How Onitsha screwdriver seller influenced Trump’s claims on Christian genocide in Nigeria – Report

The United States relied on information and reports from Emeka Umeagbalasi, a screwdriver trader in Onitsha, Anambra state, to launch air strikes in Nigeria, according to a report by the New York Times.

Recall that in October, US President Donald Trump redesignated Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” in response to allegations of a Christian genocide in the country.

“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed,” Trump said, blaming radical Islamists for the “mass slaughter”.

A month later, he threatened that the US Department of War would invade Nigeria “guns-a-blazing”, to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists if the Nigerian government did nothing to curtail the alleged genocide.

On December 26, the US launched air strikes on ISIS terrorists in north-western Sokoto state “at the request of Nigerian authorities”.

According to the report, Umeagbalasi, founder of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, otherwise called Intersociety, 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” in Nigeria.

Umeagbalasi, alongside his wife, run the non-governmental organisation from his home.

The report said US lawmakers Riley Moore and Ted Cruz, whom Trump had asked to probe the Christian genocide claims in Nigeria, alongside congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, “have all cited his work”.

Umeagbalasi was quoted as saying he has documented 125,000 Christian deaths in Nigeria since 2009, based on research from Google searches, Nigerian media reports, secondary sources, and advocacy groups like Open Doors, a Christian organisation whose data Trump has cited.

He told the New York Times that he rarely verifies his data. He also acknowledged that he seldom travels to the regions where attacks have occurred and usually assumes the victims’ religion based on the location of the attack.

“If a mass abduction or killing happens in an area where he thinks many Christians live, he assumes the victims are Christians,” the report reads.

In an interview with The Sun, Umeagbalasi, when asked about the source of his data, pointed to “location and space of an incident or crime scene” and described his methodology as “one of the oldest natural methods in the world”.

The salesman said he has degrees in security studies, peace and conflict resolution from the National Open University of Nigeria, and described himself as a very “powerful” and “knowledgeable” investigator.

A self-acclaimed criminologist, Umeagbalasi is described as an expert in the report, where he claimed there is a “strategy to annihilate all Christians and Islamize Nigeria”.

He claimed 100,000 churches exist in Nigeria and about 20,000 of them were destroyed in the past 16 years. Asked about the source of his data, he simply said “I Googled it”.

Relying on information provided by three congressmen — who have repeatedly referenced Umeagbalasi’s data — Trump launched a volley of strikes in Nigeria during the yuletide.

Again, in January, in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times, Trump was asked whether the Christmas Day strikes in Nigeria’s northern Sokoto state, targeting Islamist militants, were part of a broader military campaign.

“I’d love to make it a one-time strike. But if they continue to kill Christians it will be a many-time strike,” he said.

Nigeria’s government has rejected Trump’s earlier accusations that it is failing to protect Christians from jihadist attacks, saying that “Muslims, Christians and those of no faith alike” are targeted.

Claims of a genocide against Nigeria’s Christians began circulating last year in some right-wing US circles – but organisations monitoring political violence in Nigeria say most victims of the jihadist groups are Muslims.

When questioned about this in the interview published on Thursday, Trump replied: “I think that Muslims are being killed also in Nigeria. But it’s mostly Christians.”

Nigeria’s population of more than 230 million people is roughly evenly divided among Christians, who predominate in the south, and Muslims, who are mostly in the north.

If a screwdriver trader’s research can influence air strikes, what does that say about how we verify the truth, and do we separate real facts from propaganda in the fight against insecurity in Nigeria?

COURTESY: intelregion.com