L-R: Mike Arnold, Reno Omokri
Mike Arnold, a former mayor of Blanco, Texas, and founder of Africa Arise International, has insisted that the ongoing violence and displacement in northern and central Nigeria amount to genocide against Christian communities.
However, Reno Omokri, a former presidential spokesperson, rejected the claim of genocide, describing it as inaccurate and misleading.
Arnold made the declaration while presenting his findings at a briefing held in Abuja on Tuesday.
Omokri and Khalid Aliyu, the secretary-general of the Jama’at Nasril Islam (JNI) were present at the briefing.
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He said his presentation, based on more than five years of field research, interviews, and documentation, was made “without coercion or inducement”.
“I come only to give, serve, and stand with the people and nation I dearly love as my second home,” Arnold said.
He noted that his trip had been independently funded, with no financial support or instruction from the United States government, although top American officials — including Senator Ted Cruz, Congressman Chip Roy, and the US State Department — were aware of his presence in Nigeria and were receiving updates from him.
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Cruz recently proposed a bill that seeks to protect “persecuted” Christians in Nigeria and designate the country as a “country of particular concern” over alleged religious persecution.
‘I HAVE SEEN THE EVIDENCE FIRSTHAND’
Arnold said he has made 15 trips to Nigeria since 2010, including six extended investigative missions since 2019, visiting communities affected by insurgency and inter-communal violence in Bokkos, Jos, Gwoza, Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Abuja.
“I have interviewed governors, cabinet ministers, traditional rulers, and former presidents,” he said.
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“I have met orphans whose parents were hacked to death. I have built schools in IDP camps and documented over 80 hours of filmed testimony.”
The former mayor said Nigeria’s decline from a “nation at peace” in 2010 to one “ravaged by displacement and targeted killings” was not accidental but the result of political manipulation and foreign interference.
“By 2014, Nigeria’s stability was shattered,” he said.
“Foreign meddling, including US involvement, played a pivotal role in the 2015 election, enabling regime change that emboldened actors who ignored or enabled extremist violence.”
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Arnold alleged that foreign fighters from Libya and the Sahel flooded Nigeria after the 2011 Arab Spring, joining Boko Haram and ISWAP in a “calculated campaign of radical Islamic conquest”.
He claimed that more than four million Nigerians have been displaced, mostly Christians, and accused officials of downplaying the crisis by labelling survivors as “criminals” or “vagrants”.
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He also dismissed the phrase “farmer-herder clashes” as a “cynical euphemism” meant to obscure the true nature of the violence.
“This is systematic terror, not grazing conflicts — a lie akin to calling Bosnia’s ethnic cleansing a neighbourhood spat,” he said.
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‘ILLICT MINING AND POLITICS FUEL CRISIS’
Arnold listed three key drivers of the crisis as radical ideology, illicit mining, and political manipulation.
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He said Nigeria loses about $9 billion annually to illegal mining, with 10 percent of that funding violence and corruption.
He accused officials and sections of the media of complicity through denial and sanitised reporting.
“To play semantic games while people die is beyond obscene. There can be no solution while leaders play word games to hide the truth,” he said.
Citing the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Arnold said the attacks in Nigeria meet all legal criteria for genocide.
“The campaign of violence and displacement in northern and Middle Belt Nigeria does indeed constitute a calculated, current, and long-running genocide against Christian communities and other religious minorities,” he declared.
Arnold urged Nigerian leaders to act decisively, warning that “the whole world is watching.”
He also called on religious leaders to rise above hypocrisy and speak truth to power, accusing some church figures of moral compromise.
Arnold said the crisis was not a war between Islam and Christianity, but “a battle between good and evil.”
He called on the international community to intervene, saying the crisis in Nigeria poses a threat to global security.
‘NO GENOCIDE IN NIGERIA’
Omokri challenged Cruz to name the Nigerian officials or government agencies allegedly sponsoring Boko Haram.
“A genocide is when you have a deliberate act of policy by a state actor or by people who are connected to state actors against a particular ethnicity, against a particular religion,” Omokri said.
“The claim is not true. So, if you ask me if there is a genocide in Nigeria, of course there’s not. However, if you believe that Nigerian state officials are facilitating terror, mention them, name them. Help us name them.”
‘OBAMA POLICIES UNLEASHED BOKO HARAM’
He blamed the Barack Obama administration for what he called the “unleashing” of Boko Haram in Nigeria.
“In Nigeria, due to policies unleashed by the Obama administration, we have had security issues and we are fighting them. We’re doing the best that we can,” Omokri said.
“I believe Senator Cruz means well, that’s my personal belief, but he doesn’t have the right information.
“If he knows the names of the Nigerian officials who are facilitating this genocide, he should name and shame them. Because he did say that he knows and that he’s aware of them.”
Omokri added that killings in Nigeria have reduced in recent years, citing data from the Global Terrorism Index.
“Deaths recorded in Nigeria, according to the Global Terror Index, reduced from 7,512 in 2015 to 565 in 2024,” he said.
“We are making progress, even though challenges remain.”
JNI SAYS CLAIM BASELESS, STRANGE
Aliyu also dismissed the genocide claim as baseless and strange.
“It sounds really very strange for such an unverified claim that there is Christian genocide in Nigeria,” Aliyu said.
“I think it is really very dangerous to change the paradigm and the narrative from the act of criminality, and identify it with ethnic nationality or religious inclination.”
He said attributing criminal acts to a particular faith or ethnicity risks worsening national tensions.
“I think lumping a baseless claim onto certain people does not hold water. I think this claim is intended to create bad blood and to further extend the challenges we are going through in this country,” he added.
“There may be a sinister motive behind such claims, to really draw us back from going out of the quagmire we are passing through.
“And so this claim, to me, is baseless. They don’t hold water. There’s no truth in them. And we hope we’ll see the truth in the light of its worth and value.”
On Tuesday, the senate set up a 12-member ad hoc committee to develop a comprehensive position paper in response to growing international concerns over alleged state-backed persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
On September 30, President Bola Tinubu said allegations of religious genocide in Nigeria were unfounded, noting that the country is built on the faith and resilience of its people.
