Christian genocide in Nigeria is real

OPINION:

Last week, former Nigerian Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode unleashed an online tirade mocking Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, for calling on lawmakers and the Trump administration to take action to stop the genocidal butchery of Christians in Nigeria. In his post, Mr. Fani-Kayode defended Nigeria’s Muslim president and his government and claimed that there is no Christian genocide. He said such talk is merely a foreign conspiracy aimed at dividing his country.

Now, it should be noted that Mr. Cruz is not the only one sounding the alarm about what’s happening in Nigeria. Multiple news outlets, including the Catholic Register, Fox News, the Christian Broadcasting Network and the Sahara Reporter have all reported the same. Even Bill Maher, who is of a different political and religious stripe than Mr. Cruz, addressed this issue on one of his recent shows.

“The fact that this issue has not gotten on people’s radar [is] pretty amazing,” Mr. Maher said on his show, “Real Time,” late last month. “They are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. … This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?”

So, what’s the truth? What is really happening in Nigeria? Are its Christians explicitly being targeted for extermination or not?

Judd Saul, the founder and director of Equipping the Persecuted (equippingthepersecuted.org), an organization that provides humanitarian relief exclusively to Nigeria, was recently asked to respond to Mr. Fani-Kayode’s claims. Here is, in part, what he said:

“As someone who has spent years working on the ground in Nigeria — helping widows, orphans and pastors who have survived jihadist violence — I can tell you plainly: Femi Fani-Kayode is wrong.”

Mr. Saul went on to state, “According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), more than 100,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria in the past twenty years. Open Doors International corroborates these statistics. Currently, over 3.5 million Christians have been displaced, with homes torched and churches reduced to rubble.

“These are not isolated clashes. They are systematic, religiously motivated attacks by extremist groups such as Boko Haram, [Islamic State West Africa Province] and the Fulani militants. In heavily Christian areas like the Benue Plateau and Southern Kaduna, villages are surrounded at night, men are executed, women are raped, children are kidnapped and enslaved and entire communities are erased.”

Mr. Saul said he has witnessed this carnage personally. “I’ve seen people send desperate messages to the Nigerian military, pleading for protection, only for the government to order troops to stand down. The massacre then happens before soldiers arrive. That is not a coincidence. It is genocide by policy.

“At Equipping the Persecuted, our Nigerian staff regularly arrive after these attacks. I have stood in the remains of burned churches and spoken to mothers who buried their children just hours before. One woman told me, ‘They came shouting “Allahu akbar.” They burned our church while we hid. My husband did not make it out.’ This is not random violence. This is targeted slaughter.”

Mr. Saul made it clear that his is not an isolated opinion but rather corroborated fact. He pointed out that the Global Terrorism Index lists the Fulani tribe among the world’s deadliest terrorist groups and that it was responsible for more civilian deaths in 2023 than the Islamic State group. “Their jihadist intent,” he said, “is domination. Their goal is to drive whole regions of people to flee or die. That is, by definition, genocide.”

Mr. Saul summarized his concerns: “The reality is that despite countless promises from the Nigerian government, hundreds of thousands of displaced Christians continue to live in squalid camps, traumatized and forgotten. Their homes are gone, their churches are gone, and for many of them, their children are dead. Tell them there is no genocide, and they will show you the graves.”

He pointed out that in all his efforts to help the Nigerian people he has “not seen one meaningful prosecution for the mass killings of these Christians. At some point, the government’s inaction becomes complicity.”

Mr. Saul concluded, “As a Christian, as an American and as someone who has risked his life alongside Nigerian believers, I refuse to let this genocide be ignored or denied. The victims are real. Their blood cries out from the ground. When the world stays silent, evil grows. While some may choose to whitewash the Nigerian government’s image, I choose to defend the lives of the Nigerian people.”

When people as diverse as Mr. Cruz, Mr. Maher and Mr. Saul are all sounding the same alarm, we might want to wake up and listen. The genocide in Nigeria is real. Like the Polish and German Jews of the 1930s, these African Christians don’t need more of the world’s denial; they need the world’s help.

• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery). He can be reached at epiper@dreverettpiper.com.