THE ALLEGED CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE IN NIGERIA - TRUE OR FALSE....

The answer to this question is difficult and complex... Let me ask another series of questions: Are Christians being killed in large numbers in some parts of Nigeria? The answer to this question is a resounding YES! Has this been going on for decades? The answer is YES again! Since the 1990s. Where have these killings mostly occurred? It has been in the Northern part of Nigeria. Other questions are: In the last 15 years of escalated insecurity in Nigeria, have more Muslims been killed than Christians? The answer is YES! Where have the killings mostly occurred? In the North-Eastern corridor of Nigeria....Do we have uncurtailed killings across the length and breadth of the nation? Yes, we have. Since Buhari's government dismissed the claim that Fulani herdsmen were killing people and kidnapping them for ransom in 2019.... Nigerians of all colors and hues (Christians, Muslims, traditional worshippers, farmers, artisans, politicians, teachers, children, etc..) have been terrorized by bandits, Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram terrorists, and their affiliates in the last 15 years... and successive governments have failed to stamp them out... some are even negotiating with them in daylight, all because of corruption within our government, especially among the top military officials.


Those who are not Nigerian need to be educated about the country’s demographic complexity and religious divide. Nigeria is almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims. Northerners are predominantly Muslims, Easterners are predominantly Christians, and people from the Southwest, where I am from, are half Christians and half Muslims. I have many cousins on my father's side who are Muslims. My grandmother was a Muslim before she converted to Christianity after marrying my grandfather. Among Muslims in Nigeria, those from the Northern part believe that Southern Muslims are too liberal, so they do not consider them to be true Muslims. Therefore, whenever there is a religious crisis, especially in Northern Nigeria, both Christians (of any ethnic extraction) and Southern Muslims are killed.

In October 1991, a German Evangelist called Reinhard Bonnke planned a Christian Crusade in Kano, which had to be aborted because of religious violence. Indigenous Kanoians were shocked when they saw the number of Christians who came out for the pre-Crusade rally. Many Christian families were slaughtered in the process. Some were killed by neighbors with whom they had lived for decades. Some were thrown into a deep well, and some were macheted to death. I heard a story from my friend about a family of 40 pushed into a single well by their neighbors. This was the genesis of the sectarian religious crisis in Northern Nigeria, which still exists today. If you go into news archives, you read about many incidents of Christians being killed by Muslims for practicing their faith in Northern Nigeria... Successive Nigerian governments have failed to stop these killings. Often, no one is prosecuted even when there is evidence against the perpetrators. In some of these incidents, Muslims were killed in reprisal attacks, or Muslims of Southern descent were slaughtered as well. In fact, the Kano riot that killed many Christians became an ethnic cleansing attack when indigenous Kano residents started attacking just about anyone from the South. We all still remember the Owo Ondo Church killing in June 2022... Many Christians were massacred by terrorists, Jihadists, and Fulani herdsmen in broad daylight.

Today in 2025, the insecurity and rampant killings of Nigerians are multifaceted... Not only Christians are being killed. Many Muslims have also been killed. Today, more Muslims have been killed than Christians (this does not discount the fact that there has been religious bigotry and killings of Christians en masse in Nigeria in the last 40+ years)... The reason for this current record is that most of the recent killings are perpetrated by groups with an extreme Islamic agenda and for economic gain.

Boko Haram (Western Education is Haram) used to be a small group of Islamists. It was founded by a conservative muslim man named Muhamed Yusuf. They were thrust into national discuss because of two factors. The destabilization of the Northern and Sahel regions in Nigeria was caused by the Obama Administration’s failed strategy that led to the Arab Spring, which started in Tunisia in North Africa. The killing of Gaddafi led to arms proliferation across the Northern and Sahel region of Africa... At the same time, some nefarious politicians in Northern Nigeria funded this small group of Islamists in preparation for unleashing mayhem in Nigeria, should former military junta, Gen. Buhari lost the 2015 election. Weapons were freely available from the north and later from weapon merchants from South Africa and Russia. Some disgruntled politicians provided funds. The failure of the Arab Spring led to the creation of ISIS, and Boko Haram became an affiliate of both ISIS and Al Qaeda. When Buhari won the election, Boko Haram was already empowered, and they found a new cause in forming a Caliphate in Nigeria, their original intention when they were small and had not been funded. Boko Haram unleashed unprecedented chaos towards the end of President Jonathan’s tenure, with the Chibok girls kidnapping and their terror activities continued into Buhari’s tenure. They continue to receive inspiration from ISIS terror acts in the Middle East and are becoming more powerful. Boko Haram broke into two factions at some point. The original ISIS was under the leadership of Shekau, who was killed in 2021. This group broke into two, JAS and ISWAP. Both operate in a similar manner. These two groups have attacked both Christians and Muslims in Northeastern Nigeria over the last 15 years. They are the most brutal terrorist organization in the world, with per-capita killings exceeding that of Al Qaeda or ISIS; that is, they have killed more people per member than any other terrorist organization.
The rise in banditry coincided with that of Boko Haram. Bandits are mostly Fulani herdsmen who kill Nigerians. They learned their trade from the style of Boko Haram, where they take people for money. They grew astronomically after President Buhari’s second term as a civilian president. During his first term, he dismissed any allegation against Fulani herdsmen as false… President Buhari was a Fulani man, and his sentiment and attachment to his kinsmen made him close a blind eye to their atrocities, so much so that they grew wings too long for anyone to cut. With the blind eye of the Nigerian president, Fulani herdsmen started sending messages to their families across the West African subregion that there was business in Nigeria for quick and easy money, which was kidnapping.
Before 2019, the Southwestern and Eastern parts of Nigeria were exempt from bandit kidnappings. By 2020, nowhere in Nigeria was safe again from the activities of marauding Fulani herdsmen. They were kidnapping just about anybody in Kebbi, Sokoto, Osogbo, Ibadan, Ayetoro, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa; everywhere was not safe. This was what birth Amotekun (local militia group) in the Southwestern part of Nigeria.
Before the onset of banditry, there were issues with Fulani herdsmen across the country. Fulani nomadic herdsmen claim a right to take their cows for grazing about just anywhere, including corn and groundnut fields of innocent farmers. If farmers confront them, they often unleash mayhem. These attacks morphed into banditry and land grabbing during Buhari’s presidency. When I write that Buhari is the worst president Nigeria has had in modern Nigerian history, this is one of the reasons. President Buhari refused to lead Nigeria to stamp out insecurity because he was complicit in many ways as to how we got to this level – whether in the case of Boko Haram or Fulani bandits and criminals. Buhari failed Nigeria in many ways… he was elected by the people in Nigeria because of his military record, that he would help in stamping out insecurity. Unfortunately, he escalated it with his inaction because of ethnic sentiment. It is the same Fulani issue that has created many clashes between communities in Benue State (the Eastern Middle Belt of Nigeria) and Fulani herdsmen. Many villages have been wiped out by these people. If you consider the fact that the Fulani are predominantly Muslims and the local communities in Benue are Christians, you can conclude that this is a religious issue, whereas it is not. It is a resource (land access and grabbing) issue.
The problem is similar in Jos, a major city in the Middlebelt of Nigeria, where sectarian crises have been ongoing for decades. The fight between Hausa/Fulani settlers, who are mostly Muslims, and the indigenous people of Jos-Plateau, who are mostly Christians, where the latter group wants to displace the locals from their land. You could erroneously conclude that this is a religious issue. The Southern Kaduna crisis is fueled by religious bigotry, but you see a bit of ethnic cleansing there as well.

The initial question I started with was whether there is genocide in Nigeria. Yes, there is genocide in Nigeria by the UN definition – GENOCIDE is a DELIBERATE extermination of a people because of their nationality, ethnicity, racial composition, or religion. Who is this genocide against? Mostly all Nigerians. There is genocide against Christians in some regions, but there is genocide against Nigerians by Jihadists, Fulani Herdsmen, and Bandits, and Nigerian government needs to put an end to this once and for all. Otherwise, King Trump will do it for them in the name of protecting Christians.
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The failure of successive governments in Nigeria to exterminate insecurity is linked mostly to corruption, the cankerworm killing Nigeria. Every year, the Federal government of Nigeria appropriates billions of naira to fight insurgency, and this money is often stolen, and then we wait for another appropriation. Initially, the failure during President Jonathan’s tenure was because of Obama’s administration’s failure to help Nigeria by supplying weapons needed to fight insurgency. Obama refused and claimed that our military are “animals” who commit war crimes. One day, I will write an epistle about the cowardice of Obama and the bastardly acts against Africa. His failure with the Arab Spring that destabilized Africa, his ignoring Nigeria for eight years while in office–the most populous country in Africa on the grounds of the corruption of our leaders–while he embraced Islamic countries in the Middle East and their dictator leaders who have worse or similar human rights records as Nigeria is mind-boggling.
There is enormous economic gain for Nigeria if we can address insecurity. We lose billions (if not trillions) of naira every year because of insecurity in Nigeria. Many Nigerians will not return home because of insecurity; our tourism sector will continue to suffer unprecedented losses because of insecurity; and there are international hosting rights we will never get because of insecurity. If bandits can attack Abuja airport and military academy in Kaduna in daylight, who is safe? Enough! Nigeria, stamp out insecurity, or Mr. Trump will do it for you. This is for your own good.

By Akinbode A Adedeji

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