All Party Parliamentary Group report on situation in Nigeria

That this House welcomes the launch of the APPG for International Freedom of Religion or Belief’s new report entitled, Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide; condemns the devastating violence that Nigerian Christians have experienced due to attacks by armed groups of Islamist Fulani herders which are described in that report; deeply regrets that these attacks have killed over 1,000 Christians between January and November 2019, over 6,000 Christians since 2015 and have displaced over 300,000 people; notes that on 4 July 2018, the Nigerian House of Representatives declared killings in predominantly-Christian villages in Plateau State to be a genocide and called on the Nigerian Federal Government to immediately establish orphanages in areas affected by violence; recognises that the key factors driving that violence include resource competition, the influence of politics, criminality, the ready availability of firearms, the spread of misinformation and the impact of the growing power and influence of Islamist extremism across the Sahel which drives some Fulani herders to target Christians and symbols of Christian identity such as churches; further notes that those factors are compounded by the Nigerian Government’s failure to respond adequately to the violence, to protect communities or to bring perpetrators of violence to justice; and urges the Government of Nigeria and the international community to implement the recommendations outlined in that report to tackle that violence which has claimed the lives of six times more people than the conflict with Boko Haram and is costing the Nigerian economy at least £10.5 billion per year.