A report by The New York Times has revealed that the United States military action in Nigeria last December was significantly influenced by the unverified research of Emeka Umeagbalasi, a screwdriver trader and activist based in Onitsha.
The U.S. launched airstrikes against ISIS targets in Nigeria’s Sokoto state on December 26, following escalating rhetoric from former President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers about a “Christian genocide” in the country.
According to The New York Times, key U.S. lawmakers promoting this narrative relied heavily on data compiled by Umeagbalasi, the founder of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety). The newspaper reported that he is “an unlikely source of research that U.S. Republican lawmakers have used to promote the misleading idea that Christians are being singled out for slaughter.”
Umeagbalasi, who runs his NGO from his home with his wife, claimed to have documented 125,000 Christian deaths since 2009. However, The New York Times investigation found his methodology deeply flawed.
He told the paper he rarely verifies his data, relying instead on Google searches, Nigerian media reports, and claims from other advocacy groups.
Crucially, he admitted to frequently assuming the religion of attack victims based on location. “If a mass abduction or killing happens in an area where he thinks many Christians live, he assumes the victims are Christians,” the report stated. When asked by The Sun newspaper about his data sources, he cited “location and space of an incident” and described it as “one of the oldest natural methods in the world.”
His claims, including that 20,000 of Nigeria’s 100,000 churches had been destroyed—a figure he said came from Google—were repeatedly cited by U.S. politicians. The New York Times named lawmakers Riley Moore, Ted Cruz, and Chris Smith as those who “have all cited his work.”
This activism helped create the political backdrop for military action. After designating Nigeria a “country of particular concern” in October and threatening an invasion, the Trump administration proceeded with airstrikes, which it said were conducted “at the request of Nigerian authorities.”
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