The recent Prime Business Africa piece (“ISIS Dares Trump: ‘Act On Christian Genocide!’,” 8 Nov 2025) highlights ISIS propaganda about attacking Christians and tries to box U.S. policy into that frame. It doesn’t provide casualty data or a full victim profile of ISIS violence. Treat it as a rhetorical provocation, not a statistical account.
Nigerians, listen: the violence ripping through our towns and villages is not a holy war between Christians and Muslims. It is terrorism, a brutal mixture of criminal gangs, marauding militias, religious extremists, land-grabbers and conquest-driven groups who kill, kidnap and terrorise for power, profit and impunity. If we keep seeing this as a “religious” problem, we will keep failing to solve it. If we see it as terrorism, we can design solutions that actually work.
Nigeria must confront its security crisis with honesty, clarity, and unity. The persistent attempt to reduce the complex insecurity we face to a simple narrative of “Christian persecution” is not only misleading, it is damaging. It strips away the multi-layered nature of the violence, blinds us to the true nature of the threat, and divides a people who urgently need solidarity, not suspicion.
To understand why the religious framing is flawed, it helps to examine the global record of the very groups often cited in these narratives. ISIS, arguably the most infamous terror organisation of the 21st century, has overwhelmingly killed Muslims. The data is clear. From Iraq to Syria, from Afghanistan to West Africa, the primary targets of ISIS have been Sunni tribes that resisted its rule, Shia worshippers, Hazara communities, and ordinary Muslim civilians. Christians, Yazidis, and other groups have also fallen victim to ISIS brutality, but the idea that ISIS uniquely or primarily targets Christians collapses under any serious scrutiny.
In Iraq, one of ISIS’s most horrific massacres was the Camp Speicher atrocity in June 2014, where between 1,100 and 1,700 Shia Muslim cadets were separated, lined up, and executed. Entire Sunni tribes were also decimated. The Albu Nimr tribe lost hundreds of its people for refusing to bow to ISIS authority. In Syria, over 700 to 1,000 Sunni members of the Shaitat tribe were slaughtered after resisting ISIS’s territorial encroachment. Their deaths were not because they were Christian or nonbelievers, they were Muslims who simply defied extremist control.
In Afghanistan, ISIS-K has repeatedly targeted Shia communities. More than 50 worshippers were killed during Friday prayers in a Kunduz mosque. Nearly 90 schoolgirls, mostly Hazara Muslims, were killed in the Dasht-e-Barchi school attack. Human Rights Watch has documented systematic, repeated, calculated attacks by ISIS-K on Hazara and Shia populations, amounting to crimes against humanity. The Yazidi genocide in Sinjar is tragic and well-documented. ISIS also targeted churches, priests, and Christian residents in Iraq and Syria. But even with these atrocities included, the statistical reality remains firm: Muslims have borne the overwhelming brunt of ISIS violence.
This global pattern matters for Nigeria. ISWAP and Boko Haram, the local affiliates aligned with ISIS’s brand of terror, follow the same brutal logic. In Nigeria, thousands of Muslims have been killed by these groups, farmers, traders, imams, students, commuters, and entire families. The Borno farming massacre of 2020, which claimed over 100 lives, included many Muslims. Boko Haram has raided mosques and killed worshippers. They have murdered Islamic clerics who opposed them. They have kidnapped Muslim schoolchildren. They have executed Muslim elders for “collaboration” with government forces.
This does not diminish the pain of Christians who have been abducted, executed, or terrorised. It does not minimise the horrors faced by pastors, priests, and Christian communities in northern Nigeria. What it does is place the violence in its proper context: terrorism, not theology.
When extremists attack Christian communities, it is not always because they are Christian, it is often because they are vulnerable, isolated, or symbolically useful for propaganda. When extremists kill Muslims, it is not because they love Christians, it is because they follow a takfiri ideology that labels other Muslims “apostates” deserving of death. This is why Camp Speicher happened. This is why mosques are bombed. This is why Sunni tribes have been massacred. Terrorism kills not out of selective hatred but from a hunger for control, fear, and domination.
So when a headline tries to box U.S. policy or Nigerian consciousness into the narrow frame of “Christian genocide,” it is essential to examine the facts. Many of these articles, like the Prime Business Africa piece, play into ISIS’s propaganda strategy. The group deliberately highlights attacks on Christians when it wants to provoke international outrage or manipulate geopolitical reactions. But the casualty record tells a broader story.
Nigeria must resist being pulled into a divisive, single-story narrative. If we fall into the trap of thinking this is a war of Christians versus Muslims, we will lose sight of the real enemy. Innocent Muslims must not be profiled or scapegoated for the actions of marauding terrorists. Nigerian Christians must not be misled into believing they are uniquely targeted. Nigerian Muslims must not be made to feel like suspects in their own homeland. Nonbelievers, too, have been victims of kidnapping, ransom, and violence.
This is a national security crisis, not a religious war. It is a mix of terrorism, criminality, banditry, land grabbing, extremist propaganda, political manipulation, and cross-border infiltration. The more divided we become, the more powerful our enemies grow. Terrorist groups thrive on division; unity destroys their influence.
Foreign assistance can play a role, but on our terms. Nigeria does not need foreign boots on the ground. What we need is intelligence support, satellite tracking of terrorist camps, exposure of financiers, asset freezes, targeted sanctions, and diplomatic pressure on external enablers. If foreign governments have evidence of Nigerian sponsors, let them release it. The shockwaves from such revelations would alter the political landscape. Those who hide behind power would face consequences. Nigerians would finally see who benefits from chaos.
Some think that exposing sponsors or inviting foreign pressure will instantly produce regime change. Real politics is messier. Naming names will shake up elites and could influence elections, but it can also provoke short-term instability. That is why our approach must be surgical, legal and coordinated, aimed at dismantling terror networks and their funding, not sowing chaos.
But even then, let us be careful. Not every call for outside intervention leads to salvation. Foreign interests have their motives. The difference between a coordinated strategy and foreign-induced fragmentation is enormous. Balkanisation is irreversible; religious division can tear a nation beyond repair.
Terrorists crave division. They rely on social media, rumour and fear to turn neighbours into enemies. Resist simplified narratives. Demand evidence before blaming whole communities. A word of wisdom: there is a difference between balkanising a country and reforming it, choose reform.
Nigeria’s strength lies in refusing to be manipulated. Christians, Muslims, and unbelievers must stand together with clear-eyed realism. When we understand that terrorists kill both Christians and Muslims, the path forward becomes clearer. We stop blaming each other and start fighting the real enemy.
The truth is indisputable: terrorism is the enemy of all. Both Christians and Muslims have bled. Both communities are burying their dead. Both communities are living in fear. And both communities have everything to gain by uniting.
Let us stand together. Let us protect each other. Let us choose wisdom over fear, facts over propaganda, and unity over division. Only then can Nigeria overcome this threat.
By Duruebube Uzii na Abosi
Hon. Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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