Nigeria‘s Christians are being pushed to the brink of extinction – and could be wiped off the map within two generations without urgent international intervention.
That’s the chilling warning from Emeka Umeagbalasi, the outspoken founder of Nigeria’s International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety). And he’s not mincing his words.
The veteran activist says a silent, systematic genocide has swept Africa’s most populous nation for nearly two decades – a ‘long-running, coordinated campaign’ of killings, kidnappings and church burnings carried out mostly by Islamist militants and enabled by the Nigerian state itself.
‘If you look at the clear-cut definition of genocide, it fits the present reality on the ground in Nigeria,’ he said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail.
‘Fulani jihadists have infiltrated or laid siege on 35 of the 36 states. Nigeria is now under siege.’
Umeagbalasi’s message is stark: millions of Nigerian Christians live each day in fear of slaughter.
Many of the country’s 109 million Christians – nearly half the nation’s population – endure harassment, intimidation, and the constant threat of sudden attack. And, he says, it’s getting worse.
His warning comes as armed men, believed to be militant Fulani herders, stormed farming villages on the Plateau–Kaduna border in late October.
Coffins of 17 worshippers and two priests, who were allegedly killed by Fulani herdsmen in north-central Nigeria in 2018
The Islamist rebels Boko Haram are among those behind a wave of killings of Christians and others in Nigeria
They shot indiscriminately at villagers, torched homes and left bodies scattered across fields and courtyards. Dozens were reported killed and wounded, according to International Christian Concern.
It’s the latest massacre in a grim roll call of killings that has turned Plateau State – once known for its green hills and quiet hamlets – into one of the world’s most dangerous hotspots for rural Christians.
Emeka Umeagbalasi says Nigeria’s Christians could be wiped out by 2075
President Donald Trump pounced on the reports, accusing Nigeria of allowing ‘mass killings of Christians’ and threatening to cut off aid — or even send in the US military – unless Abuja acts fast.
Umeagbalasi claims the violence fits the legal definition of genocide – and he brings numbers.
He says roughly 150,000 Christians have been killed in 16 years, mostly by Fulani militants, but also by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
Another 30,000 Muslims, he notes, have also been murdered in the carnage.
Other tallies are far lower. The respected Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) records about 53,000 civilian deaths from political violence since 2009 – Christians and Muslims alike.
But Umeagbalasi says his figures are accurate, gathered by teams on the ground who travel from village to village, counting bodies, speaking to survivors, and documenting what he calls a ‘staggering, relentless campaign.’
For him, the numbers tell only part of the story.
He says attackers follow a chilling pattern: Strike at night. Shoot everyone in sight. Burn churches. Destroy farms. Force survivors to flee. Rinse and repeat.
Nigeria once had some 100,000 churches. Umeagbalasi says 20,000 have been destroyed in about a decade.
Olawale Saudat, a woman caught up in the deadly ethnic clashes between northern Fulani and southern Yoruba traders
A Nigerian Police Officer patrols an area of destroyed and burned houses after a Fulani attack on a farmers’ village in Kaduna State, Nigeria, in 2019
Large Christian areas, he warns, are being erased – emptied village by village, leaving behind ghost towns and charred sanctuaries.
‘By 2075 Christians will have been uprooted from Nigeria,’ he warns.
He claims captivity camps holding kidnapped Christians operate in Benue, Taraba and Kaduna — some allegedly close to military bases.
Perhaps his most explosive allegation is this: Nigeria’s security forces are not just failing to protect Christian communities. Some, he says, are perpetrators.
‘In every place we investigate, people tell us the same thing: the problem we have here is the military,’ he says.
‘They will not go after our attackers. They will turn around and come after us.’
He accuses security forces of arriving hours after attacks — when the killers have vanished — then arresting victims, raiding traumatized communities, or accusing them of retaliation.
‘It is undeniable. The complicity of the Nigerian security forces is glaring,’ he says.
He believes powerful actors in Abuja want to reshape Nigeria into an ‘Islamic homogeneous state,’ undermining the country’s constitutional protections for freedom of worship.
Officials in the capital Abuja say all of this is nonsense.
Nigeria’s government flatly denies any religious persecution. It insists violence is driven by banditry, ethnic disputes, climate pressures, and weak policing – not a campaign against Christians.
Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said state-backed religious persecution was ‘impossible’ under Nigerian law.
Presidential spokesman Daniel Bwala dismissed Trump’s threats as ‘coercive,’ ‘misleading,’ and based on ‘outdated claims,’ warning that any US military intervention would require Nigeria’s consent.
Women walk past the remains of their burnt houses after weeks of ethnic violence in Plateau State in February 2024
Afire service station set ablaze by members of the shiite Islamic Movement of Nigeria in Abuja in July 2019
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) records about 53,000 civilian deaths from political violence since 2009 — Christians and Muslims alike
And yes — Nigeria is battling a sprawling security crisis.
Insurgents in the northeast. Bandits in the northwest. Communal clashes in the middle belt. Farmer-herder conflicts stretching from Benue to Kaduna. Victims include Christians and Muslims.
Experts warn blaming everything on ‘Christian genocide’ oversimplifies a complex mix of land disputes, ethnic rivalries, climate pressures and desperate poverty.
But Umeagbalasi is unmoved. Trump’s threats, he says, are long overdue.
He praises the US president for shining a spotlight on Nigeria’s Christians, saying Washington must finally act — not with empty statements, but real penalties.
He wants targeted sanctions. Asset freezes. Visa bans. He says Nigeria’s political elites live for their American bank accounts, European jaunts and British healthcare.
‘Stopping them from touching American soil would hit them where it hurts,’ he says.
He also supports US military strikes – but only ‘surgical hits’ on Boko Haram, ISWAP and Fulani militant camps, guided by intelligence and drones.
He insists this would not violate Nigeria’s sovereignty — but prevent a Rwanda-style catastrophe that could engulf West Africa.
‘If Nigeria explodes, the humanitarian consequences will be too much for America, Europe, or anyone to handle,’ he warns.
Amid this tense debate, Umeagbalasi’s group has been accused of presenting unverified data, and of having ties to Biafran separatists, which it denies.
But he’s not alone. Open Doors International and other Christian groups describe widespread religious bloodshed.
Genocide Watch says the country’s Christians are being ‘exterminated’ and that the government is in ‘denial.’
Women stand next to a burnt car at a mosque in Mangu in February, 2024, following weeks of intercommunal violence in Plateau State
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau holds a weapon in an unknown location in Nigeria
Boko Haram’s violent campaign to establish a Salafi-Islamist state in Nigeria has resulted in a devastating humanitarian crisis
Nigeria’s deep religious divide stretches back decades.
Since returning to civilian rule in 1999, the country has endured waves of extremist violence, economic turmoil and political instability.
Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising launched a brutal insurgency that killed 20,000 and drove more than two million from their homes.
The group’s 2014 kidnapping of 276 Chibok schoolgirls shocked the world. Its later alliance with Islamic State only hardened its savagery.
Today, Nigeria – a nation of 250 ethnic groups and two major religions – is buckling under the weight of overlapping crises.
And in the eye of the storm stand its Christians – terrified, traumatized, and, according to Umeagbalasi, teetering on the edge of extinction.
His message is grim. His warning is blunt. Unless the world wakes up, he says, Nigeria’s Christians could vanish within decades.
Behind the political threats, furious denials and soaring casualty claims, one truth remains: Nigeria is a nation wrestling with immense and tangled security crises.
Christians and Muslims alike are caught in the crossfire, and the world is still struggling to understand where advocacy ends and hard evidence begins.
