In recent days, coordinated attacks on Nigeria’s nationhood have swept across social media, blogs and television outlets, alleging a so-called “Christian genocide”. These attacks, driven by foreign actors, mischaracterise Nigeria’s domestic conflicts, ignore its complexities and manipulate longstanding ethnic and resource-based tensions to advance sectarian agendas.

One of the figures driving this propaganda is American comedian and television host Bill Maher, who used his show to deliver a sensationalised account alleging the systematic slaughter of Christians in Nigeria. “I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches. These are the Islamists, Boko Haram,” he said. “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.” His sources are largely fabricated claims and manipulated images from unverified outlets. These distorted narratives drew applause from his audience, while Fox News, true to form, amplified them.

This misinformation – aimed at maligning Nigeria as much as undermining the gravity of the situation in Gaza – is linked to Nigeria’s position at the 2025 United Nations General Assembly. By reaffirming support for a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, Nigeria challenged powerful interests invested in one-sided narratives. Delivering the statement on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on September 24, Vice President Kashim Shettima stressed Nigeria spoke for peace, not partisanship. He framed Nigeria’s stance through its history as a nation that survived civil war and deep tensions, observing that “such bitter experience has taught us that such violence never ends where it begins”. He also drew on Nigeria’s struggle with violent extremism to argue that “military tactics may win battles measured in months or years, but in wars that span generations, it is values and ideas that deliver the ultimate victory”.

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The mischief-makers who claim Nigeria ignored its own pressing challenges simply because Palestine was mentioned in only one of the 25 paragraphs could not have built their case on a shakier foundation. Nigeria’s statement was structured around four clear priorities: a demand for a permanent Nigerian seat on the UN Security Council as part of broader institutional reform; a call for urgent action on sovereign debt relief and expanded access to trade and finance; an insistence that host countries of critical minerals should benefit fairly; and an appeal to close the digital divide, echoing the secretary-general’s reminder that “AI” must stand for “Africa Included”.

These points, along with the cautionary lessons shared, were twisted by those urging Nigeria to ignore the violence in Gaza and elsewhere. This is blackmail and trivialises the genocide in Gaza. Citizens of afflicted nations may choose to ignore conflicts abroad, but state actors cannot. Nigeria, as a UN member state, bears the cost of violence in other regions, having participated in 51 out of 60 UN peacekeeping operations since its independence in 1960. Every country at the UN faces domestic challenges, yet many stood firmly with the people of Palestine. In acknowledging this, Nigeria offered one of the assembly’s deepest truths, declaring that “None of us is safe until all of us are safe,” and reminding the world that “None of us can achieve a peaceful world in isolation”.

Claims of a religious war between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria are simplistic and betray ignorance of the country’s internal dynamics. Over the decades, both Muslim and Christian communities have at times alleged “genocide” during crises. For instance, Muslim leaders claimed genocide in clashes around Jos in Plateau State, while some Christian leaders accused Muslims of campaigns against Christians in the North Central region, often called the Middle Belt, to resist being categorised as part of the Muslim-majority North. These mutual accusations show how the term “genocide” has often been invoked without credible evidence, inflaming tensions.

In reality, Nigeria’s conflicts are multi-faceted, driven by ethnic rivalries, land disputes and criminality, with religion often secondary. Boko Haram, which emerged in Maiduguri, Borno State, in 2009, positioned itself against the Nigerian state as an apostate entity, not against any single religious group. Most of its victims have been Muslims. Similarly, banditry in northern Nigeria often pits Fulani herders against Hausa communities, both predominantly Muslim, a stark example of Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

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This broader context is crucial to dismantling the oversimplified narrative of one-sided persecution. Every region of Nigeria has both Christians and Muslims living side by side, and conflicts typically unfold along community or regional lines rather than strictly religious ones. Even during severe unrest, such as the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970, the violence did not amount to an organised genocide of one faith by the other but was rooted in political and socioeconomic grievances. Nigeria was then led by General Yakubu Gowon, a Christian, with Vice Admiral Joseph Edet Akinwale Wey, also a Christian, as deputy, making it impossible to frame the war as a campaign of the Muslim north against the Christian southeast. The same holds true in later communal unrest, such as the Plateau riots, driven by competing identities and resources rather than religious extermination. To present these conflicts, as Bill Maher does, as evidence of a Christian genocide erases these realities and distorts Nigeria’s history.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu inherited a country that has faced brutal Islamist insurgencies led by Boko Haram and its offshoot, Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP), for more than a decade. While Western media often highlight attacks on churches and Christian communities, the reality is that these terrorists are indiscriminate in their violence. Most of Boko Haram’s victims have been Muslims, despite the group’s hostility to Christians. Operating mainly in the predominantly Muslim northeast, Boko Haram has slaughtered thousands of Muslims, including clerics, village heads and civilians it deems apostates or opponents.

The real danger lies in media outlets portraying Boko Haram, a group despised by both Muslims and Christians, as representative of Islam. Boko Haram, along with ISWAP and bandit groups, treat anyone who opposes them as an enemy, regardless of faith. They have bombed mosques, assassinated Muslim leaders and killed Christians, demonstrating their indiscriminate violence. To characterise this as a strictly anti-Christian campaign is propaganda.

While Christians have undeniably suffered horrific attacks, incidents of explicitly religious violence constitute only a fraction of Nigeria’s homicides, and direct interfaith confrontations are relatively rare. Framing Nigeria’s violence as Muslims killing Christians grossly misrepresents the situation. Worse still, some outside groups have published inflated statistics of Christian deaths without credible methodology, often counting every victim in certain regions as Christian by default or conflating deaths regardless of motive. Such dubious claims, pushed by the likes of Bill Maher, obscure the truth and trivialise the complexity of Nigeria’s conflicts.

A significant portion of the violence mischaracterised as religious persecution stems from longstanding herder–farmer clashes in the Middle Belt, driven by competition over land and water, population pressures and climate change. The Fulani herders are mostly Muslim, while the farmers come from diverse groups, many Christian. This demographic divide can create the illusion of a religious war, but at its root are disputes over resources. Both sides have been perpetrators and victims.

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Since 2023, President Tinubu’s administration has prioritised tackling overlapping crises, from Boko Haram in the northeast to banditry in the northwest, farmer–herder clashes nationwide and Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) violence in the southeast. Through operations such as Hadin Kai, Forest Sanity and Delta Safe, Nigeria has recorded major gains: over 13,500 terrorists neutralised, 124,000 fighters and family members surrendered, and 11,000 weapons with 252,000 rounds of ammunition destroyed in the northeast; networks including Ali Kachalla, Halilu Sububu and Isuhu Yellow dismantled in the northwest; and a return to normal life in the southeast as “sit-at-home” orders fade, attacks on security forces decline and more than 50 police stations rebuilt. National Security Adviser Malam Nuhu Ribadu confirmed these advances, noting terrorism-related deaths have fallen from 2,600 a month before May 2023 to fewer than 200 today.

Another factor that undermines the claim of Christian genocide is the religious diversity of Nigeria’s security leadership. The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa, is a Christian from Southern Kaduna. The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Olufemi Olatubosun Oluyede, is also a Christian. The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla, is Christian. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major-General Emmanuel Undiandeye, is Christian. The Director-General of the State Security Service, Adeola Ajayi, is Christian. The Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, is Christian. The Controller General of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Sylvester Nwakuche, is Christian. The Comptroller General of Immigration, Kemi Nandap, is Christian. This roll call makes clear the absurdity of portraying Nigeria’s security establishment as complicit in a so-called Christian genocide.

The facts dismantle the false narrative of a Christian genocide in Nigeria. Christians have suffered tragic losses, but so have Muslims, and often on an even greater scale. This is the story President Tinubu is rewriting. Nowhere is there an official policy or plan to eradicate Christians. Nigeria’s conflicts are grim and complex, but they centre on terrorism, crime and communal disputes, not religion. Terror groups kill opportunistically, striking churches, mosques, markets and villages alike. As the Tinubu-led government has stressed, no Nigerian is targeted by the state because of their faith. In fact, the very notion of a state-sanctioned “Christian genocide” collapses when one recalls that Nigeria’s First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu is herself a Christian, an ordained pastor and a lifelong advocate of interfaith causes. These are the nuances of Nigeria’s realities that foreign media mercenaries, eager to stoke ethno-religious divisions, fail to grasp or deliberately ignore.

Propaganda to the contrary is not only false but dangerous. It risks deepening divisions when unity is most needed. The truth, affirmed by data, is that religiously motivated killings account for only a small fraction of Nigeria’s violence, and many so-called religious attacks are entangled with ethnic and resource-based conflicts. Understanding this nuance is essential. It enables Nigerians and the international community to support holistic solutions that strengthen security, promote dialogue and drive development, rather than being misled by simplistic framings of Muslims versus Christians. Nigeria’s armed forces, led by both Christians and Muslims, stand united in defence of all Nigerians against terror.

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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.