A think tank group, the Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI) has said the US President Donald Trump redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) on the basis of jaundiced, obtrusive data provided by local and international groups with ulterior motives.
In a policy statement signed by its Chairman, Dr Omoniyi Akinsiju, the think tank identified Intersociety, a local NGO, and Open Doors, a Christian charity, as two of the entities that have been spawning false data to misrepresent the security situation in Nigeria.
IMPI expressed concern at the manner groups with vested interests are manipulating terrorism-related data to paint Nigeria as a country where Christians are facing existential threats.
”We are concerned about the inauspicious propagation of terrorism-related deaths in a singular religious conflict situation. However, for starters, we must acknowledge the sensitivity of this subject matter as it affects lives. For us, no single life is deserving of being extinguished for any reason. In the same vein, it is immoral to concoct all manner of death-related data to justify a point of view.
”The circulation of falsehoods in the campaign to designate Nigeria a CPC jurisdiction has become a worrisome trend. Our findings showed that it became a tool exploited by both Nigerian and foreign-based NGOs, as well as other vested interests, to drive their demands.
“Long before this official response, merchants of tainted data had populated the social media space with obtrusive figures. The International Society for the Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) reported that 5,068 Christians were massacred in Nigeria in 2022, while Open Doors’ 2023 World Watch List reported that 5,014 Christians were killed for their faith in Nigeria in 2022, more than in the rest of the world combined. Those figures definitely did not portray the reality on the ground,” it added.
IMPI argued that its findings indicate that the total number of terrorism-related fatalities in Nigeria were not as high as the figures provided by InterSociety and Open Doors as data of Christian deaths alone.
The think tank said: “In contrast to the figures being bandied by these NGOs, the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) for 2022 noted that there were 6,701 deaths from terrorism globally, a 9% decrease from the previous year and 38% lower than the 2015 peak. The number of terrorism incidents globally also fell by nearly 28%, from 5,463 in 2021 to 3,955 in 2022, while deaths in Nigeria dropped to 392 in 2022, the lowest level since 2011.
” However, fatalities increased by 34 per cent in 2023 to 533, and further to 565 in 2024, but not anywhere near the inflated figures generated by Intersociety, which reported that 8,222 Christians were killed in Nigeria in the 12 months between January 1, 2023, and January 1, 2024, describing it as the “deadliest in recent years”. Open Doors also reported that 82% of the 4,998 Christians killed globally for faith-related reasons in 2023 occurred in Nigeria, while the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) recorded 1,637 deaths of Christians between April and June 2023 alone.
“The trend continued in 2024 with this same set of advocacy groups providing higher figures for faith-related killings. A report from Open Doors claimed that 3,100 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2024.
“According to the group, this made it the country with the most Christians killed globally for faith-based reasons that year. Another source published in August 2024 documented at least 7,087 Christians massacred in the first 220 days of the year (Humanangle.com, 2025).
“However, the Global Terrorism Index reported a fatality figure of 565 for 2024. This speaks to the industry of falsehood underpinning the advocacy to get Nigeria redesignated as a CPC.
“Yet, while we condemn any loss of life, the practical reality is that the data provided by GTI and Statista cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be described as genocide.
“Based on this background, we find it challenging to accept US President Trump’s decision to designate Nigeria as a CPC based on fictitious data circulated by a collection of NGOs.
“We expect the US to verify and validate any data presented to President Trump before using it to make a decision.”
In tracking InterSociety’s activities, IMPI researchers found out that the group had since 2019 been cooking false data on what it called “Christian deaths” that were never in tandem with the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) and other reports on lethal violence in Nigeria.
“We note that in 2019, the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) reported a 39.1% decrease in terrorism deaths in Nigeria, from 2,043 in 2018 to 1,245 in 2019. The decline in fatalities, according to GTI, was primarily due to a fall in violence linked to Fulani extremists, despite a slight increase in common killings, the lowest since 2011.
“The GTI data is validated by Statista.com (Sasu, 2024). Though this 2019 terrorism data is in the public domain, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), a Nigerian Human Rights NGO in Anambra State, claimed there were between 1,000 and 1,200 “Christian deaths” in the same year.
“Another data contained in the ‘Ninth Annual Report on Lethal Violence in Nigeria’, which covers the period between January 1 and December 31, 2019, was collected by Vitus Nwankwo Ukoji, with the help of Abiola Victoria Ayodokun and Victor Chinedu Eze of the University of Ibadan, wherein the researchers submitted that fatalities from lethal incidents inched up by 5.6% in 2019 after a 1.4% decline. According to the Report, there were 11,277 violent deaths in 2019.
“The import here is that Intersociety attributed virtually all reported fatalities to Christian deaths. This is an example of the deliberate inflation of data regarding killings in Nigeria to, in part, inflame divisive passion among the people, and to justify the designation of the country as a CPC by the American Government.
“The groups momentarily had their way in 2020, when, against all statistical sequences indicating a reduction in terrorism-related killings, especially those linked to religious conflicts, Trump, in the fourth year of his first term, declared and designated Nigeria as a CPC. It was a very questionable decision, given the declining number of terrorism-related deaths,” it said.
IMPI added that a better understanding of the situation in Nigeria through government-to-government engagement would lead to the US withdrawing Nigeria from its CPC list.
