In response to questions from the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Disinformation Unit, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) clarified the sources and methodology used in their figures regarding purported religious genocide in Nigeria.
The organization’s conclusions, according to Intersociety chairman Emeka Umeagbalasi, were derived on a variety of reliable materials, including a legal brief written by Prof. Joash Amupitan, SAN.
Recently, Amupitan was named Chairman of INEC, the Independent National Electoral Commission.
This comes after the BBC allegedly accused the group of falsifying and inflating numbers to promote a false narrative of “Christian genocide” in Nigeria.
According to reports, US President Donald Trump had previously threatened to use force against Nigeria by designating it as a nation of particular concern.
The US President brought up what he called persistent violence against Christians and the government’s inability to defend religious minorities.
The Nigerian government, however, vehemently denied that any religious organizations were persecuted in Nigeria.
Intersociety clarified in a statement on Thursday that its statistics included events that occurred as early as 2009, when the Boko Haram insurgency began. As a result, several churches in the North-East, the center of the war, were destroyed or closed.
According to Umeagbalasi, Amupitan wrote the legal opinion for a significant international report called “Genocide in Nigeria: The Implications for the International Community,” which is included in the 312-page “Religious Freedom in the World 2025” report that Aid to the Church in Need at the Vatican released on October 21, 2025.
“Anna Mulder’s Open Doors Report (2015), which covered the Boko Haram insurgency from July 2009 to December 2014, originally cited the destruction or closure of over 13,000 churches,” according to Intersociety’s legal opinion section.
It further stated that Ewelina Ochab, a renowned scholar and opponent of the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, was another source of inspiration for Amupitan.
Citing data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in December 2024, which stated that 614,373 Nigerians died from insecurity between May 2023 and April 2024, the rights group further encouraged the BBC to challenge the Nigerian government over its own data.
According to Intersociety, their statistics were derived from both primary and secondary sources, such as reports from domestic and foreign media, victim communities, research organizations, declassified state documents, eyewitness accounts, and diplomatic sources.
