“We are in trouble”: Catholic Priests Lament as Less Known Jihadist Group Makes Inroads in Nigeria

“We have insecurity coming from different detections,” Fr. Ehusani said when ACI Africa asked to know what ails Nigeria. “We have a new terrorist group that arose about two weeks ago in the Northwestern part of Nigeria. The group is linked to the Islamic State, and we hear the members are coming from Niger,” he said.

Fr. Ehusani narrated that the Lakurawa members have already been accused of kidnappings, killings, and imposing stringent sharia laws upon locals.

“The Lakurawa invades an entire village, imposes taxes on the people, and begins to run the society like a government does,” he told ACI Africa, and added, “We are in serious trouble. The Lakurawas are even preventing locals from going to their farms and forcing them to work on jihadists’ farms instead.”

The new jihadist group came promising to protect locals against armed attackers, Fr. Ehusani recalls, and adds, “The people are left with no option but to pay taxes in exchange for protection. They are a terrorist group who are paid to protect villagers from their rival terrorist groups.”

Fr. Ehusani is running the PSI, an initiative that came in to fill the gap in trauma healing to produce psycho-spiritual trauma healing experts in a country that is witnessing a rise in trauma victims owing to the widespread jihadism and other forms of violence.

In the November 20 interview, Fr. Ehusani, who gives therapy to previously kidnapped Priests in Nigeria narrated to ACI Africa about the existence of rival terrorist groups in Nigeria.

“Once, a Priest who had been kidnapped and released told me that among the bandits and jihadists, there are different competing groups. He said that the fact that one bandit group frees their hostage doesn’t mean that the hostage is free. One may be freed and be immediately kidnapped by another waiting rival bandit group,” he shared with ACI Africa. 

Fr. Ehusani spoke to ACI Africa during his visit to PSI’s campus in Kenya. He was accompanied by Prof. Fr. Hyacinth Ichoku, the Vice Chancellor of  Veritas University Abuja, the Catholic University in Nigeria that has accepted affiliation with PSI.

Shedding more light on the origin of the Lakurawa group, Fr. Hyacinth told ACI Africa, “A few weeks ago, some soldiers were killed in Chad. The President of Chad wanted to dislodge everyone that was involved in the killing of the soldiers. This is what led to the birth of this group.”

He said that some of the militants who crossed over to Nigeria from Chad formed part of the Lakurawa group that he said had become “a nightmare” to the people in Northwest Nigeria.

Fr. Hyacinth said that the Lakurawa were presenting themselves as “saviours” among the populations that he said had for decades been terrorized by Boko Haram and other jihadist groups.

“Everyone knows that this is no saviour but just another terrorist group, seeking to destroy the others for it to dominate and to continue terrorizing locals,” he said.

“The group is still small yet very potent,” he further said, and expressed hope that Nigerian authorities can “nip it in the bud.”

Expressing the challenge that Nigeria might face is stemming the new Lakurawa group, Fr. Hyacinth said, “The military is facing a multi-faced war in the north particularly, where it is fighting different terrorist groups. In such a situation, any military tends to spread the strengths across different groups.”

In the November 20 interview, Fr. Ehusani also spoke about the growing farmer-herder crisis especially in places where the Fulanis go in Nigeria.

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The challenge, he said, is that there are Fulanis in the countries neighbouring Nigeria including Mali, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso.

“These people speak the same language and are over 90 percent Muslim. They are linked by both tribe and religion. They believe that they can go anywhere without anyone standing in their way,” Fr. Ehusani said.

The Abuja-based member of the Clergy of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Lokoja added, “The challenge is that we don’t have any serious borders here. When a Fulani comes to Nigeria, he may walk around without anyone noticing that he is not Nigerian. And the immigration officials at the border can’t stop their fellow Fulanis from crossing.”

Some of the Fulanis who have been found to be hostile against Christian farmers also have their tribesmen and their fellow Muslims in security agencies who give them protection, Fr. Ehusani said.

The Executive Director of Lux Terra Leadership Foundation criticized the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led government for not showing seriousness in the fight against terrorists.

“At the moment, the government doesn’t even have credibility. You need a high credibility as government, whereby people accept you as government to be able to address this evil,” he said.

In the November 20 interview, Fr. Ehusani expressed regret that Nigerians have also become more allegiant to their religion and ethnic groups than they are to the country. “Some would protect known terrorists that are of their religion and ethnicity,” he said.

For him, insecurity in Nigeria will never end as long as there are high-level people benefitting from it.

He finds it difficult to believe that it is the kidnappers “in the bush” solely benefitting from the kidnappings that are on the rise in most parts of Nigeria.

“There is no way that the boys in the bush are the ones benefitting from the huge amounts money they collect as ransom to release their kidnapped victims. It is a cartel in which higher people are involved, and it is them who are getting the bigger chunk of the money,” he said.

Fr. Ehusani said that Nigeria has a long way to go in the fight against jihadism and other forms of banditry.

“We need a form of revolution, a certain kind of complete overhaul of the system, because as things are, the criminals have taken over; they have taken over at every level,” he added.