05/11/2025
21st October, 2025
PRESS RELEASE:
*NIGERIAN CHRISTIANS USING US POWER TO BULLY FG, MUSLIMS - MURIC*
A faith-based human rights organization, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has alleged that Nigerian Christian leaders are using the United States (US) as a Christian superpower to bully the Federal Government (FG) and also to subjugate Nigerian Muslims.
The group claimed that the report of Christian genocide was sent to the US because the latter is a Christian nation. It also wondered why Christian leaders did not contemplate reporting FG to the African Union or the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS), our closest neighbours, if the intention was not entitlement and domination via neo-imperialism.
In a statement circulated to the media on Tuesday, 22nd October, 2025 by the Executive Diractor of the Islamic human rights advocacy group, Professor Ishaq Akintola, MURIC warned that the Nigerian government must neither succumb to blackmail nor make Nigerian Muslims its guinea pig.
Full details:
“We have followed the current controversy over the allegation that it is only Christians that are being killed in Nigeria (otherwise called Christian genocide) with deep concern.
“It is noteworthy that Nigerian Muslims also complain of similar and even greater number of killings, although nobody appears to be listening. Perhaps this is because we live in a world where the narratives are controlled by a Christo-Western media both locally and internationally.
*“In our own opinion, what is happening is that terrorists and other criminals find it easy to attack soft targets, particularly where there are crowds. Their target is not any religious group. This is why they attack churches and mosques. It is where they can get the largest assembly of hostages. This also explains why the main victims in Christian concentrated areas like Benue and Plateau states are always Christians while the victims in Muslim concentrated areas like Sokoto and Zamfara are always Muslims.*
“Churches are also not the only places of worship that are attacked. Mosques are also attacked. While only 200 churches were destroyed across Northern Nigeria, about 6,000 mosques were demolished in the same zone. It is simply because there are more mosques in the zone than churches. This is the plain truth.
“Meanwhile Muslims in Southern Nigeria face systematic persecution, denial and marginalisation. Their complaints go unheeded because both the state and federal governments of Nigeria as well as the global community are more interested in the welfare of Christian populations.
*“The media's complicity can be seen from the way the killing of Christians are amplified while that of Muslims is trivialized. Christian victims are reported as 'Christians' with the faith of victims clearly identified. On the contrary, the killing of Muslims even inside mosques is reported in such ambiguous and vague manners with words like 'worshippers', 'audience', etc.*
“Therefore, what we have today is Nigerian Christians hiding under the umbrella of the United States (US), a country known for bullying Muslim nations around the world. The intention is to armtwist FG to forcefully secure undeserved political and economic favours for Christians.
“This is apart from using such a report to bully Nigerian Muslims since they know that there is no single powerful Muslim nation in the world to whom Nigerian Muslims can take their case. Nigerians may find a lot to learn here from Magner Redbeard’s book of 1896, ‘Might Is Right’.
“Yes, might is right, otherwise what moral right has America to judge Nigeria and its government after its disgraceful and audacious funding and arming of genocidal Israel? More than 68,000 people were killed in Gaza under the watchful eyes of America. 8 million people staged ‘No Kings’ protest against President Donald Trump in the United States yesterday. They were vehemently opposed to Trump’s authoritarianism.
“If Americans see Trump as a tyrant and a dictator, by what moral parameter can anyone justify Trump’s attempt to judge Nigeria after bastardising democratic tenets in his own country? Following the same logic, is it not moral bankruptcy that can make anyone report Nigeria to America, least of all to Trump?
“This development helps to buttress the belief that tyranny, oppression and persecution reign supreme in our world today. But it hurts to find the Nigerian press oiling this machinery of falsehood.
“MURIC will be doing gross injustice to itself if it fails to speak on the partiality and lopsidedness of the Nigerian media, except for very few. We have watched in consternation in the past few weeks as Christian radio and television anchors demonised Muslims and the faith of Islam while they idolized Christianity. Only Christian guests and commentators were invited to their studios. To them, Muslims are persona non grata. They lambasted Muslims over the so-called Christian genocide.
*“Why were Muslims not invited to narrate their own side of the story? What happened to the press principle of audi alteram partem (i.e. hear from the other side)? Is this professional? Some sections of the Nigerian press may not have passed the integrity test, particularly in the Christian genocide controversy.*
“We declare that all this story about Christian genocide is an attempt to railroad the Nigerian government into doubling the pampering of its Christian population and further distance itself from the Muslims who are already marginalized, oppressed and persecuted. It is about unhealthy religious rivalry and total domination.
*“It has become the habit of Nigerian Christian leaders to rush to America to report the Nigerian government over phantom killings and mirage persecutions. We strongly contend that Nigerian Christians are brandishing US power in our faces to blackmail the Nigerian government and also to bully the Muslims into silence and total submission.*
*“Nigerian Christian leaders are adept at playing the victim card. But one thing is striking here: They have never lodged such reports at the secretariat of the African Union or the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS). Their reports always go to the US."*
“It should not be too difficult for analysts to decipher the handwriting here. Their aim is to get the sympathy of the most powerful Christian nation in the world, perhaps to launch a modern crusade against Nigerian Muslims so that their age-long avowed aim of ‘Nigeria For Christ’ which they could not realise at the straight can become fait accompli at the bend. A people that makes no distinction between fair and foul cannot stand up to be counted in the hall of conscience.
“Meanwhile it is an open secret that the US is the leader of the Muslim-hating axis of the world. The trajectory of its economic sanctions and military attacks and invasions around the world speaks volumes in this regard and the objective has always been the retardation and debilitation of Muslim nations politically, economically and militarily.
“It is a dangerous power game because the besieged Muslims of Nigeria may be left with no other option than to distance themselves from both the government and the terrorists.*
*“It is now very obvious that Nigerian Muslims have been turned into pawns in a chess game and mere eggs in a ping-pong match. The terrorists are killing Muslims from the left, the government is marginalizing them from the right while powerful Christian nations intend to massacre them from the centre, all courtesy of Nigerian Christian neo-imperialists.*
*“Before we take an underwater dive, we call on FG not to succumb to Christian blackmail gimmicks nor turn Nigerian Muslims into guinea pigs in this ugly experiment. Permit us to also warn that this false allegation that it is only Christians that are being killed in Nigeria may make the dream of making our dear country a land of peaceful coexistence a sham, a mirage, a phantom.”*
Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Founder/Executive Director,
Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC).
