The BBC has raised serious doubts over data being used to push the global narrative that Christians are facing genocide in Nigeria, revealing that many of the statistics cited by Western politicians and campaigners are unverifiable and methodologically weak.
The renewed focus followed Vice President, Kashim Shettima’s speech at the recent United Nations General Assembly, where he condemned violence in Gaza and called for a two-state solution.
Shortly after, U.S. talk-show host Bill Maher described events in Nigeria as a “genocide.”
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz amplified the claim, accusing Nigerian authorities of enabling the “massacre” of Christians.
Cruz wrote on 𝕏, “50,000 Christians have been killed since 2009, 2000 schools and 18,000 churches destroyed… The Nigerian government has looked the other way.”
Following the uproar, U.S. President Donald Trump redesignated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern, citing an Open Doors report that claimed 3,100 Christians were killed between October 2023 and October 2024.
The BBC investigation found that the statistics driving the genocide narrative were “difficult to verify” and often traced back to the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (InterSociety), a Nigerian NGO whose data collection methods the BBC described as “opaque.”
InterSociety admitted it often merges “summary statistics” from previous reports with fresh estimates, a practice the BBC said makes independent verification nearly impossible.
While Trump cited 3,100 Christian deaths from the Open Doors report, the same publication recorded 2,320 Muslims killed within the same period.
Open Doors senior research fellow, Frans Veerman, told the BBC, “Christians are still targeted, but increasingly some Muslims are targeted by Fulani militants.”
The organisation also listed “Fulani Terror Groups” among major perpetrators, responsible for nearly one-third of Christian deaths during the period reviewed.
The BBC’s wider findings concluded that most victims of jihadist attacks in Nigeria have actually been Muslims, contradicting claims of a deliberate Christian extermination.
Security analysts also told the broadcaster that Nigeria’s violence is driven by multiple factors, terrorism, banditry, farmer-herder conflict, and communal clashes, not systematic religious persecution.
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