Tomorrow, as the world remembers the victims of one of the biggest attempts in history to delete a race from the face of the planet, there is a need for us in Nigeria to reflect on our own domestic history and current conditions that have parallels with the Holocaust.

On January 27, 1945, the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops. But it was not until November 2005, that the United Nations General Assembly officially proclaimed every January 27 as International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

Every year, around this period, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO, while paying tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, also reaffirms its commitment to combat antisemitism, racism, and other forms of intolerance that usually lead to group-targeted violence.

UNESCO harps on the need to educate people, especially the youths, about “the causes, consequences and dynamics of such crimes, so as to strengthen the resilience of young people against ideologies of hatred.”

Regrettably, despite these efforts, genocide and similar atrocities have continued to occur across several regions of the world. The remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust tomorrow, therefore, is more relevant at a time like this when the world is witnessing a global rise of antisemitism and hate speech.

Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi-German Political Party, had falsely accused Jews of being responsible for Germany’s defeat in World War I. Hitler convinced the German people that Germany was a master race whose greatness would be restored by the elimination of Jews and other inferior races as well as political opponents of Nazism and other undesirable elements from society.

Consequently, throughout Western Europe occupied by Nazi-Germany, Jews were generally rounded up from their homes into transit camps where they awaited deportation to killing centres. Before Adolf Hitler and his deputy in terror, Heinrich Himmler, committed suicide on April 30, 1945, and May 23, 1945 respectively, they had exterminated at least six million European Jews and five million prisoners of war.

There are quite a number of lessons in the Holocaust for Nigerian politicians. First, leaders who make violence, especially group-targeted violence their official policy, always fail woefully and often die miserably. Hitler, his deputy and fellow Nazi war criminals, who, up to 2021, were hunted across the world, are good examples.

The second lesson is that no human being, no matter how powerful, can completely delete any race, ethnic group or members of any religious group from the land as some Nigerian politicians are aspiring to do across the country, especially in the Middle Belt. Rather, such persecutions and pogroms further strengthen the survivors, both physically and intellectually. Today, the state of Israel is one of the most powerful nations in the world.

By conceiving and directing the implementation of extermination as the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”, Hitler and Himmler thought they had found the best solution to their problems. But today, with the benefit of hindsight, we know that the only solution to the problem of the world is justice – live and let live.

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