TEXT OF A PRESS CONFERENCE BY CHRISTIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENT OF NIGERIA IN COLLABORATION WITH A COALITION OF NIGERIAN CHRISTIAN AND CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS ON CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE IN NIGERIA AND THE IMPERATIVE FOR INTERVENTION BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Thursday 20th November 2025
Gentlemen of the Media and Members of the Public,
This press conference is held under the auspices of Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN) as the representative organ in the socio-political affairs of the body of Christ for all Christians in Nigeria except, of course, those who are collaborating to cover-up the obvious case of Christian Genocide in Nigeria.
The National coalition of Nigerian Christian and Civil Society Groups consists of Nigerian Christian organizations across denominations and Civil Society Groups that collaborate with Christian Social Movement of Nigeria; such as, amongst numerous others, Middle Belt Voice, National Christian Elders Forum, International Coalition Against Christian Genocide in Nigeria, Apostolic Round Table, Stefanos Foundation, Lay Faithful Trust Foundation, Education-Must-Continue, the Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria, Plateau State Indigenous Independent Ministers’ Association, God’s Sovereign Army of Intercessors, the National Prayer Altar, the Missionary House, Voice of Truth Agents, Arewa Christian Indigenous Pastors Association, Wailing Women Worldwide, Nigerian Christian Graduate Fellowship, and Nigeria National Christian Coalition including well-wishing peace lovers of Nigeria.
We affirm without the least equivocation that there is Genocide against Christians in Nigeria perpetrated by Islamic groups and, that even as we speak today the same Genocide is on-going. We don’t intend to belabor ourselves disputing whether the mass slaughtering of Christians in Nigeria today by Muslims could be defined as Genocide or not, as some people appear to claim.
This is because what constitutes the crime of Genocide in International Criminal Law is well spelt out in Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, ratified by UN General Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of 9th December 1948. Similarly, Part 2, Article 6 of the 17th July 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court clearly stipulates what constitute Genocide.
It is therefore laughable that some people would think that the mere denial of what constitutes Genocide translates to its non-occurrence with Christians in Nigeria. Genocide is a crime recognized by International law as afore cited and, thus, its occurrence can only be established by statutory international investigators empowered by the aforesaid exacting laws; and not by rented official mercenaries and crowds of unscrupulous agent provocateurs.
We therefore hereby request the United Nations Security Council in conjunction with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to immediately send a team of investigators to ascertain the veracity of Christian Genocide in Nigeria. The argument that some Muslims are victims, does not vitiate the occurrence of Christian Genocide in Nigeria; and hence, is an obnoxious misinterpretation and misrepresentation of what constitutes Genocide?
The fundamental issue here is; the acclaimed Muslim victims were not killed by Christians by any guise but by the Islamist perpetrators of the heinous crime! Curiously, it begs the question as to why Nigerian Muslims feel that the killing of their members by their fellow Muslim does not constitute acts of terrorism and Genocide. Nigerian Christians having established the crime of Genocide against them by groups whose affinities with Islam are not hidden have the right to invoke the relevant provisions of international statutes to report such. It’s an aberration to expect anyone subjective to Islamic ideology to deny ISWAP or ISIS and their operations. The onus of proving Genocide lies on the survivors’ victims and not on the perpetrators. So it makes no meaning to us if all the Muslims conspire to deny the occurrence of Christian Genocide in Nigeria. What matters to us is the incontrovertible evidence in our hands that is already reckoned with in the global arena.
Secondly, we fully support the intervention of the government of the United States of America in Nigeria by whatever means aimed at putting a final end to intractable criminal impunity against Nigerian Christians called Genocide and persecutions of all kinds. In fact, we believe that any Nigerian Christian who does not commend the government of the United States of America under President Donald J. Trump for its prescience is either a disciple of Judas Iscariot or a Muslim in Christian clothing. It is our conscious belief that the sovereignty of any nation ends where the leaders fail to uphold their fundamental responsibility to protect the lives and property of any section of their citizenry.
We therefore affirm that the government of the United States of America is legally protected and guided under international humanitarian law to intervene in Nigeria to stop the on-going Genocide against Christians. For those members of the press who might not be aware, the right of America to intervene in Nigeria militarily is anchored on the relevant clauses in international law.
First, Article I of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide clearly stipulates that “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.” So the United States is under the UN obligation to intervene in Nigeria to stop Genocide.
Second, “The Responsibility to Protect” as espoused by the 2001 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, clearly legitimizes American Humanitarian military intervention in Nigeria after due consideration without informing the Federal Government.
Section 1 (A and B) of the core principles of the responsibility to protect on the principles for military intervention explicitly states: “Military intervention for human protection purposes is an exceptional and extraordinary measure. To be warranted, there must be serious and irreparable harm occurring to human beings, or imminently likely to occur, of the following kind: A. large scale loss of life, actual or apprehended, with genocidal intent or not, which is the product either of deliberate state action, or state neglect or inability to act, or a failed state situation; or B. large scale ‘ethnic cleansing’, actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forced expulsion, acts of terror or rape.”
Section 3 (F) on the right authority to initiate military intervention states: “The Security Council should take into account in all its deliberations that, if it fails to discharge its responsibility to protect in conscience-shocking situations crying out for action, concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation – and that the stature and credibility of the United Nations may suffer thereby.”
This principle of the responsibility to protect was adopted by the United Nations in 2005 World Summit of all Heads of State and Government, particularly in paragraphs 138 and 139. It therefore follows that the inability of the Federal Government of Nigeria to put an end to Genocide against Christians clearly gives the United States the legal responsibility to intervene in order to uphold and strengthen the sovereignty of the Nigerian statehood in the comity of nations.
We hereby acknowledge and thank every voice at home and in the global arena that amplifies the cry of Christians in Nigeria for justice and to end genocide including all forms of persecution against Nigerian Christians and elsewhere in the world; Nicki Minaj spoke eloquently in raising the plight of Christians in Nigeria at the UN, so also Bill Maher on his media platform, CNN reporter, Romanian football fans, parliamentary Members in Portugal, Canada, UK and the US.
On the matter of those who are attempting to disrupt the true narrative of Christian Genocide in Nigeria through fabrication of incorrigible falsehoods, let us begin by asking the newly elected Chairperson of the African Union Commission, the Muslim Djibouti-born Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, when he was elected to the position and, if it is within his authority under African Union Constitutive Act to declare what is Genocide and what is not Genocide?
Mr. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf was elected into office on February 16, 2025 and officially assumed incumbency in March; he cannot tell the world that between March 2025 and the time President Donald Trump re-designated Nigeria as a country of particular concern that he conducted investigations, or visited Nigeria to ascertain the veracity of Christian Genocide.
Does the mere fact that Muslims were the first victims of Boko Haram as he erroneously claimed, invalidate the fact of Christian Genocide? Mahmoud Ali Youssouf should be reminded that Boko Haram is only a fraction of his co-Muslim terrorists committing Christian Genocide in Nigeria. If he was not properly informed, there are other Islamic terrorists operating in Nigeria such as armed Muslim Fulani herdsmen, armed Muslim bandits, ISWAP including similar Islamic terrorist groups jointly committing Genocide against Christians in Nigeria. It is regrettable that those who rented Mahmoud Ali Youssouf to peddle falsehood on Christian Genocide in Nigeria did not educate him properly.
We wish however to remind Mahmoud Ali Youssouf that it is not his responsibility under the African Union Constitutive Act to determine the veracity of Genocide in Nigeria. That responsibility devolves on the African Union Peace and Security Council which he is not a member. Furthermore, being a Muslim, we do not expect anything better than his open denial of Christian Genocide perpetrated against Christians in Nigeria by his co-Muslims.
We listened with subdued sympathy as the apex Nigerian Muslim group, the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) effusively denied Christian Genocide in Nigeria, a jihad project that their past statements and actions have consistently affirmed. As we pointed out earlier, the only solution to these barrages of warped denials is the constitution of international genocide crime investigators. And indeed, Nigerian Christians are not demanding anything less.
We are neither surprised nor perturbed when NSCIA chooses to deny the occurrence of genocide against Christians in Nigeria, because it is not uncommon for an offender to deny his crimes. But what surprised us and many Nigerian Christians is that NSCIA maligned CAN, a body with whom they share the government arranged interfaith council, by accusing it of using agents to report genocide against Christians in Nigeria. Despite this, the National leadership of CAN is yet to respond to NSCIA for the denial of Christian Genocide in Nigeria. It is expected that their interfaith fellowship should provoke a reaction from CAN on behalf of Christendom.
Surprisingly, the same CAN was also accused by the Founder and Executive Director of Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), Professor Ishaq Akintola of betraying President Bola Tinubu, following the re-designation of Nigeria as a country of particular concern by the government of the United States of America on 31st October 2025. The question is, how did CAN betray the Tinubu led government, and what are the terms of engagement between MURIC and President Tinubu that involved CAN? The answers will not only come from CAN in its duty of defending the faith at this unholy time. We hereby call upon MURIC and President Tinubu to publicly provide full disclosure of the reason for which CAN is accused of betrayal.
In the face of Goliath harassment of Israel, the timidity of Saul notwithstanding, the divine strategic plan of God for victory will stand. As all Israel accepted the leadership of David, the body of Christ in Nigeria must come together for the perfection of the deliverance been wrought by God through his anointed- President Trump.
We however wish to state that the statement made by NSCIA to wit: “62 per cent of presidential appointees are Christians in a country where Muslims are preponderant” is not only a putrid lie from the pit of hell but a naked insult to the sensibility of Nigerian Christians who are better educated than Muslims in this country.
In the first place, Muslims are not more in population than Christians in this country, outside their criminal penchant to rig election and census outcomes. Demographically, Christians are more in population than Muslims with over sixty percent advantage. We can only acknowledge the political naivety and self-conceited mentality of Nigerian Christian leaders and politicians. The fact remains that Christians have majority in more States than Muslims in Nigeria today.
Furthermore, we do not understand what NSCIA meant by “62 percent of Presidential appointments being Christians.” Today, the President is a Muslim, the Vice President is a Muslim, the Deputy Senate President is a Muslim, the Speaker of Federal House of Representatives is a Muslim, the National Security Adviser is a Muslim, the Minister of Defense is a Muslim, the Minister of State for Defense is a Muslim, the Chief of Army Staff is a Muslim, the Chief of Naval Staff is a Muslim, and the Chief of Staff to the President is a Muslim.
Indeed, out of 24 most high-ranking defense and security officials of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, including the President and Vice President who are both Muslims, only five (5) are Christians and the rest nineteen (19) are Muslims. Furthermore, out of 48 Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 33 are Muslims and 15 are Christians. In fact, even among the President’s Yoruba ethnic group, more than 90 percent of Presidential appointees are Muslim Yoruba with only a minute percentage being Christians.
We wish to conclude by drawing the attention of the press and the general public to the following as our position in the current state of our nation with respect to Christian Genocide:
First, we humbly express our most sincere appreciation to the enviable President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, for his kind and timely intervention in Nigeria to help put a stop to the on-going Genocide against Christians. We totally affirm our unreserved support to whatever means or policy he deems necessary in achieving his divinely inspired objective in Nigeria.
Second, amid repeated denials of Christian Genocide in Nigeria, it is our position that the most effective way of proving the veracity of Christian genocide in Nigeria is by the intervention of the appropriate organs of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC) tasked with proving the truth about Genocide and Crimes against Humanity; this will expose the brazen and grotesque assertion of Sheikh Ahmad Gumi that ‘Christians buried empty coffins’.
Third, we affirm that the present Government of Federal Republic of Nigeria with its crop of questionable officials, some of whom are accused of sponsoring terrorists, lacks both the moral credentials and the political will to confront both the terrorists and perpetrators of Christian Genocide. This is where the question of the sanctity of Nigeria’s sovereignty becomes even more questionable.
Thank you.
Signed:
Pastor Bosun Emmanuel; Christian Social Movement of Nigeria
Dr. Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe; International Coalition Against Christian Genocide in Nigeria
Dr S. D. Gani; National Christian Elders Forum
Elder Sunday Oibe; Lay Faith Trust Foundation
Da Jonathan Akuns; Middle Belt Voice
Dr. Bolaji O. Akinyemi; Apostolic Round Table
Prof. Kontein Trinya; The National Prayer Altar
Rev. James Pam; Plateau State Indigenous Independent Ministers’ Association
Engr. Mark Lipdo; Stefanos Foundation
Prophet Isa El Buba; Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria
Dr. Paul Gadzama; Education Must Continue
Dr Rotimi Olokodana; The Missions House
Pastor Kingsley Ayinde; God’s Sovereign Army of Intercessors
Amb (Dr) Immanuel B. David; Voice of Truth Agents
Rev. Dr Luke Shehu, Arewa Christian Indigenous Pastors Association
Dr Mrs. Laide Okafor; Wailing Women Worldwide
Prof. Ashong Ashong; Nigerian Christian Graduate Fellowship
Apostle Titilope Oluwadare, Nigeria National Christian Coalition
