The Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI) has faulted the decision of the U.S. President Donald Trump to redesignate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).
The group said the decision was based on “jaundiced and obtrusive data supplied by groups with vested interests.”
This is contained in a policy statement by the group’s Chairman, Dr Omoniyi Akinsiju, on Friday in Abuja.
Mr Akinsiju said the data used by the U.S. government were drawn from questionable reports by local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), notably Intersociety and Open Doors.
According to him, the two organisations have consistently published exaggerated figures of faith-based killings in Nigeria, portraying the country as unsafe for Christians and as a site of alleged genocide.
“We are concerned about the inauspicious propagation of terrorism-related deaths as a singular religious conflict. It is immoral to concoct all manner of death-related data to justify a point of view,” he said.
IMPI maintained that its independent assessment of credible global data sources, including the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), shows that Nigeria’s security situation, though serious, does not justify the “genocide narrative” being advanced by some NGOs.
They noted that Intersociety claimed that 5,068 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2022, while Open Doors reported 5,014 faith-related deaths in the same year, figures that, IMPI said, “do not reflect reality.”
“By contrast, the GTI placed total terrorism-related deaths in Nigeria at 392 in 2022, the lowest since 2011 and 565 in 2024, a far cry from the thousands cited by advocacy groups.
“This speaks to the industry of falsehood underpinning the advocacy to get Nigeria redesignated as a CPC,” IMPI stated.
The group leader argued that Mr Trump’s decision in 2020 to place Nigeria on the CPC list, despite a decline in terrorism deaths, was influenced by the misleading statistics.
According to him, the import is that Intersociety attributed virtually all reported fatalities to Christian deaths.
“This deliberate inflation of figures aims to inflame divisive passions and justify a political decision already shaped by bias,” the think tank added.
“We urged the U.S. government to engage directly with Nigerian authorities and validate data before acting on advocacy-driven reports.
“A better understanding of the situation in Nigeria through government-to-government engagement would lead to a review and withdrawal of Nigeria from the CPC list,” he said.
(NAN)
