‘Christian genocide’: NSCIA says Muslims in Nigeria faced anti-Islamic obsession in 2025

The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) has declared 2025 as a year Muslims in Nigeria faced unprecedented anti-Islamic obsession, following what it described as a spurious ‘Christian genocide’ claim.

The Council, under the leadership of its President-General and Amirul Mumineen, His Eminence, Alh. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, Sultan of Sokoto, said this in a release on Sunday, signed by its Secretary-General, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, calling on Nigerian Muslims to search for the crescent of the month of Ramadan immediately after sunset on Tuesday, February 17.

According to the statement made available to journalists in Abuja, the NSCIA asserted that the last year has been a trying period for Islam and Muslims in Nigeria, just like millions of other Muslims across the world.

It noted that, “Muslims have found themselves in the vortex of heightened Islamophobic hysteria that seeks to criminalise Muslims through spinning narratives that are inconsistent with the reality of insecurity in Nigeria. 

“The agenda of the secessionist elements and bigoted religious leaders is to turn Nigeria into a war theatre where Muslims would be annihilated in millions through the spurious ‘Christian Genocide’ that was manipulated to gain the attention of imperial powers.

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“In this unprecedented anti-Islamic obsession, Muslims are being asked to denounce what they did not endorse, while those who have been victims of attacks are being framed as aggressors. 

“Muslims have thus become “double victims” who are, on the one hand, the major victims of Boko Haram, banditry, and Lakurawa, the most heinous of such incidents happening in the underreported gruesome murder of about 200 Muslims in Kwara state and also, on the other hand, the victims of negative narratives that erase Muslim suffering. 

“The culture of inequality against Muslims is being entrenched because Christians have foreign powers to defend them while Muslims appear defenseless.”

The Council lamented that in the face of this, the media have consistently failed to uphold the principles of truth, fairness, and objectivity in matters concerning Muslims. 

According to the NSCIA, “These assertions can be illustrated with the deliberate attempt to demonise Islam and Muslims by the media in the case of Yunusa (a Muslim) versus Eze Oruru (a Christian) in 2015, with the incident sensationalised as Muslim jihad to forcefully convert a Christian minor into Islam. Then, a media mob trial of Muslims in general preceded the eventual trial and conviction of Yunusa. 

“Conversely, in 2026, it is now public that for years, one Christian, Ifeanyi Onyewuenyi, had abducted a Muslim minor, Walida Abdullahi, and allegedly forced her both into marriage and conversion to Christianity. 

“Yet, no one has condemned Christianity or Christians for this individual act. No faith community is accused of complicity.

“Similarly, Muslims in Nigeria and Islam are being taunted, scandalised and condemned because a mob with a Muslim identity took law into their hands and murdered Deborah for an alleged blasphemy. 

“In contrast, Pastor Dio Idon of ECWA, Kasuwan Magani, Southern Kaduna, was on 4th January 2026, killed and totally burnt by a Christian mob that accused him of witchcraft. However, the media have been silent on the religion of the mob in the Christian-dominated community. 

“The recent attempt to Christianise the victimhood of Muslim worshippers in Maiduguri by Channels television and the hasty Christianisation of the unfortunate abducted girls in Kebbi are also still fresh in our memory,” it stated.