…reducing Nigeria’s violence to the persecution of Christians by Muslims is misleading. It ignores the Muslim families who have been slaughtered in Zamfara by bandits. It ignores the Fulani herders who have been killed in reprisal raids in Benue. It ignores the Shi’a Muslims gunned down by soldiers in Zaria. It ignores the many times that Christian and Muslim youths alike have taken to the streets in Kano, Jos, and Kaduna to kill one another, while politicians watched from a safe distance. To pick out one group as the only victim is to miss the fact that all ordinary Nigerians are victims.
In recent weeks, the idea has again surfaced that Christians are being deliberately targeted for extermination in Nigeria. This claim has found its way into international conversations, where it often becomes simplified into the image of Muslims, and specifically the Fulani, waging a holy war against Christian communities. That narrative is not new. It has deep roots in Nigeria’s political history. For decades in the South, there has been a belief that the Fulani are pursuing an agenda to Islamise the country. People still recall the phrase about the Fulani trying to dip the Qur’an into the Atlantic. What is meant by that is that Muslims, led by the Fulani, want to impose their faith from Sokoto to Lagos and from Baga to Badagry.
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This story gathered fresh momentum when Muhammadu Buhari became president. Buhari was Fulani, and his government coincided with the peak of farmer and herder clashes across the Middle Belt. These clashes were bloody. Villages in Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, and Nasarawa suffered repeated attacks. Because farmers were mostly non-Fulani and herders were mostly Fulani, it was easy for many to conclude that these killings were part of a Fulani plan to subjugate Christian populations. The fact that a Fulani man sat in the Presidency completed the conspiracy in the minds of many.
But this is not the whole truth. Nigeria has failed to work for its people, regardless of faith or ethnicity. It has failed Muslims in Borno and Yobe who have been massacred by Boko Haram, just as it has failed Christians in Plateau and Benue who have been attacked by militias. Boko Haram has bombed mosques in Kano and Maiduguri and has also burnt churches in Chibok and Gwoza. When extremists stormed the Government Girls’ Secondary School in Chibok in 2014, most of the students they abducted were Christians. But when extremists attacked mosques in Mubi, Konduga, and Potiskum, hundreds of Muslims were slaughtered while they prayed. If the story is that only Christians are victims, then the thousands of Muslim villagers buried after Boko Haram raids are written out of history.
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The problem is deeper and more corrosive. Nigeria’s political elite has perfected the art of weaponising division to cover up its failures. When a politician is in power, he tells his followers that everything is under control. When he loses power, he returns to his village and tells poor people that government is sponsoring terrorism against them. He encourages them to rise against the state, not because he believes the state is sponsoring terror, but because it gives him a way to mobilise anger and regain influence. Once he finds his way back into office, the same villagers are abandoned again. Their poverty remains and their insecurity persists. The same political elite then goes back to Abuja to dine with those he once accused of genocide.
When international commentators frame Nigeria’s crisis as simply Christians being killed, they fall into the same trap that Nigerian politicians set for their citizens. They make it a story of identity, instead of a story of power. The truth is that whether the president is Christian, like Goodluck Jonathan was, or Muslim like Muhammadu Buhari, the lives of poor Nigerians remain the same. Under Jonathan, Muslim villagers in the North-East were massacred by Boko Haram.
This pattern is not new. In Kaduna, the recurring violence between southern Kaduna communities and Hausa Fulani groups has often been presented as a religious war. But when you examine it closely, you find that politicians have used the divisions to shore up their bases, while failing to deliver security or development to either side. In Jos, cycles of reprisal attacks between Christians and Muslims have claimed lives since the early 1990s. But the political leadership of Plateau at all levels of the state, regardless of whether Christian or Muslim, has rarely invested in opportunities that could reduce tensions. They thrive on keeping the people divided.
That is why reducing Nigeria’s violence to the persecution of Christians by Muslims is misleading. It ignores the Muslim families who have been slaughtered in Zamfara by bandits. It ignores the Fulani herders who have been killed in reprisal raids in Benue. It ignores the Shi’a Muslims gunned down by soldiers in Zaria. It ignores the many times that Christian and Muslim youths alike have taken to the streets in Kano, Jos, and Kaduna to kill one another, while politicians watched from a safe distance. To pick out one group as the only victim is to miss the fact that all ordinary Nigerians are victims.
When international commentators frame Nigeria’s crisis as simply Christians being killed, they fall into the same trap that Nigerian politicians set for their citizens. They make it a story of identity, instead of a story of power. The truth is that whether the president is Christian, like Goodluck Jonathan was, or Muslim like Muhammadu Buhari, the lives of poor Nigerians remain the same. Under Jonathan, Muslim villagers in the North-East were massacred by Boko Haram. Under Buhari, Christian villagers in Plateau and Benue were attacked by militias. The common factor is not religion. It is the inability of the Nigerian state to protect its citizens and the unwillingness of the political class to address the root causes of poverty and insecurity.
It is tempting for outsiders to look at Nigeria’s turmoil and conclude that it is a religious war. But that view misses the point and risks deepening the divide. Christians are being killed, yes, but so are Muslims. The real problem is that Nigeria’s system is broken, and its leaders are exploitative while its citizens are left vulnerable. To frame the crisis as only about Christians ignores the complexity, erases other victims, and lets those who truly bear responsibility off the hook.
It is easier for elites to frame every tragedy as an ethnic or religious war. It is harder to admit that Nigeria’s ruling class has failed to build a functioning system that delivers justice, education, health, and security. They know that once poor people recognise the truth, their grip on power will weaken. So, they keep the myth alive. They keep saying that government is killing your people and that your religion is under threat. They keep saying that your tribe is under attack, while they continue to shortchange those very people.
This is the larger tragedy of Nigeria. It is not that Fulani are plotting to Islamise the South. It is not that Christians are facing extermination in the hands of Muslims. It is that Nigeria’s leaders do not care about either Christians or Muslims. They care about how easily ordinary citizens can be divided and manipulated. The easier it is to convince a farmer in Plateau that his enemy is a Fulani herder, the easier it is to convince a herder in Katsina that his enemy is a Tiv farmer. And while those poor men kill each other, the elite shares the spoils of office in Abuja.
It is tempting for outsiders to look at Nigeria’s turmoil and conclude that it is a religious war. But that view misses the point and risks deepening the divide. Christians are being killed, yes, but so are Muslims. The real problem is that Nigeria’s system is broken, and its leaders are exploitative while its citizens are left vulnerable. To frame the crisis as only about Christians ignores the complexity, erases other victims, and lets those who truly bear responsibility off the hook. Until we stop telling the story as Christians versus Muslims and start telling it as citizens versus failed governance, nothing will change. Nigeria’s tragedy is not a holy war but a betrayal of ordinary people by those who rule them.
Mohammed Dahiru Aminu ([email protected]) wrote from Abuja, Nigeria.
