlation that I note, is that when you read the UK Nigeria security pact, it is largely focused on the northeast and northwest region. And a lot of the time that's because that was, you know, those are the regions where we hear about the Chipotle girl abduction. Some of you may be familiar with that. The international community really cried out and there was a lot of noise that was made in a good way. And the Dapchi kidnappings as well. So those are the schoolgirls, many of whom have still not been returned. Leah Cherubu is still in captivity at the moment. So the public interest in those regions, because of the, I guess, the popularization and knowledge of Boko Haram and IsWAP, perhaps has influenced the more response in those regions.

Public Opinion and Its Influence on Government Action

I can only maybe assume, which is why this campaign is so important, because as we know, and as you know, Femi, I'm sure I know we have Niles Abby Hebb as well. With what you do, public opinion matters. And the minute there is an international outfire, the minute that the public, especially the UK public, show interest in a particular region, very quickly government responds. So if the UK government respond, they start to have conversations with the nigerian government and say, actually, we'd like a percentage of this now invested in this region. And then we can kind of do a process of elimination to see actually, perhaps, maybe generally there was a lack of funding, you know, but it's hard to say. It's hard to say now because there hasn't been that much focus in that region internationally.

Need for Increased Focus and Action

So when we get to that stage where actually, at least from our standpoint, the UK government is investing in supporting the security framework in the middle belt region, then we can start to understand whether there is a almost intentional, and I hope not intentional, disregard for what is happening in the middle belt region with christians being slaughtered. Understood. And often the first question that somebody would ask from our perspective is, a, what can the UK do about it? And b, how does this affect the UK? And so, in terms of how this affects the UK, my personal view is I am just tired of the conversations that we have around refugees, asylum seekers, whereby people fleeing parts of the world where the UK's foreign policy has just taken a complete disregard of to human rights.

Reflections on Foreign Policy and Its Consequences

We see that in Yemen, we see that in Afghanistan, we see that now in Gaza, whereby we often. Sometimes we're supporting the bad guys, sometimes we're selling weapons to the bad guys, sometimes we're just being ultra pally with the bad guys or the people that could do something better and are choosing not to, and people and that destabilizes regions, or problems like this don't get solved and those areas become simply unsafe to live. And so, of course, people then look for a better place, a better, well, a safer place to live, a better life for their. For their children, for their families, etcetera. And they will travel. And often, if they're.

The Connection Between Foreign Policy and Migration

Often, if they're anywhere else in the world, because of our history as a country, their second language is most likely to be English, statistically speaking. So they're going to want to come to a country that speaks English, and that leads to a small fraction, because most people stay in countries that are nearby, but it leads to a fraction ending up on our doorstep looking for a place that's safe after we've helped make their original home unsafe. And so I just think if we remind the government, remind people that this isn't just some issue happening on the other side of the planet, this is an issue that is very connected to the politics that we deal with every single day.

Mobilizing Support for Change

I think that's a very strong motivation to sign the petitions, share the petition and push it that way. In terms of what the UK government can do, I think, as you mentioned, the security pact that the UK government has done with Nigeria, which does involve a certain degree of cooperation in terms of the sharing of information, sharing of technology, etcetera. And so there are levers that can be pulled, I believe, in terms of actually the UK government pressuring the and nigerian government to actually do something. On top of that, we're all very aware of the flows of money between diplomats both sending their money over here, moving over here, and there's a whole different conversation there around politicians from Nigeria coming to the UK bringing their vast wealth with them, and that often not being the best thing for the people that still live in Nigeria, but putting diplomatic sanctions on politicians from Nigeria if they're not doing the right thing.

Community Call to Action

And what do you reckon can be done in that sense? I can see that NALs is joining the panel. Do you want to respond to that? Hello, good evening. Happy Nigerian Independence Day, brothers and sisters. How are we all? Not so bad. Happy Nigerian Independence Day. Happy Nigerian Independence Day. I think we call it October 1. So it's a great. It's a great thing. It's a beautiful thing. And we come here together as, of course, as humanitarians, as people who are concerned, as children of Nigeria, children of Africa, children of the world, or so people who are just generally concerned.

Personal Testimonies of Kidnapping

But I think it's important that we have these conversations in times like this. This is very serious, what you just spoke of Febi about, for example. Suddenly people have to leave where they are. My own brother, when we're speaking about kidnapping and insecurity, my own brother, I never knew much about this until about seven, eight years ago when my own brother was kidnapped. And it was one of the most shocking. We originally thought that he would be out within. I was assured that they would get him out within about a few hours. There would be no issue. 24 hours passed, 48 hours, 72 hours, four days, five days.

The Emotional Toll of Kidnapping

By the fifth day, I got. I just can't tell you. I was walking. I was going to work. And as I was making my way to work, I was about to get on the bus, and suddenly I just burst into tears because it just dawned on me right there and then, my brother's not coming home. He's done. But were still negotiating everything. But even at that point, by day two or day three, I got lucky because where I was working at the time, the head of the organization, sorry, the head of security organization, was former SAS. So he explained to me, to us how to literally negotiate with terrorists, how to negotiate to get somebody out and how to actually pay a ransom and everything else.

The Fears and Realities of Kidnapping

And I just want. I'm saying this to paint the picture of how serious this is. It wasn't like we had. For some reason, my phone still can't merge calls to this day, and weren't using WhatsApp. So we had to have me and my brothers in Nigeria, my younger brother here, we had to merge the call. We had to have. I had to have like three different handsets in front of me and then put them all on speakerphone. And then that's how we'd all be conversing. Me, my brothers, and the Ydez Sas guy who was explaining to us it was six of the longest and worst days of my life, where quite literally, I'm a. Those of you who've seen me or know me, so I'm a fairly big guy.

The Aftermath of Kidnap Experiences

It's not a good site. Else. Now, I can't hear you right now. Yeah. So, long story short, I'm not gonna say too much or so, but, yeah, but long story short, we got him out, right? And we paid. We did what we had to do to get him out. And it was disgusting experience, because what was so disgusting about it, one of the other things that was disgusting about it is that were categorically told not to get the british government involved because this would become a, a PP ing contest, which would be something like, oh, well, we don't negotiate with terror and not to get the nigerian government involved because you couldn't trust anybody there, so you didn't know who was who.

Impact of Kidnapping on Lives

And the circumstances which he was kidnapped were just, were awful. He lost his best friend in the process. Long story short, we got him out. Now, my younger brother was a successful banker in Nigeria. He had a very great job, lived a better life in Nigeria than I lived over here, and I live over here, and I do well for myself. I'm grateful he couldn't continue to live there. He has now fled to Canada, where he had to restart his life. And I want people to recognize it. Now he's doing again. He's backseat, he's a hustler. He's doing well for himself in Canada. He's a brilliant guy.

Broader Implications of Violence and Kidnapping

But the key thing is this, is that not everybody is going to be in that privileged position. And the more we create these situations. My brother was kidnapped for financial purposes. He got lucky because if it was religious or political purposes, it would have been a disaster. So I want us all to understand that what is happening here is happening on the commercial kidnapping, the religious kidnapping, the political kidnapping, is happening so rampantly and so frequently and so indiscriminately that it just cannot be allowed to continue.

Call to Action Against Kidnapping

So whether it's bring back our girls in the north or so or, hey, we've got your brother, or something else like that, then if you don't give us, say, ten, however much pounds or dollars or naira, we're not going to give the back. We could talk about that another day or so. It's just about how in the past or so, robbers would have actually robbed you for your cash. Now, because Nigeria has become a cashless society, you can't steal some, rob someone for their credit card or a debit card. They would rather just take you and then get your family to deliver cash to them.

Engagement in Solutions

So I want to be very clear that I beg everybody, sign this petition. Make some noise. Tag your mp, tag your mp, tag your representatives if you're a different country. So make it clear this is serious. We are not doing this. I don't like pleading to the british government for anything whatsoever. I really don't. I find it disgusting, particularly as they are our former colonial power, but we know the influence they continue to hold over the nigerian government.

Examination of International Influence

I saw how Buhari didn't pay attention to anybody other than the Brits or the Americans. Abacha were the same thing, but Bangladesh was the same thing before him, or so Tinubu is the same thing. That's where they hold respect. They listen to these guys. They don't listen to us. They don't care about us in that regard. So we have to be very clear, put pressure on those people, because that's who these people, that's who these old men listen to. These are colonial babies. That's what they listen to.

The Experience of Nigeria

So, but I must be very clear here. This is Nigeria. Going to Lagos, going to Nigeria is a beautiful experience. I live in London. It's a beautiful experience. I love it. I love. Even the Muratal Mohammed airport is one of the most disgraced. I think it's a racist conspiracy theory. In my view, a Klansmen must be running that airport. But I still love it when I get there because it's home. You breathe in the air of home, but you can't. It can't just be allowed to continue like this. It just can't be allowed to continue like this or so. So we have to find a way that there's no. There's. Nobody's going to jump out the sky and try and save us. We can only do this for ourselves. And that's why I say to everybody, we are taking this action. A lot of work's going into this with Chinwe, Femi, Doctor Shola, so many other people or so we've had to mobile.

Call to Action

I beg you. I beg or not, please share the petition. Sign the petition. Make sure you scream about the petition. Email your mp, email whoever you can do or so, but just get the word out here that this is crumbling. This is for all of us, also children in Africa in particular. Nigeria is the largest black nation on earth. It should be our paradise. It should be one big Atlanta, essentially. It should be one big chocolate mecca. But we cannot be, and it could be that, but we just have to make sure that we come into grips because if the very base of it, if you don't have security, everything else just crumbles from there. So the state's first job is to provide security onto you. And if they're not doing that, then we must stand up. And by standing up here, I'm saying, let us just push these petitions and take it forward from here.

Urgency of Security

This is the bare minimum we could do. Please, please work with us here. Let's get some work done. Thank you. Thanks, Femi, and thanks, Shinra. Appreciate it. And you talked about how you were advised not to involve the Nigerian government. Can you walk me through why? What is it precisely that's wrong with the Nigerian government? That meant that you couldn't use, they weren't a source of safety or refuge. They weren't someone that you could trust to actually involve themselves properly with this issue. What is wrong with the Nigerian government? So the thinking with the Nigerian government, for the gentleman who was advising us was that it was so much smoke and mirrors that you just couldn't really trust it or trust them because you didn't know who was who.

Lack of Trust in Nigerian Authorities

So you might have even see a minister at the top who could be someone trusted, but you don't know who that person works for. You don't know who's connected to who. The police. Sorry, excuse me. The police, for example, were very. So when my. When it happened to my brother and his friends who were in a wedding procession. This is the. Sorry. Excuse me 1 second, one sec. Oh, God. This is. This is the blackest thing that could possibly ever happen. If I. Fire alarm, usually it's the battery, but this is still cool. This is still not the battery. I'm actually cooking. Sorry. Yeah, so I'm actually cooking at the same time.

Incident Involving Brother

So what happened to my brother? My brother was coming from a wedding. He was in a wedding procession, coming from the actual official ceremony to reception. Then suddenly they got stopped by the police. The police stopped and the police did the normal check, spot check. So it's a wedding position. They did a normal check routine. They said they drove about another ten minutes along the road, no more than ten minutes. Then suddenly after that, they were just. They just heard gunshots coming from the bushes and men just ran into the actual row. This is an Ondo state near the. This is an Ondo state. Not, not. It's still in there. Still in Yoruba, lad, but closer.

The Aftermath of Kidnapping

Edging close towards the. To the. To the River Niger. Anyway, people came rushing out the bushes, and then that was that. They got everybody out of the car. The whole wedding procession had them all lie down on the floor. Again, this is not far away from where the police had just actually stopped them previously. So they lie down on the floor. And the only reason my brother was picked from the actual lineup was because he was wearing a pair of Russell and Bromley shoes. So they knew that he had somebody or something in the west. And that is just it. So it was completely random. And they took them into the bushes. And my brother said they were walking for 12 hours before they got to where they were actually put, where they were hidden.

Government Corruption and Insecurity

So the key issue here, when it boils down to this, is that what we're looking at and how we're dealing with it when it comes to the Nigerian government is that there's so much smoke and mirrors. Who you can trust? Who's that? Who's playing what role where, who's benefiting from the insecurity, who's infiltrated who actually believes in the actual situation, who's making money. It is unknown to everybody. So it's just so difficult that there's so. And even sometimes, too, the problem with this, that's the problem with corruption, that when you have a. I'm sorry about the background noise, guys. Now it's not my.

Challenges in Law Enforcement

Now it's not my what? My washing machine. But when you have corruption, everything just erodes from the. Everything gets corroded from inwards, outwards. So if you can actually keep the pay somebody to keep it quiet, that you're somewhat implicated in the. In the kidnapping side of things. If you could pay somebody to keep it quiet inside government or so. Or you could pay the actual government or something else like that, to actually loan you weapons or something else like that, it becomes very difficult to police that. The problem we had is that Nigeria, at the perception of it, which was a legitimate perception, was that it became a bit of a theater of crime, even at the highest levels.

Political Corruption and Governance

And we knew. We've had criminals in Astor Rock before. We, all those of us with some age, lived through their bachelor years. And we've had people who were criminals since then, too. So I think that the issue that we had there is that the British state don't really trust the Nigerian state. The Nigerian state, for example, don't really trust the Nigerian state. Don't really trust, don't really want to be, have their. Have their business snooped into. And also, too, a lot of people who capture the Nigerian state, they're in it not like out of some sort of patriotic duty, but out of the desire to control resources.

Societal Corruption in Nigeria

So there's not really a focus on the job, per se. The focus is on get your money, build up what you can build up and get out when you could get out alive or without being in prison. So there's just zero trust of the Nigerian state. Zero. Literally zero trust. So if so, for example, I remember somebody who it also happened to when they called the police, who, when I say it happens, I treat it like it's a catastrophe. Whereas when they actually had. Where my friend's cousin was kidnapped, and when she was kidnapped, they went to the police, and the police's first words to them were, ok, madam, we'll need a couple of million naira to buy bullets so we can go into the bush.

Police and Bribery

And that was the opening salvo. Then she's. Then they then said, we need money to pay the boys so they can actually go into the bush, too. So it became a hustle for the police. It became a hustle for the police. It became every girl. So that's why security. So some of my friends, when they go there, they hire, literally, they hire military to just escort them around or so and so they are completely safe. So they know that, look, they've got whatever comes or so. We've got men with guns with us. So it's a serious and dark situation. I'm sorry to say this, but it's one that's just unsustainable, that there's no way, for example, someone like myself or Femi or Chinwe or any or so many other people in this line, and I used to do this for a living where we'd actually try and attract money or attract investment into the African continent.

Investment Concerns

But it becomes very difficult to look an investor in the eye and say, look, come and invest in so and so. In so and so in Lagos or wherever else or so outside of the resource extraction. Come invest in this. So it's going to be good for you. We going to get you this. But then, you know, deep down inside Drew, that, look, this is not safe. So, yeah, sorry, I'll land there. I can go on forever. But I know there's a lot. It's just. It's just painful. To hear, in the sense that, like, we. I know it's. It's a very different battlefield that we're dealing with.

Corruption in the UK

But we obviously are aware that we've seen a pretty heavy duty corruption in the UK. So it's hearing that the UK government doesn't trust the Nigerian government because of corruption, despite everything that we've been through. It's. I guess I'm just trying to think of what are the lessons that we can learn. Like, we know how we solve corruption over here is to have better rules about where money can come from, what money can go to, what politician, etcetera and that sort of thing. So is there. I know it's pot, Colin Kettle black, but is there any way we can use our tools here in the UK to try and get those kind of rules over there?

British Influence on Nigerian Governance

Oh, my goodness. So, Febi, so one of the reasons, just a little bit British history, British Nigerian history here, one of the reasons why we have the. What's today known as the Financial Conduct Authority, the FCA, the predecessor was called the FSA, which was the Financial Services Authority. The Financial Services Authority lost credibility during the 2008 financial meltdown. The feeling was, I was not on the ball. So they split it up. They split it up into the financial services, the Financial Conduct Authority, and to the prudential regulatory authority. I think that's why it's a pru. It's been a while since I left the city.

Impacts of Nigerian Corruption

But one of the reasons why they set up the FSA was because of Nigerian corruption, because of Abacha's money that found its way into the City of London, that Abacha's money found its way into the City of London, that the corruption was so vast. But then once we fought, we cleaned it up. Then comes James Ibori, who is, of course, the governor of my local state or so, who was arrested and did do time in a British prison. But then again, at the exact same time, too, the feeling was that he was one of many people who was doing. Who was in that game, but he was the one who got arrested because he was no longer useful to the Nigerian state, that he was pretty much became a pain in the behind.

Consequences of Corruption

So they fed him to the Brits with the feeling. And so the levels of corruption. So when you're speaking of the actual level, I'm talking about, we have serious corruption in Britain. We saw it in Covid, even in Covid also, where they waived billions in actual corruption payments or so and everything else, we saw all that happened. So Britain has the exact same problem. But in terms of actual rules or how you impose regulation, Nigerians are very good at banking. Nigerians are very good at coming up with systems and controls and putting things together as far as banking is concerned.

Street-Level Corruption

But the corruption is so endemic and sometimes it's so rudimentary, too, sometimes so rudimentary, like, for example, a police officer stopping you in the middle of the road and asking you for money. If it's at that level, what do you think is going to look like at the top? Now, we have different ways of exhibiting corruption. In the west, for example, our corruption tends to be backend. So, for example, you're a politician today, you're a chancellor checker today. You play ball. We say the city of London, and they give you a great job where you have to go into the office, maybe say, two days a year, but you're getting paid a million pounds a year or something else for that.

Corruption's Institutionalization

And everybody knows what I'm speaking about when I say this here. So it's different from your lawyer, so you know it, too. There's different ways in which corruption exhibits itself. But I think as far as this one's concerned is that it's almost become, and I saw how this happened in the early nineties, during the Babangida era. But it's almost become a given that corruption is baked into the system in Nigeria almost the same way which racism is baked into the system in Britain. But so it's one of the plays of working as society. So in terms of how we can actually impose rules upon them or persuade them to take our rules, I'm not convinced how that would potentially happen, but I think that there's things that we could do, but our objective, our eye on the prize has to be on.

Security and Societal Stability

Has to be on security, at least. There just has to be this idea in which your body can get snatched or so because somebody disagrees with your religious. With your religious practices or you voted in the wrong way or, hey, this person needs, I've heard stories that somebody might need, say, 100,000 naira, which is not much money or so. Let's say that's about 60, 70 pounds. They want to have a good time this weekend or something goes like that. They'll go steal the lady selling plantain by the road. They'll go and get down the lady selling plantain by the road, hustle her family down, then deliver it back for about 100, 200, 300 grand.

Preventing Kidnappings

Now, we're just lucky that. So again, the volume of people in Nigeria is vast the likelihood this happening to you is very minimal. But it shouldn't be happening, period. It shouldn't be happening, period, to any of us. And I think that's where we are. That's why we have to concentrate once again on the security side of things that the state of insecurity, the way in which you go to certain parts of Nigeria or so, and the abomination of kidnapping hundreds of schoolgirls and shooting up a dormitory and all that sort of stuff, or killing the equivalent of. Or killing the. I remember those, there's a particular program, NYSE, all those, the youth corps and all that sort of stuff that just can't continue.

Challenges to Modern Governance

That just, that just has to be taken care of. That doesn't exist in 2024. It sounds medieval. It sounds absolutely uncontrollable. But it has to be brought to a. Has to be brought to an end.

Advocacy for Change

And that's why we just, please, everybody, sign the compass. Sign the petition. Share the petition. Email your mp. If you're british, email your senator, your congressman, or your representative. You're in America. So email whoever you need to email where if you're anywhere else in the world but make some noise about this one, because, honestly, everybody knows Nigerian. Everybody loves Nigerian, and. But the nigerian people themselves, it's time that they. That they be allowed to get off their knees as a society, as a nation. Absolutely. Thank you very much, nails. Thank you.

Understanding the Crisis in Nigeria

We've got Doctor Sholo with us, and we've been just basically going through the basics of the problem in Nigeria, what we can do, what's getting in the way of actually making progress. I open the floor to you. Yes. Excellent. I think this campaign, I think, not only draws attention to what can be seen from the outside in, I'm hoping that this campaign draws real attention to the lived experiences, the daily lived experiences of Nigerians in just trying to. To make a way. So whether that's Nigerians in the north or Nigerians in the south. And I think that our history as Nigeria plays, it plays a lot into what is happening today.

Historical Context

Our history with colonization, our history with how, you know, different nations, not ethnicities, not tribes, nations, how they were amalgamated together without consent, without, and having to spend the last 64 years since independence day still trying to form a single identity under an umbrella, so to speak. And, you know, I'm old enough to remember what it was like growing up in Nigeria with the different, I suppose, the power structures. The power structures that come from what ethnicity you are, what faith you are, you know what part of Nigeria you're from. And believe you me, growing up, I was, you know, I was very proud of how were. I didn't have the words.

Unity in Diversity

I did not have these words when I was younger, but I have these words now because as a Nigerian, you can live next to a Muslim, next to a traditionalist, next to an igbo person. So if I'm european, living next to Igbo person, you know, living next to Shakiri person, living next to people who are from different ethnicities, different background, and we did not just learn to live together, were together. But then again, now that I'm older, I'm looking at things from a totally different lens, because as a child, I would have looked. I would have looked at things and grown up with things as a child. And so now when I hear people say certain things, I go back into my own experience and I remember what it was like going to school or having neighbors that have, you know, that have different kind of, you know, festivities.

The Reality of Crisis Amidst Diversity

But it did not feel like it was different to me. We were all part of it. But while I was experiencing that, like many other nigerian children, there were real crisis, you know, going on there. There was the corruption in terms of how people can make day to day living. There was the clear, what I would say is the lack of social capital, the lack of political will, the fact that people, the Nigerians themselves, had to bridge the gap because the government was not stepping in. I personally think that a lot of what we're seeing today in terms of the security crisis, that the government's successive governments, previous government, have. Have had a hand in it. This because I cannot for the life of me believe that a government structure that has all of the power way more than individuals in the society, has not been able to put down, stop, wander terrorism, close the gap on the corruption, make a real difference in the day to day lived experiences of Nigerians.

Addressing Security Concerns

Nigerians are having to make a way for themselves in the face of having a government that is meant to step into the gap for them or fails to do so. So to my mind, I think that this campaign about the terrorism, about the ongoing religious, ethnic violence, we all know this has been happening for years. It's been happening for decades. But there's something about how pervasive and how in your face it is at this time that we just have to get to a point that whether it is Nigerians in the diaspora, Nigerians in Nigeria, or the wider international community, we really need to get to a point where we say enough is enough. We cannot claim that certain countries are democracies or certain countries have what we call structures that really everything should be in place and continue to see atrocities but saying nothing about it.

Call to Action

So this is why I think that this campaign goes some way in giving people, both in Nigeria and outside Nigeria, the power to say, look, I want you, as my government, to do something about. I want you to center human rights in the policies in the UK, Nigeria foreign policy as an example. And the same can apply in every other country. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what region, whether that's Europe, the Americas, Asia, that we can all take a stance on that so that Nigeria does not become the next refugee crisis. I mean, there are Nigerians who are having to leave Nigeria, who are not getting on planes, Nigerians who don't have the resources to say, you know what? I have a choice.

Consequences of Inaction

I'm going to just go live somewhere else. And sometimes they are left with choices that leave them, that open them to even more danger. That's those who are able to get out and think about those who are living in the face of these ongoing atrocities, those who have been chased out of their homes. We're talking about, you know, millions or so. And that is just unacceptable. It is unacceptable. I think Nigeria is a beautiful country with so much potential. So much potential. So it breaks my heart. And I'll be. I'll be honest, it pisses me off that at 64 years old, we are still not doing better than we ought to.

A Shared Responsibility

That's the same people with the same power running things and that they're not being held to account as they should be. So whether that is happening within Nigeria or the way that the international community, you know, takes a look at what is happening in Nigeria, we just need to call it out. It has to stop. And I think that it is time that we recognize as a people. When I say as a people, I don't necessarily mean as Nigerians. I mean as the human race that we do have individual civic responsibility. And I'm hoping that this campaign offers people, be them Nigerians, non Nigerians, to be able to exercise some right by saying, look, I've heard this is happening, or I've always known this, that this was happening.

Taking Action

I did not know what to do about it. But now I'm going to take action. I'm signing this petition. I want the UK government to hold, you know, the nigerian government to account through its relationship with the nigerian government. I want better. I want to do better. I want to know better. And I also want to be able to give out the right information out there. Sometimes on, for instance, x, when you see information be disseminated about Nigeria and about the murders and the killings, it's always been sold one angle to sell one agenda.

Understanding the Full Picture

Christians have been massacred. Okay, moderate Muslims have been massacred. But you see, the angle that is usually pushed out there is Christians and extremists without any thought process about what else does that say about, you know, what is happening to everybody else. What about the ethnic cleansing? What about the fact that it's not just happening to the north in the north, it's happening in the south? What about the fact that there's a kidnapped ransom industry? What is that doing to everyday Nigerians? How does that look? I mean, what information are we getting? What, why aren't, and I'm sure there are people in Nigeria who are speaking out about this.

Challenges in Communication

I have no doubt in my mind that they are because some of them are being persecuted and prosecuted by nigerian state officials and they're running for their lives. But this is not information that is put out there. Why? And this is not information that I feel that the public, both in Nigeria and outside Nigeria, are able to get access to. And I think that is why this campaign can hopefully be important enough for us to push out the right information, given the whole picture, so that we don't allow, for instance, racists to use this to push an agenda of making all Muslims look bad, when the honest truth is that modern Muslims are being massacred by extremists as well, that we should not ignore the fact that the nigerian government itself is complicit and in some way allowing the terrorism to affect, you know, people in the east, so the Igbos, people in the west, people who are not following whatever it is the government expects them to follow, wherever it is that has power.

Accumulating Evidence of Responsibility

And what we don't want is for this to sound like some kind of conspiracy theory. There's nothing, there's nothing about conspiracies here. These are facts that people losing their lives, the children not going to school because parents are afraid that their kids might be the next, you know, product of a kidnapped ransom industry. What can we do about that? There's nobody to protect them. Certainly not the government, certainly not the institutions like the police. I mean, wasn't it just earlier this year, early this year, on December, that the police went into and wiped out some Muslims who were celebrating, having a wedding? And then they said it was a mistake? That's not a mistake.

Lack of Accountability

What kind of lack of intelligence do you have that you do not know? There are people celebrating a wedding and then you kill them all. So there's clearly a strong lack of political will because there's no other reason anyone can give me why the government has not done the necessary to put in the right amount of immediate efforts to stop this or the fact that we've got people. There are people in power in Nigeria. That includes corporate bodies, that includes those who've been elected into office, who are, for better use of words, who are also thriving off this crisis.

Impact of Corruption

There are people who are thriving and profiting of the discrimination, the death, the violence happening to other people. So I'm hoping that this campaign can help to shed a light. There's only so much we could say in two minutes or so in the video. There's only so much that we can put out, say on the website. I'm hoping that this campaign helps to, I don't know, provoke people's critical thinking, extend their boundaries of thinking that they will not just be satisfied being fed crumbs on edge or some social media platform or the news that they go and find out information and that way, in one way, shape, form or manner.

Potential for Change

They can also be of assistance, of help in spreading the word in for all of us to do better. I'm going to stop now. Thank you very much. We haven't heard from Ankayo. Thank you. Thank you very much, Femi. Thanks everyone for joining this evening, spending some of Nigeria's Independence Day, investing your time for a better future for Nigeria and just listening to everything that has been said so far, you guys are spot on. The one thing to say is this, we really must get behind this campaign because as I think it was Nels who said earlier on, there's nobody coming to save us.

Collective Responsibility

There's nobody coming to save Nigeria. It's going to take ordinary people like you and me, the office of the Citizen, the office of the Nigerian, the friends of Nigeria, to really collaborate, bring our voices together to make sure that Nigeria stops being something we keep referring to as a potential. It has the potential to do. We want to get to a place where that potential is realized. But even worse than that is the fact that every day lives are being wasted in every single geography of the six geographic geopolitical zones of the nation.

A Warning for Future Crises

Could this lead to a refugee crisis? One day some people will look at it and say, it's perhaps a bit of an alarmist statement. I dare say you'd be very wrong to start off with. There is some element of a refugee crisis already happening today. But I think it was Doctor Shola who mentioned that the refugee crisis you're seeing today is the bourgeoisie version of it, is the people who can afford to get on planes mostly, who are refugee in all the way to Canada, in some cases to Ghana, where they can't quite do the long haul.

Increased Urgency

And certainly a good chunk of those have already turned up on our shores. And at the moment, the UK may be looking at that whilst not admitting it, thinking, well, we do need some of these people to be here. But what I can assure everyone listening, and everyone who will be listening to this later on, is that the dam is getting closer and closer to being burst. All Nigeria is complex. No doubt there's all sorts of different forms of insecurity happening all over the place. But the most important thing as a report which PSJ UK, which I lead, launched today, as that report say, is that the government is not owning the problem.

Government Accountability

The government has got the levers of power should be owning it, has got the responsibility to protect its citizens as its primary responsibility, but is not doing that. How are we going to get them to do that when we know that they're not necessarily keen or incentivized to do it? It's when we raise our voices as a cohesive unit. So PSJ Uk, which I lead and is a part of this campaign, we set out to speak to people like ourselves and say, let's come together and have a much stronger voice to speak into the social injustice that's happening every day.

A Call to Collective Action

The peace or the lack of peace in every single community and the wastage of lives and resources in every community. You heard Nell's story about his brother. I assure you that same story is happening multiple times a day in multiple places, up and down the nation. And that's the nice and easy parts of it. In the middle belt of Nigeria. Despite the fact that no one is quite acknowledging it, whole communities are being ransacked, people are being slaughtered like animals. They cannot afford decent burials.

Desperate Conditions

Mass graves are dug all over the place there. You know, it's ridiculous what's happening, people. The government narrative sometimes would point or suggest that this is a herder farmer clash or an inter communal clash. But the truth of the matter is, when I look at the women and the children who have been marketed mercilessly, you've got to ask yourself, which ones were they? Were they the herder? Were they the farmer? It's much more serious than that, we've got to press our government in Nigeria, in Abuja, through the government here in London to say you've got to set standards, you've got to respect human rights.

The Right to Life

The most important human rights is the right to life, and every single living person has got that right. So I urge you, as indeed everyone else has, do sign this petition. Do share this petition with your various groups. Share it on your various social media platforms. Let's collectively raise our voices, save the lives of people. I'm also a religious leader, so to speak, christian pastor. And from a, from that point of view, the amount of bloodshed that is being shed on the ground of Nigeria is not just an abomination.

Consequences of Bloodshed

It does really have consequences. That means that the full potential of what Nigeria really should be is not coming to light. And just to give you and end on this point, I amazed at the skill, the talent, the resources in the people of this beautiful nation, Nigeria. Those of you who perhaps grew up there, lived there some time, would have a bit of an idea of what it is that I'm talking about. A friend of mine, Ron Kadiagbo, runs a charity where they pick up young children who should be in school, but are not in school for various reasons, and they pay for them and put them in schools.

The Gift of Potential

It's called IA foundation. What really amazed me when I went along to one of their events last year was some of the people who they had rescued within the three to six month range. They'd given them a little bit of tutoring, as in, they'd been in school for a short while, and in that short while, they were picking up language, they were able to learn. They were able to learn and share their learnings in a way that it was so obvious that there is so much raw talent in this Nigeria. I got back from Lagos a couple of weeks ago. I was in the art market.

Wasted Resources

The talent, the resources that are being wasted as we are not really allowing the full potential to come to the fore is really atrocious. So I would urge everyone, particularly those of us who perhaps live slightly away from the giant crime scene, that Nigeria is, to do our bit to ensure that it does not become the next refugee crisis. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. And, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the thing that's often missing from a lot of the conversations around foreign policy when it comes to human rights.

Economic Potential

With asylum seekers in the UK, there's often a conversation around keeping them in barges, keeping them in hotels, versus allowing them to actually integrate into UK society and forgetting the potential that every human being has to contribute to their society, to contribute to the world in general, often leads to almost. You just see them as more of a blob. And I think if you focus on the fact that there's so much potential in Nigeria to be an economic powerhouse, but things like mass violence, an ongoing genocide, the regular kidnappings, this sort of stuff destabilizes countries and prevents economic development.

The Ripple Effect of Inaction

It prevents the corruption, prevents quality of life from going up. And that gets in the way of actually being the kind of society that it should be. And that would, again, prevent the issues blowing back onto the UK when it comes to refugee crises. I think that's what I think. I'm very glad that you raised that point. Can I just add something, femi? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that one of the things that is often missing is how often we tend to have conversations in silos about what's happening in Nigeria.

The Need for Collaboration

I wish to God that we had a much more united front so that all of the discourse and those who have solutions and those with the potential and those who have the power, the means and the resources to bring a people's potential to the fore, that they could, I don't know, meet each other. You know what I mean? Like, we could just meet halfway somewhere. But unfortunately, I think that people feel so disenfranchised and they get no representation from the government. They get no representation necessarily from each other. And they have to be able to.

Searching for Solutions

Society has to seek that out for itself. I think that one of the things that this campaign highlights is that as much as parts of Nigeria appear to be thriving, underneath this thriving appearance is real life crisis. Okay? There are more people in Nigeria. I mean, someone remind me what the population of Nigeria is. We're the most populous nation in Africa right now. Nigerians are not going to flee their homeland so that, oh, my God, I need to find somewhere else to go. That cannot be the solution.

Staying Rooted in Nigeria

And it can't be that Nigerians leave their homeland for people who really don't care about the homeland, those who are corrupt, those who are driving it, you know, into the ground. That cannot be the solution. So it has to be that. We need to find ways to do more. Now, for some people on this call, you have been part and parcel of this conversation for the longest time. And for some people, this is the first time you're really hearing about it. It's not like you've not heard of, you know, bits and pieces along the way over the years or this happened yet.

Connecting the Dots

But maybe for the first time, this campaign is helping you to connect the dots so that you understand that the security crisis is not limited to religious violence or ethnic violence or just terrorism and what that terrorism looks like or just corruption. I hope that this campaign helps to connect the dots in such a way that you can. You can see the whole picture. And that the whole picture is also not just limited to northern Nigeria, it's very much happening in southern Nigeria, too. And I think that the important thing here is for us to come up with real solutions, connect these real solutions with people who have resource and whether that means that we are, you know, hitting up our, you know, people here in the UK, people in the US, people in Nigeria, connecting the dots so that we can have a real representation for change, then that's what we need to do.

Empowerment through Consensus

I'm just saying, if some of you on this call are sick and tired of the ongoing violence we see every single day, whether that israel, Palestine, Congo, Sudan and everywhere else, and you are tired of the fact that, Jack, all is being done about it, then really the box stops with us. It really does. We, the individuals, the people that don't look like we've got power, we must have some kind of power.

Faith and Action

I'm a faith believer, right? We must have something. I cannot believe that God is letting us see all these things so that we feel that nothing, we can do nothing about it. Somebody, somewhere amongst us, somebody has an idea, somebody can bring that idea to fruition. Somebody else has a connect somewhere. We need to network in such a way we can make this campaign really bear good fruit. Now, with all due respect, I can tell you that, you know, those of us who, you know, help bring this campaign together, this campaign is unlimited to us. It's for all of us to get involved, right? And maybe we all have an idea of what the end result is, but maybe we don't know how that is going to shape out.

Engagement and Knowledge

So welcome you. We ask you to please be part of this campaign. Engage with us. Tell us what you're thinking. Tell us what you know, what you don't know. There's so much that I do not know. When we started out this campaign, I had to speak to lawyers back in Nigeria who were helping to represent activists and advocates that were being persecuted by Nigeria state governors and the like. I did not have that first hand knowledge. You should have seen how big my mouth I was, like, what? How is that happening? But how is that not happening? Shola, where have you been? That's what I had to say to myself, I spoke with charities like PSG UK who enlightened me and broadened my mind some more.

Taking Action

We need to do more asking and doing than just talking based on what we think we know. So I'm just telling everyone, please spread the word, get this petition signed. And if you're in other parts of the. Of the world, let's join together and start campaigns that replicate this ones in different parts of the world and get the governments in those countries to also put pressure through their relationship and foreign policy with Nigeria. And so that we can shame the likes of President Tinubu in doing something. Let me stop there. Sometimes I, you know, I just talk and I don't know when to stop, so I'll stop there.

Final Reflections

Shigani, thank you very much. Due to Chinwe and nails. Do you have anything else to add before we call close? I'll just say this. I'll say one final thing for myself. I wrote it in a book called myself and many other Nigerians wrote a book called of this, our country. It came out in HarperCollins. It's like loads of us were in Chinnamaland, Gozadeci. So many of us were writers contributed to Yomei Deguke. So many Nigerians from around the world contributed to it. But the one line I think I wrote that I've got the most feedback from is that I asked. I'll just give an example. Look at the talent of this call alone.

The Importance of Nigerian Talent

Look at how many brilliant people you know. And you can see on this call on all walks of life that are Nigerians around the world. Look, we might not. I don't know any black person that agrees with Kemi Badenoch, other than perhaps maybe Quasi Kuateng or somebody else. Right? But. But her talent must be in there somewhere. I think a talent is scamming. Scamming racists and saying what they want to hear. I hope she's scamming. Oh, she's not really digging as she is. But the key thing is that Nigerians are not short for talent. In the slightest. In the slightest bit. We're brilliant people. But why is it that Nigerians have to leave Nigeria to live up to their potential, to make a key difference? Imagine we had all of this talent, and our own homeland was a talent, was a magnet for all this talent.

The Need for Change

Think of how great the place could be. Think of how much influence it could have for black people around the world. Figure how important that is. And yet it's been squandered. So as far as this campaign is concerned, I beg everybody that whatever your motivation is, there is nobody that there's barely anybody except for a few people or so benefits from the chaos. There is nobody that this does not. If you are anti-refugee or anti-black and brown people in the UK, sign and share this petition. Because if we can get Nigeria together, you see a lot less of us here. Or so. If you are a pro black person, whatever you might be, whatever your pro black this branch might be, sign and share this petition.

A Call for Unity

Or so if you're just a lover of humanity, sign and share this petition. We have to get to the point where sooner or later, Nigeria, which is a giant of Africa, has to be allowed to get off its knees. And this is just the start of it. It's just the start of the. The bare minimum is that people can go about their business feeling secure in a kind of gentle nation. That is the very bare minimum that Nigeria was forced together under criminal, colonial, white supremacist circumstances. That's our history. But it doesn't have to be our future. And we just have. And our future is dependent upon us.

Propelling Forward

It's all about us. It's just us. I maintain I'm a religious man, but I know that look. You pray the hands of God looks. You want to know what the hands of God looks like? Someone said to me a long time ago, look at the end of your arm. That's what the hands of God looks like. That you have to pretty much the hands of God works through your hands if you're a religious person. So I pray upon to you, I plead upon to you, please sign. Share this competition. Let's not let this be another campaign that goes in vain. Let's make a difference. Let's start to get our wins on the board. And let's start to make Nigeria and Nigerians really and truly great for each other, within each other or so, too.

Global Recognition and Potential

Nigeria shouldn't have just been London, New York, around the world or so, making great waves or so. No, we should be in Nigeria. Across the board, 36 states, 30 states, 36 great governors, great representatives across the board, great thinkers, great business people, great. Just everybody pulling everything up also. And if we can just make it click, if Nigeria can click and really work, to really work and really succeed, really become a secure, safe and prosperous nation, it just snowballs for black people. If you look at just small little Ghana next door or so, Ghana is trying to sort things out.

A Call to Action

It has been phenomenal seeing how African Americans and people around the world have embraced Ghana and everything else we should be a. We should be Ghana. We should be what we are, which is Ghana times ten on fast forward. And I feel that's what we just need to work towards. I plead with everybody, don't log off of this call and then go back to sleep or something goes like this. Log off this call. Call and share the petition. Share everything. We need to get the numbers up. We need to get this down the street, we need to get this around the world and we need the world to know about what we are facing as people.

Collective Responsibility

Please. We're all we have. Let's work together and let's build. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would also just say, because there's a lot of people that are coming to put it into the call at the last, a couple of minutes, just. This is a petition to get the UK government to pressure the Nigerian government to take seriously and take proper steps to end the religious violence in Nigeria, to end the kidnappings that have reached an industrial scale in Nigeria and use things such as the recent security pact as a lever to push the Nigerian government to actually take this issue seriously.

Highlighting Victims

And so please share the petition. You can find it underneath the links on all of the speakers videos. Do something about it, please. Femi, can I just add, if we are doing last words, I just wanted to bring it back to the victims again. Okay. I think there's an opportunity to just do some close out comments here. And I just really wanted to say to each one of us that even from a selfish point of view, we need to recognize that it is in everyone's interest that Nigeria does not become that next refugee crisis.

Global Interdependence

What we have learned from Ukraine when it got attacked is that we actually are all very interdependent. I don't know as many people that realize the amount of stuff that was coming out of Ukraine and the impact on all of our cost of living as a result of that crisis, we cannot tell what the full impact would be on the entire world. If a nation the size of Nigeria implodes, it will certainly affect the region and will most definitely hit the UK and it would probably hit us in our individual pockets. So even if not from an point of view, even from a personal perspective, let's save the people of Nigeria.

Unity in Humanity

They're our brothers, they're our sisters. Let's do our bit by bringing our light together so that we can shine brighter for that nation. Thank you. And Chinwa. Yeah, thank you. I think there was a overlap there. No, it was actually just to follow up from that. Yes, it was to remind, for those who've just joined all of us, about the victim accounts, I wanted to share. I did an interview with one of the victims and she shared an account. She's from the middle belt region where her village was attacked and the attackers entered her home.

Victim Stories

She had four. A mother. Is Chinwick speaking? Can you not hear me? I can hear Chinua speaking, but I don't. If everyone could put a hand up, if you can posit, if you positively can hear Chinwe speaking. I can hear chinwe. You can? Okay. Okay. Okay. Just checking. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's fine. Thank you. What I wanted to say is that she watched the four members of her family get slaughtered.

Confronting Hard Realities

She managed to hide, I believe it was in a wardrobe. So she was a teenager. And when I initially started, because I volunteer for PSG UK and also on their board, but when I initially started, the truth is that it was a nice thing to do. It was charitable. But when I interviewed this 16 year old girl and she told me that she watched her entire family get murdered, slaughtered, she watched one. I think that the machete was ripped through the. I'm sorry to get brutal. The stomach of one of her family members.

The Need for Awareness

I just want to make it really real, because I think sometimes we are a bit desensitized to the suffering, especially as perhaps many black and brown people. And one day I sat down and I thought, wow, if this was happening in the UK, I mean, the whole world would stop. Can you imagine just being in your hometown in Hertfordshire or wherever, and attackers in their dozens entered and, you know, killed children, mothers ripped out babies from pregnant women's stomachs.

Creating Sensitivity

And then the world just continued in the UK. It just wouldn't happen. And I think the first people that need to awaken and be sensitized to the suffering of these people is ourselves and our friends of Nigerians and Nigerians, especially in the diaspora. And I think was mentioned earlier that, you know, it's very easy, because Nigeria is a big country by land mass and also by population. It's very easy to feel like they are kind of isolated, sporadic attacks happening here and there.

Visible Reality

But it's nothing. You know, as Pastor Aya mentioned earlier, it's. There are whole communities that we've been there, PSJA UK. We've had our foot on ground. We've seen the churches that have been burned, we've seen the mass graves, we've seen villages that have been wiped out. There are some places we can't go because they are under occupation by the terrorists themselves. There was one year we actually raised, we raised funds.

The Urgency of Action

We wanted to feed and feed individuals in IDP camps. And I mentioned that it's over 3 million Nigerians are currently displaced because of this insecurity crisis. And we managed to feed, I think it was 5000 families in middle belt and northern Nigeria. Now this particular town that went to, we distributed them with bags of rice. Literally less than a week later they were attacked in their IDP camp. I don't know how much worse it can get than that.

Cycle of Violence

So they left. They were displaced, placed in the camp. You know, we provided them with some food and then less than a week later that camp was attacked and lives were lost. And this is happening time and time again. This is not just another campaign. This is real life situation. And lastly, just to say Nigerians, we are so popular all around the world. I don't know how factual this is, but I'll say it anyway. Maybe an adult.

Collective Identity

They say that one in four black people are Nigerians. You know, and I don't know if it's true, but when you do go out around the world, it does feel that way, right? If you see a black person, it's likely they're going to be. So this is so important not just for Nigerians, but actually for Africa and even black people in the diaspora. We talk about a fairer world, being anti-racist and things like that.

Nigeria's Role

Nigeria is instrumental. If Nigeria is like the USA of Africa, if Nigeria does not meet its potential, these groups that I've just mentioned will never meet their potential either. It's instrumental. So I just want to say not only is that, you know, the victim, think about the victims, but think about the wider implication. I think Aya has mentioned it. We've all kind of mentioned it one way or the other. Our nails, Doctor Charlotte, everyone has mentioned it in one way or the other.

Conclusion and Hope

So thank you so much for listening and I'm looking forward to seeing more contribution from our brothers and sisters in the UK and beyond. Thank you, Femi. Thank you very much. Shall I bring it to a close now? And Doctor Charlie, if you want to say anything else, to close. You know, if you get me started, I won't be able to stop. Okay, then. I just want to thank everybody for joining this live and for sharing the petition.

Final Actions

I want everybody who's currently live to make sure I see a petition link on your profiles within the next two minutes. Go. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.