The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, (NSCIA) on Sunday condemned the U.S. government’s decision under President Donald Trump to label Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” over alleged persecution of Christians.
NSCIA said the issue is not religious, adding that the terrorists are killing Christians and Muslims.
Secretary General of NSCIA, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, while briefing journalists in Abuja after an expanded general-purpose committee meeting of all Islamic organisations across Nigeria on Trump’s statement, advised US to help the government fight insecurity rather than invade Nigeria.
He described the move as unjust, biased and based on a one-sided narrative.
Oloyede condemned what it described as “false and dangerous” claims of a Christian genocide in Nigeria, warning that the narrative is part of a coordinated foreign agenda to destabilize the country.
Oloyede argued that Nigeria’s insecurity stems from ethnic, political, and economic issues, not religion and that both Muslims and Christians have suffered from violence.
NSCIA urged Nigerians to reject foreign attempts to cause disunity and called for peace, dialogue, and cooperation among all groups.
He also demanded that the Federal Government take firm action on insecurity and tackle the menace.
He explained that factors such as poverty, mass unemployment, drug abuse, porous borders and proliferation of weapons are driving insecurity, along with criminal syndicates involved in illegal artisanal mining that create ungoverned spaces.
“This is organised crime for resources. It is not Islamic. In Sokoto, Muslims have lost thousands of lives to the same bandits who kill indiscriminately. Even the U.S. Department of State’s 2022 report on International Religious Freedom confirms that these bandits are criminals, not religious extremists,” he added.
NSCIA accused some U.S. politicians, evangelical groups and Nigerian separatists of spreading misleading claims to influence American domestic politics and undermine Nigeria’s unity.
Oloyede said the re-imposition of the CPC designation is not based on new facts, it is a political tool wielded by lobbyists and cheapens the concept of religious freedom.
He said: “We convened this conference on behalf of the Nigerian Muslim Ummah to condemn the recent threat against the sovereignty of our nation. We have not been emphasizing the killings of Muslims because we do not see it as a religious war, but a national security issue. The world is aware that some Islamophobic and unpatriotic Nigerians had authored a dangerous script, promoted it in Western circles especially in the United States and got the attention of the highest levels of the United States government, which are erroneously made to believe that there is a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria.
“When the U.S. President, Mr Donald Trump labeled our country “disgraced”, every right-thinking Nigerian was concerned because an ally that is determined to help a sovereign country to “completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities” would offer to assist and collaborate with the country and not use such language to describe a country it aims to partner in wiping out the terrorists.
“While a number of countries (e.g., China, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar) have also been designated “Countries of Particular Concern”, the present context of “what Nigeria will not like” suggests that the plan is a pretext to destabilize our country. We reaffirm that there is no “Christian genocide” in Nigeria. Under Article II of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 9 and Article 6 of the Rome Statute 11, the crime is defined by a critical “mental element” known as dolus specialis. This is the specific “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”. There is nothing like that in Nigeria”.
Oloyede said for the avoidance of doubt, what Nigeria faces is a complex and tragic perennial security crisis that brings immeasurable pain to all its citizens, regardless of faith or ethnic persuasion.
He said: “From Katsina to Borno and from Benue to Plateau, as well as in Kaduna and Kwara, Nigeria bleeds through gruesome savagery against Muslims and Christians, Imams and priests. Non-partisan experts have refuted this blackmail and Amnesty International, which methodically investigated the insecurity in Nigeria, had stated that there is “no evidence of a religious motivation” to characterise it as genocide. According to Isa Sunusi, the Director of Amnesty’s Nigeria programme, “I don’t think President Trump has any facts. I don’t think he has had a very good briefing about the nature of this conflict”. Senior researchers like Samuel Malik of the pan-African think tank, Good Governance Africa, have also stated that “there is no credible evidence of a state-led or coordinated campaign to exterminate Christians, which is what genocide is.
“While President Trump and Senator Cruz name “Radical Islamists” and “Islamist Jihadists” as the culprits, ISWAP and Boko Haram, the fact is that these groups are khawarij (deviants), whose ideology declares Muslims who do not join them as “dissidents”. Muslims are also their victims. As Amnesty International correctly stated, “The jihadist groups kill both Muslims and Christians. They demolish Mosques and Churches. They don’t differentiate”. These terrorists are not our representatives; they are our mortal enemies.
“The world knows that some of the terrorist groups being paraded as “Islamic” are creations of non-Muslims. For instance, it is publicly acknowledged that the United States of America created Al-Qaeda, which is being projected as Islamic. Also, a US Congressman, Scott Perry, testified that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was financing the activities of Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in Nigeria and elsewhere.
“If the violence in some parts of Nigeria is not religious, what are the real drivers? The first is ecological. As the International Crisis Group has detailed in multiple reports, how relentless desertification and drought, products of climate change, have degraded pastures and dried up water sources in the far-northern Sahelian belt. This is not an “Islamist invasion”; it is a desperate southward migration of herders seeking survival. This climate-driven migration forces herders into direct, and often violent competition with sedentary farming communities over dwindling resources of land and water. Historic grazing reserves have been lost to expanding settlements, and traditional conflict resolution mechanisms have eroded. This is the flashpoint for the farmer-herder crisis in Plateau, Benue and other middle belt states in Northern Nigeria.
“The second driver is criminality. In the Northwest, Northeast and Southeast, banditry is fueled by the overlapping factors of grinding poverty, mass youth unemployment, drug abuse, porous borders and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons over the decades. Crucially, as researchers have noted, it is also driven by illicit artisanal mining of solid minerals. Criminal syndicates and bandits sack villages and displace populations, creating an ungoverned space for their illegal mining operations. This is a violent, organised crime racket for resources and there is nothing Islamic about it also. In Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto axis, Muslims have lost more than 1,200 souls to the same bandits who answer to crime, not tribe or faith. The United States Department itself, in its 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, stated that “banditry and other criminality, not animosity between particular religious groups… were the primary drivers” of intercommunal violence. This is not a religious war”
NSCIA went further that: “we cannot gloss over how, over a long period, failure of governance has enabled violence in Nigeria. Studies have revealed how endemic corruption, lack of accountability for human rights abuses and failure to provide basic security for citizens have, over time, created a vacuum for impunity. When the state fails to protect anyone, criminals and militias thrive. This is a “massive state failure”, as some have called it, not a state-sponsored “genocide”.
