•It’s disservice to Nigeria to be talking about 2027 election now

The Chairman of Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN), Kaduna State, Rev. Joseph Hayab has asserted that killings, kidnapping and other crimes would persist in Nigeria until government makes a conscious effort to go after sponsors of terrorism.

In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the CAN leader stated why the people of Southern Kaduna would not vote for a party that parades the state’s former governor, Nasis El- rufai as a member.

He also spoke on other issues.

The killings in the country are still escalating. People are being killed in Borno, Benue, Plateau and other states. Why is that still so?

The inability of security agencies and government to completely stamp out these criminals has led to what we are seeing today. But whether we like it or not, there is politics in it. The politics is that those who probably are enemies of government may have instigated these criminals in order to continue to shout all over the country that there is no security, despite the fact that some levels of success have been achieved.

So, the government needs to sit up and stamp this thing out completely, not this piecemeal arrests. The government must completely stamp out any enemy of Nigeria, completely arrest and prosecute any enemy of Nigeria.

The piecemeal success is not good enough for fighting these criminals. It has to be a holistic and a total war to get them out of the scene, including their sponsors, including those who play any role in helping them to succeed in the evil attacks that they are meting out to Nigerians, because if we don’t succeed in probably arresting ISWA leaders and others; if we are really not going after everything that is associated with this, then, we’ve not done enough.

I think that is what is leading to all that we are seeing today. So, enemies politically are heating up the insecurity. The criminals also know that, when the security agents come, they will arrest two or three and they will go to sleep. That’s why they keep coming back to show that they are still around, that only few of them have been arrested.

But if the government will go out wholeheartedly to eliminate all of them, honestly, they will be on the run and they won’t even have what it takes to be tormenting citizens anymore.

Do you think the government has the political will to do so, because if it had, maybe, all these killings would have by now been a history?

Well, if the government does not have the will, then as a country and as stakeholders, we have a responsibility to force her to take action that shows she has a political will because we cannot continue to bury our loved ones. We cannot continue to live in fear in the country. We cannot continue to talk about insecurity as if we are dealing with spirits. These people who are causing us these pains are human beings, they walk on the streets. Some people know them.

And if we can arrest some of them, that means we can arrest all of them. So, the lack of political will is something that one cannot have a concrete position about.

But in case the government does not have the political will, then we have to force it on them, because if they realise that the insecurity can jeopardise their success, the insecurity can discredit their success, they will have to wake up to do what is right.

Why should the government not have the political will to deal with criminals who are tormenting the citizens? After all, the responsibility of the government constitutionally is to protect the lives and property of our citizens.

And you have enemies of the country tormenting your citizens, causing them pain, causing them grief, and making them not to trust in what you are doing, and you are still talking about political will? Unless there is something we don’t know, the government should act responsibly. They have started. They are doing well. But it is not good enough.

Before, Southern Kaduna was always in the news for killings here and there. For some time now, the people of the area seem to be sleeping with both eyes closed. What is responsible for this?

The truth is that killings in Southern Kaduna are not completely over, but success has actually been achieved, and we give credit to three things. The first is the new approach by the governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani. You must just give it to him. He is approaching it differently. Secondly, the security architecture at the moment in the country also adds to how it is working. Some people will say, no, the security architecture is not about Uba Sani, but I will say, no. If Uba Sani does not cooperate with them and they do not cooperate with him, the success we are having will not be recorded.

Why we credit Uba Sani is because of his effort to see that the people are united, and the people build confidence that when they see something, they say something. In the past, when they saw something, they were afraid to say something because the government of the day would come after them for saying something.

But Uba Sani is willing to hear something. He is promoting understanding among the people and it is making it a bit difficult for the criminals to have a field day. However, they are still around. We shouldn’t lie about it. Two days ago, there was an attack in Southern Kaduna, but they are not just having it as before. So, we are happy that there is progress made so far.

What we want to see is that the people themselves acting responsibly and helping the security agencies and helping government to ensure we stamp out this evil completely from our land. We shouldn’t go to sleep. Those things we used to do to help ourselves, we must continue to do it, even as security agencies are doing their role, the government is doing its role; we too must do our role. We shouldn’t sleep and say peace has come. Peace has not completely come. We need to continue to work until we get rid of the criminals completely in our land.

When these killings are happening, some people usually read religious or ethnic undertones, arguing that they are attempts to Islamise or Fulanise the country. What do you say to this?

I don’t want to join others in profiling a particular tribe or a particular religion. There are criminals in every tribe; there are criminals in every religion. But I also want to tell the tribal associations and tribal groups that they can save themselves from all this profiling by coming out publicly to condemn anybody of their tribe who commits evil, or anybody of their religion who commits evil. Anybody of their identity who causes pain should be denounced; call him a criminal, don’t defend him.

I had an engagement recently Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) leader, and I told him that before he blames people for calling everything Fulani, he has to be careful how he responds because if he goes to some parts where this evil is happening, and the people who come to kill, come out publicly shouting, Allah Akubar, Allah Akubar, then you can’t blame the people for calling them a particular religion.

If the people who come speak a particular dialect or language, you can’t blame the people for calling those who kill them as being of that dialect.

What the people of that tribe or that religion need to do is to show that, yes, though they speak our language, though they use our religious slogan, we do not know them, we condemn them, and we want to join forces with government to arrest and  expose them.

That is what Christians should do. That’s what Muslims should do. That’s what Fulani should do. That’s what Tiv people should do. That’s what Berom people should do. That’s what Ngas should do. That’s what Mugabal people should do.

That’s what the people of Southern Kaduna should do. That’s what the people in Katsina should do. All of us must join the same voice, and chorus condemnation for evil in our land, and this whole issue of whether some tribes are being profiled would stop.

But for Southern Kaduna people, we only cry according to what we know. If we find any Southern Kaduna person involved in killing, we will also expose him. Me, I don’t know of others because I will tell who cares to listen that nobody will cause us pain and hide under Christianity and I will cover it. I will not do that because the man who is claiming to be for us today, and causing other people pain will turn around to kill us if those people are no longer there.         

So, we should expose him before he becomes the person that will be killing our children, killing our wives, killing our parents.

So, this whole thing is because of some errors that are happening among us, and within the tribal and religious groups. That is why you hear people calling out Fulanisation and all that. Killing is everywhere in Nigeria, and nobody should lie about that. It is happening in the North, East, West, South; it is happening among Christians, among Muslims because these enemies know nobody; they are just out to destroy Nigeria. That’s why government must sit up.

I also disagree when you say the crisis is farmers-herders. There’s no farmers-herders conflict going on in the Middle Belt at the moment; the era when we used to have farmers-herders has since gone and there was a strategy or a way of resolving farmers-herders conflict.

You now have criminals who come with sophisticated weapons, they enter the town and chant their religions or some kind of slogans and go into slaughtering spree. They kill women, they kill children, they slaughter husbands, they cut the neck of people, they burn houses and burn religious places and you still call it farmers-herders conflict. Huge money has been sunk into peace building in the guise of farmers-herders, but we really never resolved the conflict because we are treating a serious matter using Panadol when it is not about Panadol. It is more than that.

The cry across the country over the hardship in the country is deafening. Some of them are saying that God has failed Nigeria. At a time like this, what should the church or religious organisations be doing?

The truth is that the pain, the hunger, the poverty that has taken over Nigeria, do not know religion, do not know tribe, do not know region. It is over everybody.

Even those who are in power, those who are in business, big business people are crying because things are not working.

We have to look back and see how we got here. When insecurity was virtually everywhere, farmers couldn’t farm. Those who farmed had their crops destroyed. We have to get ready to know that we’ll be faced with hunger; lack of food. Areas where food is being produced in this country to feed other areas have been covered with violence in the past four, five, six years.

So, you can see that we didn’t have food in 2018.We didn’t have food from 2019 to 2023. Since we didn’t have food to eat, and not to talk of saving, now we have to have a situation of hunger. Many young children couldn’t go to school because of insecurity. They have even turned to be part of the evil going on. Have you heard of informants in most of these kidnappings going on? It is because many people saw those who kidnapped making huge money and nobody arrested them, and unfortunately, they were tempted to think that it’s also a good business. So, they give information or they will also kidnap. That’s why you have a situation where family members are kidnapping family members to get money.

Evil has taken over our country in a terrible way. It didn’t just happen yesterday. It’s been there for some years and it has now grown wing and is flying everywhere in the country.

That’s why collectively as a country, we must come back to do what is right. One, how are we bringing up our children? What kind of training do our people who go to school receive? Is it training to be rich or training to make money or training to be responsible, godly and honest people?

In this country, everybody is scrambling for every opportunity to steal, every opportunity to amass wealth. I was reading somewhere a few days ago and someone was saying that, look, even our professors are protesting, saying, is this the kind of appreciation they would receive for all their sacrifices? And someone quickly just reminded them that when we needed good governance in Nigeria, it is the same professors who betrayed us, and were given money, given offices, announcing elections to the highest bidder.

They collected the money, they went and ate it, but unfortunately for them, probably after two or three years, the money is over, and now they are back to suffer like us, they are back to be in poverty like us.

So, you can see from the farm, we have issues, in school, we have issues, and in the family, we also have issues. We come to religious places. What kind of religious teaching are we teaching in Nigeria? We teach people that when they know God, then there will be no problem, which is not true. We teach people that the moment they know God, they will become rich; prosperity everywhere. We are not teaching people discipline.

We are not teaching people hard work. We are not teaching people love. We are not teaching people forgiveness. We are not teaching people supporting one another. People are just becoming selfish, hiding under religion.

I think every sector of Nigeria has a role to play if we want to solve this problem.

So, when people come to church, they do not come to receive God’s word, but only come to be blessed, even when they are doing evil. This is what you get as a result of that.

My call is to religious leaders is to be honest to yourself; teach what is contained in your holy book. If you are a Christian, what does the Bible teach about holiness, love, hard work, honesty. Can people trust you with their goods? 

People are growing, graduating into becoming the biggest criminals. Those who stole our money in 1999 seemed not to know how to steal our money in 2025, because those who are stealing now know how to steal it better.

Those ones were stealing in one hundred thousands, the ones that followed them were stealing in some millions, and the ones now are stealing in billions and trillions. What kind of life is this? Our budget is being padded.

How can we run a country where everybody is just looking for an opportunity to cheat the nation, to cheat the people? And you are thinking that you can’t reap what you do not sow, it is what you sow that you reap. We’ve not been sowing good things in this country. We are not sowing good relationships. We are not sowing good attitudes. We are not sowing good understanding. That’s why we are reaping what we are reaping.

So, we have to, as a nation, collectively come back to correct and start sowing what is good. I have a responsibility as a father to teach my child to be honest, to be transparent, and to be hard working. You have a responsibility to teach your children, to bring up your family in such a godly way, whether you are a Muslim, a Christian.

Look, let me even put it this way. Sometimes, when we claim about religion, have we seen that idol worshippers seem to have discipline even more than those that claim the foreign religions that we’re beating our chest are the religions of God? An idol worshipper would not go and cheat his neighbour, steal the things of his neighbour. He doesn’t want that because he knows there are some deities that would deal with him. But we, who go to church and mosque, still do this evil and run into the church or mosque and pray and fast and do all night and think God will answer. God is not stupid.

Are you concerned over the debt burden of the country? The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen, recently cried out over the debt profile of the nation. What is your take on this?

I have been following the stories surrounding the speech of Tajudeen. My understanding is that Tajudeen was speaking about loans that state governments are collecting and then loans that the national government is also collecting. So, it’s not just one side of the loan, it’s the holistic loan that is coming into the country, which is getting out of hand.

Have you been to many of the states? What you see every one of them doing is building of flyovers. Why do we need to collect loans to build flyover when the people are not even educated, they don’t have good cars. The people cannot have good food. The people have no good medical services. We are seeking money to prioritize on the wrong thing.

I hail from Kaduna. T e last government went out and sought for loan in over $300 million at that time, which was in billions for what he called urban renewal. But, instead of renewal of our urban, it further just divided us. He prioritised things wrongly; He placed them in places he wanted to and other places he didn’t. So, he further even created frictions among the people instead of solving the people’s problem.

In some areas, he started the job, but he didn’t do it. But they’ve already collected all the money and the job is not yet done.

These are the issues that I think the speaker is talking about. Our local government chairmen, governors in the state, the federal government, when you take a loan in our name, are you thinking about the future? Are you thinking about the next generation? Why do you want to put a burden on them that they will come and be paying loans without doing anything?

All people responsible for collecting loan must know that this loan will not serve their purpose. We can prioritise what we want to do for our people, change the lifestyle of our people, than collecting loan and put a heavy burden on them, and most of this money that we collect as loan, we end up stealing them. If what he said is exactly what is being interpreted, you cannot exonerate the National Assembly from this point. If the federal government or the state governors are guilty, the lawmakers are complicit.

Tinubu will not just go and obtain a loan without the approval of the National Assembly or the governor of the state will not just go and collect a loan without the approval of the state House of Assembly. If such happens, let the state House of Assembly cry out and tell Nigerians that their hands are not on this loan; that the governor collected the loan without their approval, then we will know who owns the state, whether the governor or we the people. All of them keep quiet until the damage has been done, evil has befallen us and we cry out when it is too late and that’s where there’s the problem. Sometimes, I don’t want this political thing that we are talking about because when you dig deep into some of these conversations, you see it may be for political reason and I think it is too bad if we do that. Leaders complement each other, leaders work together for the good of the entire nation.

Former Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai and the Middle Belt Forum were in altercations last week over the governor’s recent interview, when he tried to undermine the Southern Kaduna, both in population and what he has done for them. What do you say to this?

The outburst and the type of utterances that El-rufai made concerning South Kaduna are unfortunate. God has a way of catching people. God has a way of exposing people. God has a way of helping people to know the truth about people that they think love them.

To me, El-rufai is like Nebuchadnezzar, who was so fond and proud of himself and arrogant and ended up destroying himself by himself. So you can see that’s the way I view El-rufai.

Secondly, El-rufai in that particular media engagement exposed something that many Nigerians have not thought of. He said that Southern Kaduna is not even up to 25 per cent.

I remember very well that El- rufai in 2016 said Southern Kaduna was 30 percent, and he was saying that 30 percent at that time to justify his agenda of introducing Muslim-Muslim ticket. Now, almost nine years or ten years after, he’s saying that they are not even up to 25 per cent, which simply means El-rufai has admitted that when at 2016, they were 30 per cent when he worked to ensure they were killed. Now, they’ve killed them to the extent that they are no more up to 25 per cent. So, if you put the number for all the killings now, you will see why the figure has dropped from the first 30 per cent he said to 25 per cent. It is because he knows that he killed the other five or six per cent. That is the problem we have in a country like this, where someone would come up publicly and admit that.

His claim of 30 per cent or 25 per cent is not from any data. You can check from any National Population Commission (NPC) data.  Just the senatorial district is more than 35 per cent. When you are talking of Southern Kaduna, there are four other local governments that are not in the senatorial district – Yer, Chukken, Keturu. That means Southern Kaduna is over 50 per cent of the population of Kaduna State.

After all, they divide Kaduna by the River Kaduna, the other side is Northern Kaduna, while this side is Southern Kaduna. We don’t understand, but since he is telling us that we are not even up to 20 per cent, he is indirectly admitting that the other per cent, he killed them, wasted them, and he can’t count them again. That’s what I want to hold El-rufai for, for knowing how our people were killed to even be able to in nine years tell us that we were 30 per cent in 2016 and now he said that we are not even up to 25 per cent.

We can tell whoever cares to listen to look at the data. The argument has always been that a Southern Kaduna man has one wife, and our population is not growing rapidly. But I’ve argued that severally that if you go to my village, even one of my cousins who I used his name in responding to some of this argument, called me that his son gave birth. That means I’m a grandfather now.

My younger brother has more than two wives and he has almost 18 children, and someone is just assuming that because I’m a pastor and I have four children, then every man there has one wife and maybe four children. 

Why should we even in this age be thinking of the number of people? After all, in a civilized community, people are beginning to look at birth control and something better for the future? We should have children that we can train, we should have children that we can promote, but in the North because people change figures of census, change figures of election and sometimes come up with this kind of argument so that they will make others look as if they don’t belong.

We are in good population, and we are not afraid of anybody, and that’s why we want to appeal to Nigerian government that in future head count, we must include the religious question, the language question. Someone shouldn’t tell me that I’m Hausa or I’m just a northerner, no; I’m Ham by tribe, and I’m a Christian. We should be able to know. Do you know that there are villages in Kano State that have no one single mosque, and many Nigerians don’t know that? But we sit down here and tell some of these stories that are quite ridiculous. We know, but politically they are suppressed and are not allowed to talk. Because they have been subjugated does not mean that they don’t exist; they are Nigerians.

El-rufai’s claim of our percentage; his claim that he has no regret for what he did to us further prove how much he hates the people, how much he disliked the people because as I’ve already told you in this interview, that when he collected huge money as loan for urban renewal, go to Kafanchan and see whether there was any construction. What he constructed was exclusively in a narrowed community that is Muslim and the larger part of Kafanchan that is exclusively Christians, he never constructed anything. That’s life. We realise that people like them exist, we thought that by education, he will be exposed to carry everybody along, to be a detribalised person, but unfortunately, his education is only to himself to further and even subjugate people.

What are the factors that will determine the 2027 election?

The 2027 election is not here now. To me, it’s a disservice to the country for me to be talking about the 2027 election. I need to first, add my voice to the voices that are calling on government to ensure that insecurity is addressed.

I need to ensure that I add my voice to the voices that are calling on government to address the issue of poverty and hunger that is eating the land and other vices that are taking over most of our communities. When we keep jumping into the issue of politics too early, we have either the ruling party or those in power who divert attention from giving services to the people into talking politics.

We will talk politics. By the time we reach there, we will cross. One thing I can say, like I’ve heard many of my people said it, is that we will not vote for a party that does not care about our welfare; that does not care about the peace of our community. We will not vote for a party that is trying to hide under either region or religion because we are looking for service.

Service delivery is what Nigerians want, no longer region or religion. Those who promoted religion candidates are crying more than us.  So, we don’t want make such a mistake.