In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful
(Lagos, Sunday, 28/09/2025) The Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC), Nigeria, categorically rejects the recent agenda-driven claims suggesting that Christians are being systematically targeted for genocide in Nigeria. An American television host Bill Maher made blatantly false claims that over 100,000 Christians were murdered by “Islamists” in Nigeria and over 18,000 churches burned. Bill Maher, who used his HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday 26th September, 2025 to spotlight what he calls “ongoing violence against Christians in Nigeria”, said: “They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country.” These alarmist and unsubstantiated claims, promoted chiefly by ardent Islamophobes in Nigeria and their foreign collaborators, including foreign media personalities and platforms, are not only false and misleading, they are devastating and harmful to Nigeria’s unity and the fights against terrorism by all well meaning Nigerians.
Nigeria’s security challenges are complex and tragic, but they are not religious. Terrorists and criminal groups have killed Muslims and Christians alike, and even those who do not identify with any faith. In reality, more Muslims have been victims of terrorist attacks in Nigeria. Yet for Nigerians – Muslims and Christians – every life lost is a national tragedy. Every killing diminishes our collective humanity.
This is why attempts to reframe the crisis as a religious war are not only inaccurate but also dangerous. Such distortions serve only the terrorists’ agenda, and that of their sponsors – to divide our people along religious lines and undermine our resilience.
It is important to note that even within the United States, questions have been raised about its role in Nigeria’s security crisis. Earlier this year, Congressman Scott Perry alleged that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been involved in funding Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in Nigeria. These serious allegations deserve transparency and scrutiny, rather than silence. We use this opportunity to once again call on our government to conduct an open and transparent investigation of all allegations of terrorism support and financing, as well as those involved in arming terrorists, be they Boko Haram, bandits or any other violent group.
The clearest case in today’s world of Christians being systematically targeted and killed is in Gaza, Palestine. There, Israel – with the direct support of the United States and other enablers – has waged a genocidal war that has destroyed churches, starved and killed Palestinian Christians alongside their Muslim compatriots, and uprooted entire communities. Most of the bombs dropped on churches and Christians in Gaza were provided to Israel by the United States, despite global consensus on a ceasefire. The war crimes being committed in Gaza have been acknowledged by the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and multiple United Nations bodies.
If those who amplify false claims about Nigeria are genuinely concerned about the persecution of Christians, their conscience should direct them to Gaza – where Christian lives are being lost every day in a genocide widely documented by international bodies.
Nigerian Muslims have suffered deaths and losses disproportionately from terrorism over the last two decades due to a simple fact: the major areas of the terrorist attacks and operations are Muslim-dominated areas in the North where most of the terrorist and bandit attacks take place. As such, innocent Muslims make up the largest proportion of their victims, dead and alive. The number of Muslim widows, orphans, and displaced people in the IDP camps around the country attests to this self-evident fact. Despite this grim reality, we acknowledge that Nigeria is a multi-religious nation with a very rich history of religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence. Nigeria is not, and has never been, a battlefield of Muslims against Christians. The current security challenge we face is a situation where terrorists target Nigerians indiscriminately, and where both Muslims and Christians stand together in grief, in resistance, and in hope.
MPAC calls on all Nigerians to remain united, vigilant, and committed to truth. We urge the international community to resist the temptation of selective advocacy motivated by Islamophobic motives, and instead work towards ending terrorism everywhere – including state-sponsored and state-enabled terrorism that is today devastating the people of Palestine.
-End –
Disu Kamor
Executive Chairman
Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC, Nigeria)
kamor.disu@mpac-ng.org
