By Shu’aibu Usman Leman
Dr. Aliyu Tilde’s article, “Genocide Nomenclature in Nigeria,” attempts to rewrite Nigeria’s recent history and minimise the well-documented suffering of Christian communities. His argument rests on selective recollections, deliberate omissions, and sweeping accusations that collapse under modest scrutiny.
Nigeria’s conflicts are complex, multi-layered, and tragically widespread. But complexity is not an excuse to erase patterns of targeted violence against any community.
Tilde’s central thesis—that Christian victimhood is a Western fabrication—ignores decades of empirical evidence gathered long before foreign leaders commented on Nigerian affairs.
It is simply untrue that international concern about Christian killings began only after recent foreign political statements. Long before then, Nigerian bishops, civil society organisations, state governments, and the media consistently raised alarms over escalating attacks on Christian communities.
The claim that the “Internet hides Muslim suffering but amplifies Christian suffering” is both inaccurate and insulting.
Nigerian and global media have extensively documented attacks on Muslims, especially in the Northeast, where Boko Haram and ISWAP devastated countless Muslim families.
Tilde lists crises from the 1980s to 2017, portraying them as unilateral Christian-on-Muslim massacres.
This is historically false. Most of these episodes involved cycles of reprisal, mutual casualties, and complex ethnic dynamics. No serious researcher describes them as one-sided.
His assertion that these incidents were “hidden” from the world is equally misleading. Kafanchan, Zangon Kataf, Tafawa Balewa, Yelwa, and the Plateau crises were widely reported in Nigerian newspapers, reviewed by national commissions of inquiry, and debated in the National Assembly.
Tilde’s argument depends on painting Christians as perennial aggressors and Muslims as perpetual victims.
This framing ignores documented instances where Christian communities suffered enormous losses in the very crises he cites.
More importantly, he fails to acknowledge the scale and frequency of targeted attacks on Christian villages, priests, churches, and farming communities in the last decade—violence that Nigeria’s security agencies themselves have confirmed
These attacks are not fabrications of foreign NGOs or inventions of “evangelical propaganda.” They are lived realities of Nigerian citizens whose testimonies, names, and burial records exist independent of any Western institution.
Successive Nigerian governments—under both Muslim and Christian presidents—have acknowledged that Christian communities in certain regions have endured severe, repeated, and often coordinated assaults by armed groups.
Even northern Muslim leaders, including governors and emirs, have condemned specific attacks on Christians, described them as targeted, and urged greater protection for minority communities. These internal voices cannot be dismissed as “Western bias.”
Tilde’s allegation that the media erases Muslim victims by using generic labels such as “locals” or “villagers” ignores basic journalistic practice, where identities are withheld when not independently verified or when premature labels risk inflaming tensions.
Conversely, when the religious identity of Christian victims is widely reported, it is often because attackers explicitly targeted them for that reason—a distinction Tilde glosses over entirely.
A responsible analyst must distinguish between violence that is criminal, political, and clearly sectarian. Tilde collapses all categories into a single grievance narrative that blames Christians for global perceptions.
His claim that Christians “complain too much” while Muslims “leave everything to God” trivialises genuine human suffering. It is not “complaining” when communities document attacks, petition authorities, or seek justice.
It is also untrue that Western organisations prioritise Christian suffering. Over the past 15 years, the most prominent global coverage of Nigerian violence has centred on Muslim victims of Boko Haram, ISWAP, and military excesses in the Northeast.
What has raised global concern about Christian communities in recent years is not propaganda but pattern: the repeated destruction of rural Christian settlements, targeted kidnappings of clergy, and systematic attacks on churches.
These realities stand regardless of who occupies the White House or what any foreign politician says.
They are Nigerian tragedies—witnessed, mourned, and documented by Nigerians themselves.
Tilde’s narrative does not promote healing or understanding. Instead, it fuels resentment by reducing a national crisis to a competition of victimhood and by denying the legitimacy of the pain experienced by one half of the country.
Nigeria needs honesty, balance, and compassion in discussing its conflicts—not revisionism that erases verifiable suffering. Acknowledging Christian casualties does not diminish Muslim suffering; it affirms our shared humanity and strengthens the call for justice for all.
Leman is a former National Secretary of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
