***Mass Graves Everywhere’ Plateau Bishop Cries Out
***Want international community to act immediately
***Muslim Cleric: ‘Kidnappers Strike as Checkpoints Vanish’
A one-day peace summit in Abuja on Friday became a searing rebuke of Nigeria’s political leadership, as Senator Shehu Sani and prominent Muslim and Christian clerics warned that the nation is bleeding, vulnerable, and locked in a relentless cycle of killings and kidnappings.
Sani, the convener of the summit, launched into a fierce takedown of the ruling elite, accusing them of neglecting citizens, stifling the truth, and running a military “flush with hotels and event centres but starved of weapons.”
“Each year defence takes the highest budget, yet soldiers have no equipment. What exactly are we funding?” he asked, blasting a 15-year stretch of unending abductions—from Chibok to Greenfield to the latest kidnapping of more than 100 children in Niger State.
He said clerics are only summoned as “fire brigades” during crises, insisting Nigeria’s salvation must come from truth-telling, not political flattery.
“If your Christian brother is not your enemy, and your Imam brother is not your enemy, then who is the enemy? Those in government who refuse to act,” he declared.
A powerful appeal rang out at the joint Christian–Muslim conference as Archbishop Dr. James F. Malgit delivered an emotional call for swift international intervention to halt the escalating humanitarian crisis in Plateau State.
Referencing points raised earlier by Senator Shehu Sanni, the Archbishop said:
“You have spoken what some of us would have spoken, but because the will and the power isn’t there for us to speak.”
He described the desperate reality in Bokkos Local Government, Plateau State, where entire communities have been uprooted:
“Locals have been chased out from their ancestral land. They can no longer go back. They don’t even have what it takes to claim their homes.”
According to him, churches have been razed, homes abandoned, and families left shattered.
“They have turned our women to widows, our children to cowards,” he lamented.
Calling for unity between Christians and Muslims, he noted that Nigeria’s religious diversity is intentional:
“If God wanted Nigeria to be a Muslim nation, He could do that. If He wanted it Christian, He could. But He didn’t — so we can display His unity.”
But his central message was a plea for urgent global help.
“If it is bigger than the government, the international community must come to our aid.”
He warned that the situation has become unbearable:
“Enough of the cry, enough of the agony. Parents can no longer send their children to school freely. If they are in boarding school, you cannot sleep because you are thinking: will my child see the next day?”
The Archbishop stressed that northern communities are suffering the most and can no longer wait for delayed responses:
“Whatever will delay this intervention, we don’t want it. We want a speedy intervention.”
He ended with a call for unity and resilience:
“United we stand, divided we fall. May unity continue to bind us together.”
Chief Imam of Kaduna Polytechnic, Malam Abubakar Sede, echoed the urgency, questioning the sincerity of those in power.
“Kidnappers attack, and suddenly every security checkpoint disappears—then reappears after the damage is done,” he said, describing the pattern as deliberate sabotage or sheer incompetence.
He accused political leaders of governing without fear of God, reminding them that power is temporary:
“There was a time they were not in power. There will be a time they will no longer be in power. Then they will answer before God.”
Rejecting the traditional practice of issuing a closing document, Sani said Nigerians do not need another paper; they need action.
“The communiqué is the reality we face — bodies in the streets, children in captivity, and leaders hiding from the truth.”
He urged clerics to speak to the nation, not to him:
“One day, if we keep ignoring our own clerics, we will be forced to listen to foreign leaders.”
