Christian Genocide: A Glance at Amupitan’s Legal Brief
By Aliyu U. Tilde
We will write herein facts that even Professor J. O. Amupitan, the current INEC Chairman, will find it difficult to deny. It regards the “Legal Brief” he wrote in 2020 recommending foreign intervention in Nigeria. I owe him the respect of a student and a consideration for his standing as a legal luminary. Follow me on this long trip.
1. Context
We are judging Prof in retrospect, on something he wrote 5 years ago in his limited capacity as a university lecturer in my alma mater, UNIJOS. He may have shifted his position on some issues since then. His current position as INEC chairman will now expose him to the challenge and experience of fairness and inclusion which the environment of Jos could not afford him. Today, if asked to write on Christian genocide in Nigeria, I believe he would sound radically different.
We are engaging him, nonetheless, on this past record for the benefit of its future readers. It will also help us understand the arguments used to convince President Trump to enlist Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern in 2020 when the Legal Brief was written.
2. Audience
It is important also to note that he did not write the legal brief for the general public, an academic press or a client before a court of law. It was the main body of a document titled Nigeria’s Silent Slaughter: Genocide in Nigeria and Implications for the International Community which is “authored, published and distributed by Washington-based International Committee on Nigeria (ICON) and International Organization for Peace-building and Social Justice.”
Principally, they are among the organizations that pressured American authorities to sanction Nigeria in 2020. The first item in the Foreword of the publication was a letter to Michael Pompeo, the then US Secretary of State under Trump I, written by former Congressman, Frank R. Wolf.
Giving this highlight is important in understanding why, unlike other professional, academic and journalistic documents, Nigeria’s Silent Slaughter is limited in scholastic latitude. It speaks only about Christians, to Christians and for the purpose of Christians. When thrown into public arena, as Sahara Reporters has done now, its bias will attract the reproach of many.
3. Unprofessional Language
Prof has in many places used words that are unbecoming of an academic or legal luminary in a number of instances as foundations of his argument. Speaking about the demographic superiority of Muslims in the North, he said:
“…while the Hausa/Fulani people are predominantly Muslims and are said to be in the majority” without any reference in the end. “Are said” here entertains doubt in the fact he mentioned. Well, thank God, Prof is INEC Chairman today; the voters’ register and elections result records will teach him the hard truth. Other unbecoming phrases include “it was taken for granted”, “it is believed”, “it is a notorious fact”, “Christians generally believe…”.
A layman can be forgiven if he uses such terms. But, with due respect, they must not be the diction of a Senior Advocate.
4. Spurious and Tendentious Claims:
The “Legal Brief” is loaded with baggage of spurious and tendentious claims that are not supported by statistics, historical records or judicial pronouncements. For example, he said:
— “Fulani people only joined Nigeria in the 19th Century through trade, jihad and conquest”,
— “major tribes in Nigeria - Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo”,
— the British “handed over a polity fraught with dishonest census figures, political gerrymandering and favouritism in the appointment into the public service in favour of the Northern Region, as a reward for the northerners’ loyalty to the colonial administration”,
— “…with the distorted systemic structure in favour of the Hausa/Fulani, it is possible to revisit the 1804 agenda while the other ethnic groups believe that constitutionalism has brought into existence a true federation based on equity, fairness and justice.”
—“The drive for Islamisation of Nigeria through the jihad of 1804… has now manifested as the Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’ wah wa’l-Jihad commonly called Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen’s attacks and even the Sharia controversy.”
I have listed 49 such unsubstantiated statements and appended them at the bottom of this article. If anyone wants to hang Prof academically, Prof has handed him is enough rope to do so. The statements are not only inaccurate but, taken together, paint the Hausa/Fulani in a very poor light. The brief repeatedly vilifies them at many points using such unfounded claims. But it is not our intention here to hang him. I will advise Prof to check them and make corrections in future.
5. False Premise
Certain claims he made appear to be inaccurate or misleading. Consider this:
Speaking of atrocities of Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen, he said: “The victims of the crises are mainly the Christian population and the minority ethnic groups in Nigeria.”
Haba! This is a misstatement that even a Christian boy on TikTok disproved yesterday: He said, “I will speak the truth. I am from Borno. If 10 people are killed by Boko Haram, 9 will be found Muslims.”
But fairness and truth are not the language of even the most highly placed clerics if they are promoting a sectarian agenda. A similar misrepresentation was also made by the Anglican Bishop of Jos, Benjamin-Aghak Kwashe in his contribution to the Foreword. He said:
“It is a common development and an everyday occurrence across Nigeria to kill Christians, meanwhile offenders are not being prosecuted and the leaders are unresponsive…We recognize that Christians are taking the brunt of the persecution but even Muslims in the northwest and in some parts of the northeast have been killed.”
If the argument of Christian genocide in Nigeria is premised on such bareface fabrication—that majority of those killed by Boko Haram and bandits are Christians, and it is going on every day, and that the authorities did nothing about it or prosecuted nobody—then the conclusion that a foreign intervention is necessary is baseless. It is so painful to see highly placed individuals in the society promoting such a deeply misleading narrative against the people and government of their country before foreigners like this.
Last week, the Federal Government revealed that it has convicted over 730 people on charges of terrorism. And if the government had indeed done nothing, as claimed throughout the document, would not the entire Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States been under its singular dream caliphate? Who fought Boko Haram back into the forest of Sambisa and the hills of Gwoza after it was set to take over Yola in 2014? Who killed Muhammad Yusuf, Shekau and so many of their followers? Who killed hundreds of bandits and their leaders in the northwest?
And if Christians are killed daily as the bishop said, how many were killed in the past two days—11th and 12th November—and where? In fact, peruse the papers of the last week, where is a single report indicating the killing of a Christian in Nigeria by Boko Haram or bandits other than in the imagination of these sectarian leaders?
It is into this baseless pit that the Christian Right in America and the Anglican Church in England fell and which, fortunately, the Vatican resisted many times.
6. Extrapolation
Prof hardly backed his assertions with the requisite data befitting his intellectual station, even when data on most ethno-religious incidents in the North can easily be drawn from credible sources on the Internet. And he is quick to extrapolate from a mention of just one person to cover entire Christians in the North. An example is his accusation that
“Underage girls are abducted, hypnotized and forced to convert to Islam and also forced into marriage, as exemplified by the case of Ese Rita Oruru, a 13-year old Christian girl who was abducted on 12th August, 2015,by Yunusa Dahiru…where she was raped, impregnated and forced to convert to Islam and marry her abductor without her parents’ consent.” This was a girl, if we remember, who voluntarily fell in love with a muslim boy and followed him to the North.
From this single case, he said, “There are more of such cases unnoticed and such minors were forced to deny their faith and married their abductors without any hope of seeing their parents again.”
Prof and his evangelical co-travelers are lucky to be living amidst a very docile Muslim population. The Muslims can show many camps where muslim children are kept by Christian clerics and organizations.
—In 2015 or so, I visited one orphanage operated by a Christian woman from Jalingo who camped many children victims of Boko Haram from Borno State in a building just after the checkpoint before Miango in Plateau State. She refused me contact with the children.
—the reporter scandal involving the abduction of 21 Muslim children and detention by the ECWA church in Jos until rescued by the DSS in 2022?
— the report of Christian police woman caught with several children she abducted from Sokoto at Abuja motor park on 14/5/2024?
—the reported police case of 9 muslim children that were kidnapped from Kano and sold in Anambra who were reunited with their parents on 12/10/2019?
—the report of Plateau pastor Dayo Bernard’s child-trafficking syndicate and ACHAD sect (2024–25) by HumAngle Media
— the report of NAPTIP’s 2025 rescue of Kano children in Delta orphanage by Vanguard & Guardian (Nigeria)
—This is not to mention several cases of the systemic North-South child trafficking for domestic work and exploitation as contained in the reports of NBS, UNICEF, ILO, TIP, etc. I can provide Prof with a long list, any day.
Also, the data of gender based violence against Christian women perpetrated by “Fulani militants and Boko Haram” in Nigeria’s Silent Slaughter was only a list of seven women, none of whom was reported killed but taken to the bush for days, denied food, caned or asked to carry out arms for the bandits, according to the publication. Imagine! How does this compare to the enslavement of Muslim women in Yelwan Shendam, their massacre at the turn of every religious conflict for the past 35 years by Christian militia in Northern Nigeria? Does Prof need a list?
Then came the singular mention of Leah Sharibu’s case, the only girl not released among the abductees of GGSS Dapchi. She was used by Prof to prove how Christians are forced to convert to Islam by Boko Haram. How many filled the gap between her and the purported many? No statistics was given by Prof or in the publication.
7. Admission and Concealment
There have been areas in the “Legal Brief” where Prof was forced to admit, albeit reluctantly, Muslim victims in attacks by Boko Haram and bandits or communal clashes in the North without conceding that they are the majority:
— “Boko Haram, therefore, targets Christians, other non-Muslims and even Muslims opposed to their ideologies of Salafi-Jihad”,
— “Attacks and reprisals have been launched by both Christian and Muslim groups in different parts of Plateau State”,
—“Then attacks and clashes occur with mutual casualties. Either or both sides accuse each other of genocide and crimes against humanity. Government looks the other way. Hence, the violence keeps revolving.”
—“The pattern of violence in Nigeria is such that anytime there is an attack against an ethnic or religious group in one part of the country, members of the ethnic or religious group in another part or other parts of the country will react by carrying out retaliatory attacks.”
One would expect that faced by this reality which he acknowledged, Prof will take the professional lane of advocating for both Muslim and Christian victims and give the balanced data that indicates the share of each side in those attacks. He should also have been bold to mention the atrocities of Christian attackers, including not less than 10 horrendous occasions, that would flatly qualify as war crimes according to the standards he mentioned, some of whom, as in the case of Zamani Lekwot, were even sentenced to death by the Courts.
Also, while speaking about genocide, he has forgotten to mention the cleansing of large Christian dominated areas of Muslims, over forty settlements in Plateau State alone as at 2012, each following heinous massacres of Muslim inhabitants. Today, it is difficult to come across a Muslim—except for herdsmen— in the Plateau State segment of the Jos-Abuja highway from Mararraban Jama’a outside Jos to the Forest border with Kaduna State. People that did this are the same ones crying genocide!
8. Data
Prof’s lack of data aside, I am more disappointed with the data included in the publication—Nigeria’s Silent Slaughter that included his Legal Brief. Most of it is irrelevant as it does not prove a genocide against Christians.
Consider the data given on “Incidents of Atrocities in Nigeria (December 1, 2019 through March 1, 2020)” that included all kinds of violence, most of them simple civil matters between two Nigerians across the 36 states of the federation and Abuja given in 21 pages (pp 216-235). This is non-probative. Does such ordinary crime data prove any genocide of Christians in Nigeria?
So also is the data titled “Taraba State Deaths: Victims 2015-2019 - Office of the Secretary to the State Government of Taraba” (pp 238-248) that lists registered deaths from all kinds of conflicts including both Christians and Muslims names. How does it prove Christian genocide in Nigeria? Then it did not include all the 726 Muslim Fulani herders massacred in one incident in 2017-2018 by Christian militia and Mambila tribesmen, which is described as genocide by impartial mikitary officials. In the eyes of Christian led Taraba State Government, such amount of deaths did not happen.
The publication also includes data of people killed from Adara and Agatu, Irigwe etc, but it does not contain the corresponding hundreds of Muslims and herdsmen killed by Christians in those conflicts.
As for the maps that appeared later in the publication, nothing shows the number of Christian victims in isolation of Muslim victims. From the areas covered, an objective mind can easily discern that more Muslims than Christians are victims of terrorism and communal conflicts in the North.
The data was obviously presented with a bias, just concentrating on “Boko Haram and Fulani Militants”. Here is a confession made when introducing the data:
“Our main focus is to demonstrate twenty years of genocide in Nigeria. from the period January 1, 2000 to January 31, 2020. We recognized that there are several components and perpetrators, but we concentrated on two main ACTOR codes: • Boko Haram / ISIS / ISIL / Islamic State / ISWAP / Al-Queda (and) Fulani / Herder / Militant Extremists.”
Thus, the ethnic militia that have perpetrated mass killings against Muslims in Christian dominated areas were not a target of the data. And neither did the data separate Muslims from Christians. So how can it be used to prove genocide?
In some instances, the perpetrators are classified just as Fulani, without even qualifying them as militants or bandits or whether they are acting in self defence or reprisal. So the whole Fulani as a tribe are guilty. What a data!
9. Recommendations
In the closing section of the Legal Brief, Prof outlined 9 recommendations which give us a resounding proof of what he actually said in 2020:
—“set up an independent, neutral and impartial international commission of inquiry to investigate the causes of recurrent crimes under international law in Nigeria; identify perpetrators and make appropriate recommendations for immediate action pursuant to Articles 33 and 39 of the Charter of the UN”;
—“impose sanctions on State and non-State actors responsible for the series of serious crimes in Nigeria, which have led to mental agony and colossal losses of lives and properties…”;
—“set up a UN-backed tribunal in Nigeria to try perpetrators of the crimes as was the case in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra-Leone…”;
—“the UN Security Council can be pressured by the major powers to refer the case of Nigeria by virtue of its referral powers under Article 13 of the Rome Statute to the ICC”;
— “the UN Security Council passing a Resolution, making call for jihad in any part of the world a barbaric act and a breach of the Charter of the UN which would result into enforcement action under Chapter VII of the Charter, and would also constitute an inchoate act of genocide under the Genocide Convention for the purpose of the OTP's investigation and prosecution”;
—“mobilize local and foreign non-governmental organizations to put pressure on Nigeria to act in compliance with its international obligations”;
—“Contracting Parties to the Genocide Convention should sue Nigeria at the International Court of Justice for failing to comply with its obligations to prevent genocide and to punish perpetrators in the country in line with Articles 8 and 9 of the Genocide Convention”;
— “military action by the UN, African Union and ECOWAS forces may be taken as a last resort: Article 42 of the Charter of the UN”;
—“once the perpetrators of heinous crimes in Nigeria are identified, other States should apprehend them if they are in their territories and prosecute them (sic) universal jurisdiction.”
To claim that Prof has called for military action against Nigeria is not correct. As a lawyer he laid out the procedure and recommended military action only as a last resort.
So how has Donald Trump promoted it to a first or second resort? Prof has listed a number of steps beginning with investigation, prosecution, judicial pronouncement that there indeed war crimes and genocide have taken place, then enforcement, before military action—“as a last resort”.
I think President Tinubu should dispatch Prof to Washington to help educate Trump that his threat to militarily intervene in Nigeria is a violation of International Law. Or he can ask him to write a new Legal Brief for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to that effect.
What I only find surprising is how Prof himself jumped the gun and concluded that genocide is taking place in Nigeria without waiting for any of the official investigation and judicial pronouncement he recommended. On this charge, I find him guilty of haste.
10. INEC Chair
After the revelation of Nigeria’s Silent Slaughter and his contribution therein, many people have questioned the moral standing of Professor Amupitan to chair our Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, given that it is a position that requires the fairness of a magistrate. Unless he has learnt his lessons, the Legal Brief, if tendered for magisterial examination even in Unijos, would be returned with a poor grade by any impartial examiner. In it, there is more than sufficient material for critics to argue that Prof displays a sectarian bias that borders, in their view, on hate for a section of the Nigerian population.
Ordinarily, in many climes, he woukd have reconsidered his position after this revelation. The president too would have revisited his appointment. But…”kai, Najeriya ce fa”, as Danbello would say.
Conclusion
From the reaction of many Nigerians to his legal brief, I pray that Prof has learnt his lesson. He is now in a position where he must embrace all Nigerians, including those he sufficiently demonized in the brief. INEC headquarters is not an ecclesiastical building. It is not CAN headquarters. It is also neither the office of an academic in Jos nor the chamber of a legal practitioner waiting for recruitment by a client. It is a station for justice to all Nigerians. I know that this challenges his orientation and background but it is one which the nation hopes he will overcome during his tenure.
Meanwhile, he must—ironically—join other officials in telling his American partners directly or through writing a new brief that there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria. If Tinubu would perchance hear pim from him crying genocide again, he is on his own. Tam!
12 November 2025
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LIST OF SPURIOUS STATEMENTS
Below are 49 statements from Prof. Amupitan’s legal brief (as published in Nigeria’s Silent Slaughter report) that appear wild, exaggerated, or unsupported by credible evidence.
1. It is a notorious fact that there is perpetration of crimes under international law in Nigeria, particularly crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. (p. 36)
2. One word that the Nigerian authorities and international investigators and rapporteurs have not mentioned (or simply refuse to mention) in respect of the protracted violence in Nigeria is ‘genocide.’ Is this a deliberate omission or an oversight? (p. 36)
3. The alleged involvement of the State and non-State actors in the commission of crimes under international law in Nigeria has complicated an already complex situation. Consequently, the situation beckons the urgent need for a neutral and impartial third-party intervention, especially the UN and its key organs… (p. 39)
4. (There is an) urgent need for… intervention, especially the UN and its key organs, the military and economic superpowers, and regional or sub-regional organisations… (p. 39)
5. Prof. Amupitan declared that crimes under international law – including genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity – were being perpetrated in Nigeria. (p. 36)
6. The Fulani herdsmen are predominantly Muslims and exhibit fundamentalist tendencies substantially similar to those of the Boko Haram sect. (p. 42)
7. The Boko Haram sect is a desire for the Islamisation of Nigeria. The Fulani ethnic militants, on their part, have engaged in the same anti-Christian violence as their Boko Haram counterparts.” (p. 47)
8. Since it is the agenda of the Fulani to Islamise the whole of Nigeria, they have used the machinery of the State, deliberately handed over to them by the colonialists, to advance their cause at all times. (p. 72)
9. The period of the military regime was used maximally to create States and Local Government Areas, and set boundaries, in a manner that gives economic and political advantages to the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group. (p. 72)
10. The military regime ensured that major strategic appointments went to the Hausa-Fulani group, while their promotions in the public service, especially in the military, police, and customs, were accelerated. (p. 72)
11. The well-orchestrated plan paid off for them because the other ethnic groups did not realise their agenda to Islamise the whole of Nigeria, and by the time the plan was being understood by some… the damage had already become too much. (p. 72)
12. The military, police, customs, and the public service as a whole have been taken over completely, with Islamic fundamentalists planted in strategic positions to supervise the final phase of the agenda. (p. 72)
13. Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen [are] responsible for an orgy of bloodbath and massive displacements in many States across Nigeria. (p. 36)
14. Although Boko Haram had been formally designated a terrorist organisation in 2013, the Fulani herdsmen — whom he directly accused of orchestrating widespread massacres — had not been officially recognized as terrorists, but rather ‘labelled a terrorist group.’” (p. 36)
15. There is evidence that genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by both State and non-State actors. (p. 39)
16. The Nigerian Government has not demonstrated sufficient willpower to deal with the crises; hence they have persisted and proliferated. As there is delay in taking drastic actions, lives are being lost, thereby inching the country’s destination to another Holocaust, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Darfur and Myanmar. Can the country survive it? (p. 108)
17. Nigeria risks repeating the mistakes of Rwanda and Sudan, where international hesitation led to mass atrocities. (p. 108)
18. Nigeria’s constitutional failure to protect its citizens has made international intervention both a legal and moral necessity. (p. 92)
19. The Fulani militants have engaged in a campaign of killing Christians in the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria, where their activities have been most felt, and indeed other parts of the country. (p. 47)
20. The victims of the crises are mainly the Christian population and the minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, and hence the need for remedial actions under international law. (p. 39)
21. In tracing the roots of Nigeria’s ethno-religious conflicts, Amupitan linked modern-day violence to the Fulani-led jihad of Uthman Dan Fodio in 1804, describing it as a ‘full-blown Islamization agenda. (p. 32)
22. The Fulani elite in government and security agencies have continued to manipulate international opinion and deceive foreign governments into believing that the violence is not a jihad to Islamize Nigeria. (p. 74)
23. Following the 19th century jihad of Uthman Dan Fodio, the Hausa territories were conquered and the Sokoto Caliphate established… The success of the jihad was one of religious triumphalism that aimed at expanding the caliphate to other parts of Nigeria in an irrevocable bid to dip the Quran into the Atlantic Ocean in Lagos. (p. 32)
24. He asserted that the caliphate thereafter became a dominant force in the North, and that subsequent governments had continued to protect its influence through political arrangements. (p. 34)
25. The IDPs have become stateless in their own country. (p. 73)
26. Churches have been desecrated and destroyed in large numbers – over 13,000 churches were reported to have been closed or destroyed in the Northeast alone during the Boko Haram insurgency (2009–2014). (p. 46)
27. Over 60,000 people have been brutally killed since 2001… This conflict is six times deadlier than Boko Haram’s insurgency.
28. The persistent silence from the government is further encouragement to Fulani militants to pillage and occupy land and to kill anyone who resists. The government’s response… reinforces [them] as a group of attackers without criminal repercussions. (p. 72)
29. Fulani herdsmen, with the support of government officials, have occupied lands belonging to indigenous communities and forcefully driven away the original inhabitants. (p. 74)
30. Amnesty International reported that Nigerian security forces committed war crimes in their campaign, including extrajudicial killings and torture, yet no one has been held accountable. (p. 83)
31. The 1804 jihad has now manifested as … Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen’s attacks and even the Sharia controversy.” (p. 35)
32. Hence this formal and urgent request for international intervention in dealing with the pogrom and attacks against the Christians and minority groups in Nigeria. (p. 35)
33. There is no source of international law under which a State … can intervene … except with the consent of the forum State. (p. 39)
34. Fulani herdsmen take advantage of the fact that their tribesmen control the Federal Government and most of the State Governments in Northern Nigeria. (p. 72)
35. The Federal Government … accepted that the kidnappers in every part of Nigeria are the Fulani herdsmen. (p. 73)
36. Miyetti Allah often takes responsibility for most of the killings by the herdsmen. (p. 73)
37. What more is to be said of State complicity and the actual agenda to fully Islamize Nigeria … This is the real reason for the violence. (p. 73)
38. Fulani elites have literally appropriated the executive, legislative and judicial powers in the country. (p. 75)
39. Communities are] immediately occupied and renamed … followed by the appointment of an Emir. (p. 75)
40. Fulani mercenaries engage in ‘retail killings’ of Christians and other ethnic or religious minorities. (p. 75)
41. This is one expansionist strategy … to depopulate many Christian communities in the Nigerian north central. (p. 76)
42. A Fulani person looks more or less like the ‘Caucasoid’ race. (p. 51)
43. The fusion of Hausa and Fulani into ‘Hausa-Fulani’ … is a grave error. (p. 51)
44. Colonialists handed over a polity fraught with dishonest census figures, political gerrymandering and favouritism … in favour of the Northern Region. (p. 34)
45. Impose sanctions … by the UN … as well as other … sovereign States pursuant to Article 52 of the Charter of the UN. (p. 109)
46. Set up a UN-backed tribunal in Nigeria … as was the case in former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra-Leone. (p. 109)
47. (Have the Security Council pass a resolution) making call for jihad in any part of the world a barbaric act and a breach of the Charter … (an) inchoate act of genocide. (p. 109)
48. Military action by the UN, African Union and ECOWAS forces may be taken as a last resort: Article 42 of the Charter of the UN. (p. 110)
49. Other States should apprehend (Nigerian) perpetrators … and prosecute them (under) universal jurisdiction. (p. 110)
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THE END.
