Former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has issued a robust rebuttal to American officials, including Senator Ted Cruz, who have alleged a “Christian genocide” is occurring in Nigeria, describing the claims as “utterly absurd” and politically motivated.
In a lengthy treatise, Fani-Kayode systematically challenged the premise, pointing to the significant representation of Christians in Nigeria’s highest echelons of power. He listed the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of Army Staff, the Inspector-General of Police, the President’s wife—who is a Christian pastor—and the Senate President as evidence that the charge of state-sponsored genocide is unsustainable.
“Who in our Armed Forces and security and intelligence agencies pulls the trigger on the Christians and who gives the orders for them to be singled out for genocide… Is it the Christians that head most of those institutions that are doing so?” he questioned.
Instead, Fani-Kayode argued that the most clear-cut case of state-sponsored violence against a religious group in recent history was the massacre of Shia Muslims.
“Ironically, to my recollection, it was only on one occasion that the Nigerian Armed Forces specifically targeted and killed over 1000 Nigerians in one day… and the victims were not Christians but rather Shia Muslims,” he stated, referencing the 2015 Zaria incident under a previous administration.
While acknowledging that Christians have suffered horrific massacres, such as the 2016 Southern Kaduna attacks where 808 were killed, he distinguished these as acts perpetrated by “non-state actors and savage ethnic militias,” not the state. He emphasized that these groups “committed similar atrocities against Muslim communities too.”
The core of his argument was that Nigeria is suffering a national crisis affecting all faiths equally.
“What we are witnessing in Nigeria is not a genocide against Muslims or a genocide against Christians but a genocide against us all,” Fani-Kayode asserted. He described the terrorists as making no distinction, wiping out both Christian and Muslim communities, taking land, and destroying both churches and mosques.
He praised the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for rejecting the genocide narrative and warned that the American characterization is dangerous and could “ignite a full-scale religious war.”
Fani-Kayode concluded with a stern warning to the U.S. officials, including Rep. Chris Smith, whom he accused of calling to “arm Christian communities in Nigeria and to bomb Muslim ones.” He stated their “mischievous, misguided and misinformed” perspective defies logic and, if unchecked, would harm American interests in West Africa, which he described as “firmly under the sphere of our influence.”
“Stop misrepresenting our situation, leave our country alone and stop trying to provoke chaos and ignite a religious war,” he declared. “You cannot love us more than we love ourselves! You are part of the problem and not the solution!”
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