“Advocacy built on a false factual foundation does not help Nigerian communities; it helps those who profit from division.“
STATEMENT BY THE MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS CENTRE (MPAC) NIGERIA ON THE END-OF-MISSION STATEMENT OF THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION OR BELIEF, PROF. NAZILA GHANEA
“The Truth Has Come, and Falsehood Has Vanished”- Qur’an 17:81
The Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC) Nigeria welcomes the end-of-mission statement by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Professor Nazila Ghanea, following her official country visit to Nigeria (June 8 to June 19, 2026). We receive her findings with a deep sense of vindication- not as a moment of triumphalism, but as an affirmation of what MPAC and allied voices within Nigerian society have consistently maintained over many years of advocacy, research, and public engagement.
*THE FINDINGS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES*
The Special Rapporteur’s statement carries significant weight. Having conducted an independent, evidence-based assessment in-country, Professor Ghanea stated clearly that her mission found no evidence of an intentional state policy aimed at destroying a religious community- the precise legal threshold for genocide under the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In her own words: “Did we see a direct government instruction… with an intentionality of destroying one religious community or another? I did not.”
Equally significant is the Rapporteur’s finding that there is no evidence that mass killings in Nigeria are directed at a particular belief system so as to qualify as religious persecution as a matter of state policy. She further acknowledged what MPAC has long documented and argued: that both Muslims and Christians are among victims of the ongoing violence in Nigeria, and that in certain contexts, Muslims have been the primary targets- a fact routinely obscured in dominant Western media narratives on this crisis. These are not inconsequential findings. They come from a distinguished UN human rights mandate-holder, appointed by the Human Rights Council, conducting her work under the highest standards of international scrutiny. They deserve to be heard, cited, and acted upon.
MPAC has, over many years, sustained a consistent, evidence-led message on Nigeria’s insecurity crisis. Through our iMPACt Reports- including “Dispelling the ‘Christian Genocide’ Narrative in Nigeria” and “The State of Religious Freedom in Nigeria”- as well as through public statements, media engagements, policy submissions, and advocacy at national and international levels (all documented at www.mpac-ng.org), we have challenged what we characterise as a foreign-fuelled misrepresentation of Nigeria’s security challenges. We have argued, and we repeat today, that the drivers of this crisis are multi-dimensional and structural: they include resource competition, climate-induced displacement, the proliferation of small arms, the collapse of state presence in vast swathes of the country, and a longstanding failure of governance- not a theological war between faiths. The reductive framing of this crisis as a systematic, state-directed extermination of Christians has not only been factually dishonest; it has been politically weaponised to serve external agendas, to distort international humanitarian attention, and to inflame communal tensions within Nigeria itself. The Special Rapporteur’s findings validate this position with the authority of the United Nations.
*ON THE LANGUAGE OF “PERSECUTION” AND “GENOCIDE”*
MPAC is not insensitive to the anguish that drives communities to reach for the strongest available language when they suffer violence without remedy. Professor Ghanea herself acknowledged the existence of “pockets where horrendous mass atrocities and international crimes are being experienced”, and she noted with empathy that victims increasingly describe their experiences as “persecution” or “genocide” precisely because of impunity and the absence of justice. We hear that pain. It is real and it is legitimate. However, empathy for suffering must not become a licence for legal and political misrepresentation. The terms “persecution” and “genocide” carry specific, exacting definitions under international law. Their deployment outside those definitions- whether by local activists, foreign governments, or diaspora lobby groups, including break away advocates and proscribed group- does not bring justice closer. It distorts the truth, inflames division, and ultimately disserves the very victims in whose name such claims are made. MPAC has consistently called for accuracy as an act of justice. That position stands.
*THE REAL EMERGENCY: IMPUNITY AND GOVERNANCE FAILURE*
If there is one finding in the Special Rapporteur’s statement that demands the most urgent national attention, it is her identification of impunity and governance failure as the central challenge. Professor Ghanea warned that Nigeria’s inability to prevent violence, investigate crimes, and prosecute perpetrators is generating a dangerous dynamic: it fuels deep mistrust, and it leads communities to perceive the state as complicit- not necessarily because there is a policy of complicity, but because the absence of accountability creates that perception. Nowhere is this failure more starkly- and more painfully- illustrated than in the case of Ummulkhairi, the young Muslim woman who was lynched by a mob in Kaduna. Her killing was not a statistic. It was a name, a life, a family shattered. It was a crime committed in broad daylight, in a country with functioning courts, a constitution that guarantees the right to life, and a government sworn to protect its citizens. And yet, the justice she is owed remains outstanding. Arrests have been made and as Nigerians wait, we hope to see the perpetrators of her murder face the full weight of the law. Her case is a mirror held up to the conscience of the Nigerian state- and what it reflects is a failure of protection. We pray it will not progress into a failure of prosecution, and a failure of the most basic covenant between a government and its people. MPAC demands justice for Ummulkhairi. Her name must not be forgotten. Her case must not be closed without accountability. And the political and religious atmosphere that enabled her killing must be honestly examined and decisively dismantled. MPAC has said this for years, and we say it again with clarity: the primary failure is the Nigerian state’s failure to govern, protect, and deliver justice. This is the emergency.
Every Nigerian- Muslim, Christian, and others- deserves the protection of the state they are taxed to sustain. The abandonment of communities to cycles of violence and impunity is not merely a governance failure; it is a moral failure of the highest order. We call on the Federal Government of Nigeria to treat the Special Rapporteur’s visit not as an opportunity for diplomatic relief, but as a strategic inflection point- a moment to honestly interrogate why the institutional capacity of the Nigerian state to prevent, investigate, and prosecute atrocity crimes remains so catastrophically inadequate, and to act accordingly with strategic seriousness and political will.
*A CALL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY- AND TO AMERICAN EVANGELICAL ORGANISATIONS IN PARTICULAR*
MPAC calls on Nigeria’s international partners- governments, multilateral institutions, faith-based organisations, and media organisations- to recalibrate their engagement with Nigeria’s security crisis in light of the Special Rapporteur’s findings. Advocacy built on a false factual foundation does not help Nigerian communities; it helps those who profit from division. Resources, attention, and solidarity directed at Nigeria must be anchored in evidence, not in narratives manufactured for foreign consumption. We wish to address, with particular directness, American Evangelical Christian organisations that have been prominent in propagating the “Christian genocide” narrative about Nigeria, and whose funding, platforms, and political influence have amplified the most extreme local voices within Nigerian Christianity. MPAC recognises the sincerity of Christian solidarity across borders. We do not question the genuine concern that many in the American Christian community hold for fellow believers around the world. However, sincerity of intent does not absolve an organisation of responsibility for the consequences of its actions. When powerful foreign organisations- with access to the United States Congress, to international media, and to vast financial resources- persistently characterise Nigeria’s complex, multi-causal security crisis as a one-sided religious war against Christians, they do not merely misrepresent the facts. They actively empower the most extreme and least accountable local voices. They provide ideological cover and material encouragement to those who see inter-communal violence not as a tragedy to be resolved but as a war to be won. They make the work of peacemakers- Christian, Muslim, and secular alike- measurably harder. And they place ordinary Nigerians, in communities where Muslims and Christians have lived as neighbours for generations, at greater risk of violence. The case of Ummulkhairi is instructive in this regard. A Muslim woman lynched in Kaduna is not a figure who fits comfortably into the “Christian genocide” narrative- and the near-silence of many advocacy organisations, local and international, on her case is telling. Selective solidarity is not solidarity. It is partisanship. And when it is exercised across international borders, with the weight of foreign political and financial power behind it, it becomes a form of interference that endangers the very community cohesion and peaceful coexistence that Nigerians- of all faiths- have struggled across centuries to build and preserve.
MPAC therefore calls on American Evangelical organisations, explicitly and unambiguously, to cease the incitement of extreme local Christian voices in Nigeria. We call on them to stop funding, platforming, or amplifying narratives and actors whose effect- whatever the intention- is to radicalise domestic discourse, deepen inter-communal suspicion, and push Nigeria toward the precipice of the religious conflict they claim to oppose. We call on them instead to support Nigerian-led peacebuilding initiatives, to engage with the full complexity of the crisis as documented by credible Nigerian and international researchers, and to listen to the Nigerian voices- Christian and Muslim- who are working every day to hold this country together. Nigeria does not need external actors to fight proxy religious wars on its soil. It needs partners who respect its sovereignty, its diversity, and the intelligence of its people.
It is our sincere hope that the full report of the Special Rapporteur, when submitted to the Human Rights Council, will bring further international clarity to the true nature of Nigeria’s insecurity crisis, and that it will generate the kind of diplomatic and institutional pressure that nudges our government toward addressing this emergency with the strategic engagement, political leadership, and institutional reform it demands. We hold firmly to the conviction- rooted in our Islamic values of justice, mercy, and human dignity, and in our commitment to Nigerian pluralism- that this country’s future lies not in the narratives of those who wish to divide us, but in the collective courage of those who refuse to let it be divided. MPAC will continue to stand on that side of history. MPAC will continue to track developments, engage stakeholders, and advocate for a Nigeria where the rights, dignity, and security of every citizen- Muslim and non-Muslim alike- are protected, upheld, and defended under the rule of law.
Disu Kamor
Executive Chairman, Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC) Nigeria
kamor.disu@mpac-ng.org
www.mpac-ng.org | @mpacng
27 June 2026
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MPAC Nigeria is an incorporated public service agency working for Muslim empowerment and the promotion of civil, religious, and political rights within the framework of Nigerian pluralism.