At the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Vice President Kashim Shettima affirmed Nigeria’s solidarity with the people of Palestine, who for the past 23 months endured a genocidal campaign of sustained bombings and ground invasions of the forces of the state of Israel. During the same trip, the Nigerian delegation voted in favor of the New York Declaration which advocated concrete steps towards the implementation of the two-state solution as a peaceful settlement to the Palestine question.

Nigeria’s position on the decades-old campaign of terror visited on the people of Palestine by Israel and its Western backers has been consistent since it first recognized Palestinian statehood in 1988. In 2009, Nigeria served in a key role leading to the establishment of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on Gaza, which became known as the Goldstone Commission. The council was headed by Dr. Martin Uhioibhi who at the time was Nigeria’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva. In 2012, Nigeria voted in favor when the General Assembly granted Palestine non-member observer state status (A/RES/67/19 -Resolution adopted 138-9-41). In 2017, in the “Status of Jerusalem” emergency session (A/RES/ES-10/19, 21 Dec 2017), Nigeria voted in favor of the General Assembly resolution declaring the US and Donald Trump’s unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “null and void.”

As usual, local reactions diverged about Mr. Shettima’s address at the General Assembly with conscientious Nigerians warmly welcoming the country’s diplomatic posture on the international stage despite its domestic challenges. After all, Mr. Shettima did not mince words when he admitted that Nigeria has had “a long and difficult struggle with violent extremism” and a culture of insurgency. His critics also had their piece, highlighting that Mr. Shettima’s comment on the international scene does not adequately reflect the truth of his government under which citizens endure an unrelenting campaign of terror that leaves vulnerable groups including minority ethnic groups and Christian communities particularly exposed while the wider populace cowers under a pall of insecurity.

But closely trailing local reactions was a carefully engineered wave of falsified international outrage on claims of a systematic killing of Christians amounting to a genocide in Nigeria. Various far-right opinion shapers on social media including Christo-Zionist Eyal Yakoby, pivoted into claims of a Christian genocide in Nigeria, pushing this narrative with the same fervor with which far-right groups have recurrently wheeled out the similarly trumped-up narrative of “white genocide” in South Africa. Other voices, including Zionist US Senator Ted Cruz have sponsored this narrative. It has been retweeted by thousands of X users, 100,000 and more bots, and ranked high in views by the X algorithm. In a similar negative light, talk show host Bill Maher has lent his voice to Israel’s propaganda goals, reiterating lurid claims—since debunked by leading newspapers—of rapes, beheadings, and babies burned alive on October 7. Maher insists he has “seen the videos,” but like every other promoter of this narrative, he has provided no shred of evidence—because it is a lie.

In addition to their newly found affection for the suffering Christians in Nigeria, a curious commonality between these commentators, however, is their unalloyed loyalty to Israel. The cynicism of these actors is barely concealed. The point is evidently to co-opt and misrepresent conversations and incidents happening in other countries as mere tools of furthering their own strategic information and propaganda goals.

This is not to deny heart-wrenching violence that continues to shape daily existence in parts of Nigeria. News agencies continue to report devastating attacks against several communities, Christian and Muslim, with little or no attention by both state and non-state authority figures within and beyond Nigeria. Even Christian religious leaders such as Pastor Enoch Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and his peers have come under fire for persistent neglect of the plight of Christians who face killings and displacement in their communities while they hobnob with politicians whose abysmal incompetence and dereliction of duty is directly responsible for the mishaps the parishioners face. This “call-out” is somewhat reflective of the loose grip of the state on its critical responsibilities to the citizenry in Nigeria, leaving them to depend on religion-based, or communally formed power structures or strongmen in the representation of their interests and guarantee of basic dignity of life and security. This features in our social conversation from time to time and should not be confused with a growing number of Christian movements resisting a systematic “genocide” of its adherents.

Several insurgent groups in Nigeria have hidden under Islam to perpetuate their extremist and violent ideologies, and because of their religious façade, individuals and local institutions have viewed their actions from the prism of religion, oftentimes divisively referring to their chosen violence as inherent in Muslims. No doubt, there is a religious coloration to the activities of these insurgent groups, but their agitations are frequently political or criminal. Their nefarious actions are usually directed at affecting or subverting the political and economic order of their victim nations or of profiting from kidnapping, gunrunning, and extortion.

The attempt to use religion as the primary determining factor in Nigeria’s security crises falls flat given that Muslims in Nigeria are not immune bystanders to the country’s spiraling insecurity but are themselves frequent, often brutal victims of the same violence and grim cycle of bloodshed that is portrayed elsewhere as only targeting Christian communities. And fairly, many Nigerians understand that perpetrators and victims of Nigeria’s security crises are represented across all ethnic groups and religions. For instance, on August 11, 2025, St. Paul’s Parish, Aye-Twar in Katsina-Ala County (Sankera Axis, Benue State) was attacked by Fulani militias. The church building was burned down, along with virtually every house of worship in that area. Homes and outbuildings were also torched with dozens left dead and scores left with critical injuries. In a separate incident on August 19, 2025, gunmen attacked a mosque in Unguwan Mantau village, Malumfashi LGA, Katsina State, during fajr (dawn) prayers. According to government sources, at least 17 worshippers were killed, but local sources put the number closer to 27, and some reports say the toll may be as high as 50. Homes were set on fire, and many people were displaced or abducted.

In Makurdi Diocese, Benue State, earlier in June, more than 50 people were killed and 15 Catholic parishes were forced to shut down within a single month due to armed herdsmen attacks. In July, militants believed to be members of the Lakurawa group (affiliated with IS Sahel Province) raided Kwallajiya village in Tangaza LGA, Sokoto State. Many residents were at or near prayer time or working in their farms. Over two dozen Muslim faithful were butchered and scores left with injuries. Mosques, homes, and farmland were burnt and destroyed.

Crucially, Christians at times become the chosen target in particular assaults. Churches have been attacked during worship, priests abducted, and entire Christian villages razed in Plateau, Benue, and Southern Kaduna. These episodes are not separate from the general crisis but are rather moments when Christian identity is weaponized to mark a community for terror. In this sense, Christians bear both the general weight of insecurity shared by all Nigerians and the sharper trauma of faith-based targeting in certain attacks. Acknowledging this reality neither erases Muslim suffering nor feeds the false “genocide” narrative pushed abroad; rather, it grounds the discussion in the complexity of how violence unfolds across Nigeria’s fractured landscape.

Due to insurgency, once growing agriculture-based economies of Muslim-majority Northern states have plummeted, gains made in education and poverty eradication have been reversed in these states, and the human toll of the crises by sheer virtue of population density automatically places Muslims at the heaviest receiving end. Even more, consider the context of the cold-blooded murder and targeted assassinations of dozens of notable Muslim clerics in the north who voiced out opposition against militancy, state neglect, and deplorable political and economic conditions which allowed insurgency to thrive. Some of them were killed alongside their families.

This is a common theme in areas ravaged by armed groups, where the first victims are those who have religion or ethnic groups in common with militants. They are killed because their supposed co-religionists who embrace violence perceive them to be infidels or not noble enough to commit themselves to the same ideals and methods in which they believe. Think of the bombings of several Jewish heritage sites across the Middle East that preceded the founding of the State of Israel. Records show they were carried out by terroristic Jewish gangs who sought to instil fear in Jewish communities across the region and sow discord between the Jewish communities and their neighbors to the purpose of forcing them to abandon their roots in several Middle Eastern states and relocate to Israel in furtherance of its economic and geopolitical goals. Several of these armed groups, with a sordid record of crime up their sleeves, went on to form what is now called the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).

The most consequential news out of the United Nations 80th General Assembly during the week was perhaps the recognition of the statehood of Palestine by the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, and Portugal. This is a significant break by allies of the United States and Israel, most of who remain complicit in the ongoing genocide, but can no longer stomach the murderous solipsism, criminality, and inhumanity of Israel; the depravity of its leaders and sheer sadism and profound evil-mindedness of its forces in the ongoing starvation of Palestinians. Following this historic step, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra, and San Marino are also due to announce their recognition and support for Palestinian statehood. In addition to this, France held a side event with Saudi Arabia during the session called the Two-State Summit in furtherance of collective actions to achieve cessation of hostilities and realize a path to Palestinian statehood. This historic feat was achieved despite immense pressure from Israel and the United States. It is on the backdrop of this international defeat suffered by Israel that its social media assets are turning a frantic focus on an imaginary genocide which itself comes after several failed Israeli attempts at co-opting the diplomatic and public opinion support of Nigeria and Nigerians.

Israeli lobby groups are operating in Nigeria, some under the cover of the strength of the diplomatic relationship between Nigeria and the US. These groups include one led by US citizen Jack Barcroft, who was paid $20,000 to lobby US congressmembers to rope Nigeria into the Israel–US Abraham Accords. This would mark a shift of Nigeria’s status from an independent international actor and a notable member of the Non-Aligned bloc to a part of US–Israeli vassals who follow the dictates of the empire without recourse to their own domestic public opinion, international obligations, or conscience. This would also directly undercut Nigeria’s foreign policy commitments, which includes the realization of Palestinian statehood. In addition to this, other recent developments, including a meeting between Nigerian minister of state of foreign affairs and Israeli visiting deputy minister of foreign affairs, where pledges were made to advance cooperation in counterterrorism, innovation, and technology—the very sectors Israeli contractors use to tighten their grip—might imply that there is an attempt to convert Nigeria from an independent actor into a satellite of 200 million people on whose behalf their government actively support genocide, exploiting insecurity that Western and Israeli policies helped create.

Pro-Israel commentators who are suddenly interested in a Christian genocide in Nigeria, despite trying to whip up their language and rile up the unsuspecting public, shot themselves in the leg by often ending their comments by asking, “Why are people not talking about it?” This only reinforced that the context of the ongoing conversation was the global indignation against Israel. In its assault on Gaza according to a Havard study, Israel has disappeared nearly 400,000 people, more than half children. A Lancet report published in January puts the number of direct casualties from Israeli bombardments at more than 80,000, majority children. Reports and testimonies have consistently documented grave violatioof international law ns by Israeli forces, ranging from the deliberate targeting of children, indiscriminate bombings of families, and the looting of Palestinian property, to acts of mockery and dehumanization against the population. These patterns, sustained over decades, have been shielded by a sophisticated propaganda apparatus designed to mislead the world, cultivate sympathy, and sustain Israel’s image as resembling anything decent. That façade, however, is rapidly collapsing. The result is that global attention is now increasingly fixed on Israel’s atrocities, and a broadening international consensus is beginning to take shape. The world is terrified of having to live with a state that solely relies on arbitrary power and violence and the destruction of norms, ethics and rules uninhibited by legal guarantees and so countries are retreating in their blanket support for Israel.

This is why for the audience it can control, Israel is consolidating and rebuilding its propaganda apparatus as seen in the new regime of censorship in the United States and the forced takeover of TikTok by Zionist surveillance tech expert Larry Ellison. For those of us on the other end of the world, Israel and the US must reach into their global playbook of forging and maintaining selective partnerships across Nigeria’s internal divides: along regional, religious and ethnic lines, with far-reaching implications on the country’s unity, independence and sovereignty. They are looking to leverage divisions for influence and so they embed themselves in domestic fault lines where they are positioned to aggravate tensions as a distraction for their international crimes.

The goal is naive but simple: If the official line is that “Muslims are inherently violent, Christians are endangered everywhere,” Israel’s war on Gaza would be justified. If enough sentiments are whipped up against Muslims in Nigeria, it sets the pretext for coordinating hate towards the Palestinian population and their armed resistance groups, whom Israel and the United States think the rest of the world considers “Islamic terrorists.” This is an obscene distortion of reality, a trademarked strategy which commentators in Nigeria must understand in order not to fall prey. The thousands of lives lost to the crises across our communities here and the pain of grieving families and communities are worth nothing more than prop for Israel and the United States. A cover topic, a distraction, a redirection of culpability in crimes, an obfuscation and strategic deflection. Something to misrepresent and give the world to talk about instead of allowing Israel to face accountability for its crimes.

I agree that while talking about the genocide of Palestinians, we must talk about the killings in Nigeria and across the Sahel, the genocide in Sudan, the massacres in Congo and parts of Mozambique. The common thread binding these theatres of violence is that their destinies are ensnared within the web of global imperialist interests. The actors of destruction in these regions are either directly armed and sustained by Western powers and their allies, or they emerge as the predictable offshoots of a calculated destabilization of states whose leaders dared to step out of lines drawn to protect imperialist interests. Leaders who are indifferent and incompetent are propped up in these regions as “partners” as they will never be able to address the structural and socioeconomic conditions that set the stage for the crisis. The very instruments of suppression, surveillance, and organized violence deployed against the people of Gaza are repurposed and handed to these client regimes to suffocate dissent and crush oppositional political movements. And under the guise of “security cooperation,” there is a wholesale transfer of kinetic tactics, basically extensions of Israeli and US military and police doctrine which is weaponized to perpetuate control, apartheid, and violence rather than safeguard lives.

Truly, to speak of violence in one part of the world without the others is to miss the structural linkages that bind them: the imperial calculus that considers the starvation and death of thousands of children in Gaza a battle tactic, that arms puppet regimes in the Middle East and tyrants in Africa. The peoples of the world speak of Gaza, of Sudan, of the Sahel, of all places in the world where human suffering and violence persists. A genuine pursuit of justice must confront proximate perpetrators as well as the transnational systems of power that sustain them. What we must not allow is for the global perpetrators of criminality and terror to tell the world where to focus its attention.