SW News: Nigerian politicians have been warned by Cardinal John Onaiyekan to desist from attempting to rig the outcome of the general elections that will take place next month.
In a report on Sunday, the Cardinal said the polls set for February 25 would not be business as usual because Nigerians have high expectations.
During Holy Mass commemorating his 40 years as a bishop, Cardinal Onaiyekan said, "All those who are going to play games and scheme to frustrate the desire of the people's decision about the results of the elections, should stop from such."
The Cardinal continued to express concern that any electoral fraud could endanger the stability of the most populous country in Africa.
According to the World Watch List, 2022, report of Open Doors, which describes the condition of religious freedom of Christians in Nigeria, the state is really grim. Christians are persecuted by a suffocating mix of Islamic authoritarianism, ethno-religious animosity, totalitarian paranoia, and organized crime and corruption.
Nigeria obtained independence from Britain in 1960, but it wasn't until 1999 that the country underwent a democratic transition after 16 years of military dictatorship.
In 2015, Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was elected president. Since then, attacks against Christians have escalated in severity. During electoral violence and arbitrary election regulations enacted by the Electoral Commission in support of President Buhari, he was controversially re-elected in February 2019. Nigeria has been battling Islamic extremists in the north and insurgents in some regions of the Niger Delta for the past few years. Buhari asserts that Boko Haram has been crushed militarily, while the group and its offshoot  Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) continue to target Christians.
Boko Haram, ISWAP, Fulani militants, and armed bandits are responsible for the majority of violence against civilians, notably Christians, in the north (including the Middle Belt).
Such violence frequently results in the death of people, physical harm, rape, and other types of sexual harassment, as well as the devastation of farmlands and loss of property. The number of kidnappings for ransom has significantly increased in recent years.
Christians are losing their land and means of subsistence as a result of the violence. Many people are either refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs). Particularly in the Sharia governments in northern Nigeria, Christians experience discrimination and exclusion as second-class citizens. Christians with Muslim backgrounds frequently experience physical assault, rejection from their own families, and pressure to renounce their faith.
The sense of insecurity has escalated in recent years as a result of the rising violence that has spread into southern states.
The most significant government positions are progressively being held by Muslims under President Muhammadu Buhari, which makes it more difficult for Christians who have experienced human rights breaches to speak up.
Climate change and environmental degradation, which are driving Fulani herders and their livestock southward and straining herd-farmer interactions, provide the backdrop to religiously driven violence. Under President Buhari, the security forces, who are under federal control, frequently flee attacked Christian areas.