Nigeria denies Christian persecution, local journalist describes ‘cloud of terror’

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00:00I would say citizens in America, not just Christians, people of all faiths in America,

00:07I would say, do not realize how much grace they have, how much freedoms they have.

00:18Today, we're taking you inside Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa by far,

00:24home to over 230 million people.

00:27The religious makeup of the country is nearly half and half between Muslims and Christians.

00:33Recently, Nigeria has been put into an international spotlight over allegations of mass Christian

00:39persecution, and President Trump put the Nigerian government on notice.

00:45Violence and terror attacks are widespread in the region, and that is not disputed.

00:50But where the world disagrees is whether it's one group, Christians, being targeted and killed

00:56because of their faith, or simply widespread violence due to the lack of resources.

01:02We're going to tell you everything you need to know on this complex subject within this story.

01:08But first, we take you on the ground in Nigeria through the lens of someone who's lived it,

01:14Masara Kim, a born and raised Nigerian Christian who became a journalist 17 years ago

01:20to document the crimes plaguing his community.

01:24A warning before we begin.

01:26This story does include graphic content.

01:29We're blurring a lot, but it is video filmed by Masara in villages stormed through by terrorists.

01:37If you want the facts of what is really happening in Nigeria, this is where it starts.

01:43Christians in Nigeria are living under a big cloud of terror.

01:55You never know when you will live.

01:58You never know when you will die.

02:02Children like me could not dare to dream in the kind of society and environment that we were now forced to live in.

02:11They are ready to shout Allahu akbar on anybody and declare death on anybody.

02:25I have seen countless of them, including babies whose brains have been shot out of their skulls.

02:31We are looking at between 500 to 1,000 communities that have been exclusively, exclusively annexed after terror attacks

02:39by these groups who often shout Allahu akbar, God is great to celebrate their victory,

02:44while slaughtering babies, slaughtering women and children, slaughtering the aged and burning homes and churches,

02:52and of course moving in with their women and children to occupy the captured or conquered territories.

02:59In many cases, you don't even have any bodies at all.

03:02All you have are just charred bone fragments of family members,

03:07sometimes entire families who have been burned in their homes alive.

03:11My village has been invaded numerous times, my siblings have been killed, my family house has been burned,

03:23you know, and I have just too much experience, first-hand experience of these atrocities,

03:30which is why I am taking this position to make sure that the world pays attention

03:37and takes steps to stop these violations, because it looks like if we don't tell our story, nobody will.

03:45I interviewed Masara Kim on Thursday, October 30th, for this story over Nigeria persecution.

03:52The next day, President Trump posted to Truth Social,

03:56Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria.

04:00Thousands of Christians are being killed.

04:02The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening.

04:06On October 31st, the president designated Nigeria as a country of particular concern.

04:13This State Department label carries the allegation that the Nigerian government

04:18has engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom.

04:23Nigeria was placed on this same list during President Trump's first term

04:27over the same concerns, largely due to the terrorist group Boko Haram.

04:32The Nigerian government went after the group, killing its leader in 2021.

04:38That same year, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, under former President Biden,

04:43removed Nigeria as a country of particular concern just days before visiting the country.

04:49The Trump administration's redesignation is welcome news to Masara.

04:54Let there be a demand for accountability.

04:57That means relisting it as a country of particular concern.

05:02By the time Nigeria begins to feel the pain of global outrage,

05:06it begins to feel the restrictions on trade, restrictions on arms purchase, restrictions on loans,

05:15means it won't realize the severity of the offense that it's committing against its own citizens,

05:22and it will also realize the seriousness with which the world holds global religious freedom,

05:28especially the United States.

05:29Nigeria's government pushed back against the U.S. designation.

05:33Their chief of defense staff said there are no Christians being persecuted in Nigeria.

05:38We are facing insecurity, especially terrorism, and it's something that's been affecting Nigeria for quite some time now.

05:46And the country's information minister said this is absolutely false to say that there is a calculated

05:51or a deliberate attempt to kill a particular religious group.

05:55Any narrative suggesting that the Nigerian state is failing to take action against religious attacks

06:00is based on misinformation or faulty data.

06:04Masara disagrees with the government's characterization of the violence.

06:09What they are doing is simply damage control and attempting to protect their interests.

06:17Now, underlie the word, protect their interests.

06:20Their interest is not what exactly, it's not about what is actually happening.

06:25It's just about their reputation, their businesses overseas,

06:29what they stand to benefit in terms of, you know, foreign loans.

06:32And, of course, there's a lot of corruption, I mean, in Nigeria.

06:36The Nigerian government acknowledges extreme violence committed by terror groups,

06:41but it denies claims of a targeted Christian genocide.

06:45They argue these groups also kill Muslims driven by greed for property, territory, and assets,

06:51making the attacks indiscriminate rather than faith-based.

06:54All of the communities that have been captured in Nigeria are rich in mineral deposits.

07:00Gold, uranium, diamonds, tin, columbi, name them.

07:06But Masara maintains that the violence is targeted and concentrated toward Christians

07:11and has been for decades.

07:13When they succeed in eliminating a common enemy or the common enemy,

07:18they would usually turn their weapons on themselves.

07:21But that should not eliminate or erase the traces,

07:26the evidences of a collective oppression,

07:31collective persecution,

07:32collective violation of the rights of one single group.

07:36Just last two weeks, we had an experience where these terrorists mounted a roadblock

07:44on a very prominent highway about 30 miles south of Jaws.

07:48They would usually stop any vehicle, including public, you know, mass transit buses,

07:56and such inside, like drag, force everyone to come down, come out of the bus

08:03and isolate the Christians and slaughter them.

08:06The data on Nigerian violence is all over the place.

08:10Different sources cite different numbers.

08:13The Associated Press, a news outlet labeled by news bias monitors as being on the left,

08:19cites the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Program,

08:23which showed over 20,000 deaths from nearly 12,000 attacks on Nigerian civilians from 2020 to last

08:32September.

08:32They say 385 of those targeted Christians, resulting in 317 deaths.

08:40This source also showed 417 Muslim deaths during the same time frame.

08:45The crisis monitoring group reported nearly 2,000 attacks this year,

08:49with fewer than 50 of those attacks being specifically targeting Christians for their religion.

08:56Then the New York Post, a news outlet rated as right-leaning, cites a different source,

09:01the Nigerian-based human rights group InterSociety,

09:05which estimates more than 7,000 Christians have been massacred in Nigeria

09:10in the first 220 days of this year.

09:13Senator Ted Cruz has been a vocal advocate for Christians in Nigeria.

09:17There is no country on earth where Christians are more persecuted than Nigeria.

09:23He introduced legislation that would target the Nigerian government.

09:26It would place sanctions on Nigerian officials.

09:29We're going to keep the fight going to protect Christians and to protect religious liberty.

09:34President Trump posted to Truth Social on November 1st that the U.S. may very well go

09:39into that country guns a-blazing to wipe out Islamic terrorists.

09:43The spotlight on Nigerian persecution caught the attention of rapper Nicki Minaj,

09:49who said no group should ever be persecuted for practicing their religion,

09:53and added a thank you to the president and his team for taking the Nigeria situation seriously.

09:59I am brimming with hope and confidence that these violations would stop someday,

10:05but only if this momentum, the tempo with which the world is approaching the issues now is sustained.

10:12If I escape to a safe place, what happens to my family?

10:14What happens to other people like me?

10:16The reason I joined journalism and chose the path of advocating for religious freedom

10:22is to ensure that these violations are stopped.

10:30It's a passion.

10:31It's an issue that I hold so dearly in my heart, the issue of religious freedom.

10:38This is something that I was born in.

10:41This is something that I have personally faced right from childhood.

10:45Someone should be able to take, you know, use these evidences that I am collecting

10:49to raise a voice and demand accountability and demand an end.

10:55This is just part of the story.

10:57If you didn't know, I host a podcast here with Straight Arrow News called Bias Breakdown.

11:02It's where we take a story and break down how the media is covering it.

11:06This story will be the focus of next week's episode.

11:10But it'll be more than that.

11:11We're going to be talking about how the media covers international conflicts

11:15and the challenges they face when relying on information from places where they don't

11:21have a presence.

11:22You've seen the confusion already.

11:24Different sources reporting conflicting numbers of Christians killed.

11:28This isn't new.

11:30Look at Gaza, where deaths were reported by the Hamas-run health ministry and had to be

11:35revised several times.

11:37Or the Rwanda genocide, where the world struggled to acknowledge the death toll until it was too

11:44late.

11:45We'll talk about the shortfalls in media coverage during conflicts and why getting the story

11:50right is so hard, but also so important.

11:54Tune in next Tuesday for the new episode of Bias Breakdown.

11:58Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

12:03Thank you so much for watching, and thank you to Masara Kim for taking the time to offer

12:08us his perspective from Nigeria.

12:11And thank you to Ian Kennedy, our video editor, who went through this footage for us.

12:16For Straight Arrow News, I'm Kara Rucker.

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