As we mark the second anniversary of the Pentecost Sunday massacre in Ondo State, Nigeria, the UK government needs to be doing more to advance FoRB through its foreign policy commitments.
As Margaret is invited to speak, the room falls silent. We are in Parliament, off the side of Westminster Hall. It is the day of the Autumn budget and the news is flooded with discussion on whether a tax cut of 1% will be announced, how it will happen, and who it will benefit. Experts are pontificating on inflation and Conservative Party posing ahead of the 2024 general election. Seats to watch PMQs and the Chancellor’s statement are fully booked. The overflow queue stretches past the lobby and into St Stephen’s Chapel. There is no real possibility of those at the end of the queue getting in before the Chancellor is back at No. 11; but there is a small glimmer of hope, and so they stay.
But Margaret is not standing in the queue. In fact, she couldn’t if she’d wanted to. Margaret lost her legs in the massacre at St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria, on 5 June 2022 in the first ever terror attack on a church in the south of the country. This is her first time in the UK. She is supported by her husband Dominic to give a face to this year’s Red Wednesday, an event coordinated by Aid to the Church in Need aimed at raising awareness of Christian persecution.
She speaks softly. She sincerely thanks everyone for coming, as though the parliamentarians strolling in from their offices are the ones making the sacrifice. She tells us that our presence there, to show solidarity, ‘makes persecuted Christians strong’. She cannot say much more.
Dominic, her husband, does not hesitate to pick up where she leaves off. He takes us back to Pentecost Sunday in 2022, when he and Margaret and their children joined their Catholic community for one of the most important celebrations in the Christian calendar. The building was packed out. Dominic describes the great rejoicing that morning at the service as they celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the warmth with which the priest finished with the liturgical words ‘go in peace’. And then the gunshots.
At first, Dominic recalls, everyone thought it was celebratory: ‘We paid no attention. But before we knew it, the security guards by the doors at the back shouted for us to take cover.’
Those who did not fall to the ground were cut down instantly. The gunmen had surrounded the church and opened fire through the windows before coming around to the door.
What Dominic tells us next makes me feel sick. Once inside, he says, the assailants realised they had a problem – guns weren’t fast enough. So they switched to dynamite. At the sound of the shots, many had fled to hide behind the altar, running into the sanctuary to find safety. The gunmen threw multiple sticks in after them. They left the scene shortly after.
As victims began to be discovered, Dominic frantically searched for his wife. Lying by the altar, having lost her legs in the blast, she was almost unrecognisable to Dominic. Someone called for him to come outside, saying they had found his mother. Fearing the worst, and still struggling to process what he was seeing in front of him, Dominic says, ‘Like our Lord, I wept bitterly.’
He continued the search for his children among the bodies scattered around the church. ‘Blood was flowing from the altar,’ he remembers, ‘but this time, it was not the blood of our Lord, but of our brothers and sisters.’
As Dominic finishes his harrowing account, the room is stunned – even more so when he tells us that despite there being many witnesses on the day, the gunmen are still free. ‘These things were committed in broad daylight; how is it that no one has been brought to justice?’ he asks.
However, he does not call for revenge to be taken or for a proportionate response. He does not call for retribution or pain to be exacted on the criminals. His plea? That they repent, and that justice be done.
Frustratingly, successive Nigerian administrations have either failed or been reluctant to address the violence by terrorist factions decisively. Gains made towards the end of the Jonathan presidency, perhaps the only time the extremists were engaged effectively, disappeared under the Buhari administration, when attacks targeting communities resumed.
So Dominic, standing in a room filled with UK legislators, pleads with MPs to pressure the Nigerian government to arraign the perpetrators. I cannot help but feel that this is not a big ask, but the chances of it happening are slim; successive UK administrations have been reluctant to call out religion-related violence or pressure Nigeria to address it.
Last year the Most Rev Dr Jude Arogundade, the Catholic Bishop of Ondo Diocese, renewed his appeal for justice. Off the back of his call, the Catholic NGO Aid to the Church in Need started a petition to the UK government which was presented to the Prime Minister by his Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, Fiona Bruce MP. Yet despite this, no action has been taken by the government except to issue a condemnation of the attack in response to Bruce’s Urgent Question in Parliament on the day after it took place.
Later on that Red Wednesday, once the event was done, Bruce highlighted the six mentions of FoRB in the government’s international development white paper released the day before. However, she also pointed out that UK Aid cannot provide assistance for FoRB issues. Despite the UK’s pledge to uphold human rights abroad, so far on this case it has yet to offer sustained support.
In the room, Dominic finishes his speech lamenting the fact that his community no longer feels safe going to church. That he must reassure his daughter on a Sunday morning that the gunmen will not be coming back that day. Families there could be forgiven for never returning to that building again. But as they try and come to terms with what has happened in their community, there is no comfort anywhere else. Dominic quotes from the gospel of John: ‘Where else shall we go? [It is God who has] the words of eternal life.’
We drink more tea, we chat, we network. MPs take photos with Dominic and Margaret. And then the event finishes. MPs go to the next meeting of the day – today, that involves listening to the Chancellor of the Exchequer outline the Autumn budget. As the rest of us file out of the room, it dawns on me that the world outside has gone about its business as usual.
But that is not a luxury Dominic and Margaret have. Their first ever visit to the UK has been spent raising awareness of an atrocity that changed their lives forever. No doubt they will go on to do other engagements today before flying home. I wonder what this morning must have looked like to them as they watched the catastrophic events of Pentecost Sunday 2022, a tragic life-altering chasm in their lives, being condensed down into a two-hour drop-in event for our country’s legislators. Around two dozen had attended. The remaining 620 had other things to do.
As we mark the second anniversary of these attacks, are we content with this response? Are we not right to expect more from our government, and should we not persist in requesting it does far more?
Given all Dominic and Margaret have been through, I think it’s the least we can do.
By CSW’s Advocacy Intern Jonathan Downing