SAMPLE LETTER i
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[ADDRESS]
The Honorable [REPRESENTATIVE'S FIRST NAME, LAST NAME]
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Representative [LAST NAME]:
APPOINT A SPECIAL ENVOY FOR NIGERIA
My name is [ YOUR NAME …………………… ] a U.S. citizen originally from Nigerian. I live within your constituent at [ YOUR ADDRESS …………………. ] I am asking that you help take action to protect religious freedom in Nigeria by adding your voice in Congress for the U.S. Department of State to appoint a Special Envoy to Nigeria.
Nigeria has been described as a killing field of defenseless Christians..1 In 2018, in Plateau State, militants slaughtered over 300 Christians, destroyed over fifty-two (52 ) indigenous villages with all properties in their ancestral homes, and forcefully established their own occupation in their victims' ancestral lands, which and still occupy to date. The House of Representatives members designated the massacre as genocide.2
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On 5 June 2022, at Pentecost massacre, a mass shooting and bomb attack occurred at a Catholic church in the city of Owo in Ondo State, Nigeria. At least 40 people were killed, maybe over 80. Some in the federal government of Nigeria suspect the Islamic State – West Africa Province of carrying out the massacre. 3.
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After the Pentecost massacre, Fulani also waged bloody attacks that killed 32 Christians in four southern Kaduna communities — Unguwan Gamu, Dogon Noma, Ungwan Sarki, and Maikori. The church and many houses were torched. There, too, the government failed to respond. 4.
In Benue state, on May 20, St. Michael’s Agasha parish in Makurdi suffered lethal attacks when Fulani murdered farmers in their fields and burned their homes. In these pages last August, I wrote of similar Fulani offensives in Christian villages on Kaduna’s border with Plateau, describing a nearby military unit that stood down until the attacks ended. These are only a few examples. 5.
The Kukah Center documented the following: Father Stephen Ojapah and Father Oliver Okpara were abducted by suspected armed Fulani on May 25, from the rectory of St Patrick’s Church in Katsina. On May 11, Father Joseph Bako died in captivity after being kidnapped from Saint John’s Church in Kaduna on March 8. On March 27, Father Leo Raphael Ozigi of St. Mary’s Church was abducted after leaving Mass. On March 24, in Zaria, while traveling to the diocesan secretariat, Father Felix Zakari Fidson was abducted for 37 days. On February 6, Father Joseph Danjuma Shekari of St. Monica’s Church in Kaduna was kidnapped from his parish residence for four days. 6.
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On May 29, The Methodist Church reported that eight Fulani militants abducted its head, His Eminence Samuel Kanu-Uche, along with a chaplain and Bishop Dennis Mark of Owerri. The three were taken into the bush and tortured. They were released days later after the payment of a $240,000 ransom. “We will finish you people and take over this land,” the militants warned, according to Kanu, who added, “They claimed that Nigeria belonged to Fulani. Nigeria’s Christian Association implored the government to protect the bishop. In all these none of the Muslim imams are reported abducted ” 7.
On June 18, 2018, over 50 villages were attacked, and 200 innocent Christians, mostly children and women were massacred, primarily children and women, in sustained attacks on 50 villages on one weekend by armed Fulani militia in Benue State, Nigeria. Nigeria, the Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, described it as 'territorial conquest' and 'ethnic cleansing... The very survival of our nation is at stake."8
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) new report shows that about 350,000 were killed by the Islamist insurgencies as of 2020. This number was 10 times higher than previous estimates since the conflict started 12 years ago.9
Baroness Cox of the United Kingdom House of Lords wrote after he visited Nigeria, "I visited four villages that had been destroyed by Fulani. I stood in the rubble of the Pastor's home where he had been slaughtered, and I saw the huge numbers of Fulani cattle roaming through the destroyed villages. There are concerns that the Fulani militants are now so well armed that they are possibly fighting a proxy war for Boko Haram, with the shared agenda of driving Christians out of their homelands."10
I am asking that you and your colleagues in Congress urge support President Joe Biden and the State Department to appoint a Special Envoy to Nigeria for a fact-finding mission to determine the truth of the violence to help arrest the continued bloodbath of innocent Nigerians.
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I look forward to hearing from you about these concerns.
Sincerely,
[ YOUR NAME ]
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2. See House Designates Plateau Killings as Genocide: https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/04/house-designates-plateau-killings-as-genocide/
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3. At least 50 killed in massacre at Catholic church in southwest Nigeria-https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/gunmen-kill-worshippers-during-church-service-nigeria-media-2022-06-05/
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4. Cleansing Crisis Is Not Due to Climate Change-https://www.hudson.org/research/17908-nigeria-s-religious-cleansing-crisis-is-not-due-to-climate-change.
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5. Nigeria’s Religious-Cleansing Crisis Is Not Due to Climate Change-
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6. Nigeria’s Religious-Cleansing Crisis Is Not Due to Climate Change-https://www.hudson.org/research/17908-nigeria-s-religious-cleansing-crisis-is-not-due-to-climate-change
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7. Nigeria’s Religious-Cleansing Crisis Is Not Due to Climate Change-https://www.hudson.org/research/17908-nigeria-s-religious-cleansing-crisis-is-not-due-to-climate-change
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8. We will not allow another Rwanda genocide – U.K. House of Lords: https://dailypost.ng/2018/06/30/plateau-killings-will-not-allow-another-rwanda-genocide-uk-house-lords-vows/
9. Remarks by President Biden Before Cabinet Meeting to Mark .... https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/20/remarks-by-president-biden-before-cabinet-meeting-to-mark-six-months-in-office/
10. My Lords, I too congratulate my...: June 28, 2018: House of .... https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2018-06-28b.292.0