Faith Leaders and Foreign Critics Clash Over Nigeria’s Religious Violence Narrative

Local imams, pastors, rabbis, and community mediators point to daily examples of coexistence while arguing that Nigeria’s bloodshed stems from terrorism, corruption, and weak institutions rather than a war of faiths

Landing in Abuja last week, Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, the Turkey-based Jewish leader, expected tension. President Donald Trump had just threatened military action against Nigeria over what he called a campaign of “Christian persecution.” The remarks set off a diplomatic storm—but what Chitrik found on the ground looked nothing like a war of faiths.

“I saw a country deeply committed to religion—churches, synagogues, and mosques everywhere, often side by side,” Chitrik told The Media Line. “Whether in Abuja or Lagos, families of mixed Christian, Muslim, and even Jewish heritage live together. It’s not theoretical; it’s visible.”

Chitrik, Turkey’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi and chair of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, traveled to Nigeria for a three-day conference titled Co-existence and Dialogue Among Abrahamic Faiths. The event brought together Muslim, Christian, and Jewish clerics, diplomats, and scholars to promote interfaith understanding—and unfolded against an extraordinary backdrop.

The US State Department had just reinstated Nigeria on its Country of Particular Concern list for religious-freedom violations, a decision applauded by Western Christian-rights organizations but denounced by Abuja as “political and inaccurate.”

President Donald Trump’s “guns-a-blazing” threat accused Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s administration of ignoring violence against Christians. Nigerian presidential spokesman Daniel Bwala dismissed the claim as “misleading and unconstitutional,” insisting that no foreign power could “unilaterally deploy force in a sovereign African nation.”

Violence in Nigeria is undeniable—from Boko Haram’s Islamist insurgency to deadly farmer-herder clashes—but faith leaders in Abuja argued that framing the bloodshed as religious persecution misses the point.

During his stay, Chitrik joined Nigeria’s Chief Rabbi Israel Uzan on a visit to Karomajiji, a semi-rural settlement about 10 kilometers outside Abuja. The village, located near the airport road, is home to roughly 300 residents—Muslims and Christians living side by side. For years, Karomajiji had no running water, forcing families to walk nearly an hour to collect rainwater from shallow wells.

That’s coexistence in action—not rhetoric

Karomajiji reflects the grassroots resilience of a country where economic hardship and faith intertwine daily. Many residents are internal migrants displaced by conflicts in the north. “When you help them,” Chitrik said, “you help Christians and Muslims together—because they’re neighbors.”

Later, he and Uzan visited a school outside Abuja that teaches more than a thousand children, half Christian and half Muslim. “The theme of the week was honesty,” Chitrik recalled. “Students from different faiths reciting the same lesson—that’s what hope looks like.”

The most striking voices at the Abuja conference came from clerics who have lived Nigeria’s sectarian violence firsthand.

In his address, Israeli Ambassador Michael Freeman urged participants to view coexistence as “the presence of respect, empathy and shared purpose—not merely the absence of conflict.”

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“Here in Nigeria, we see a nation that mirrors Israel’s aspiration,” Freeman said. “Diverse, faithful, and full of promise. Each tragedy—whether attacks on Christian or Muslim communities—is a wound that must be healed. And healing begins through understanding and partnership.”

Among Nigerian religious leaders, Imam Muhammad Nurayn Ashafa, co-founder of the Interfaith Mediation Center in Kaduna, spoke with the authority of experience. Once a militia organizer during the Muslim-Christian clashes of the 1990s, he later reconciled with his former rival, Pastor James Wuye. The two men have trained thousands of community mediators and received this year’s Commonwealth Peace Prize.

Violence is never the answer. It only deepens our divisions and destabilizes our communities.

“Every sincere Muslim must embrace this effort, especially in a multiethnic and multicultural society like ours,” Ashafa told The Media Line. “Violence is never the answer. It only deepens our divisions and destabilizes our communities. We need religious leaders, elders, the media, women, and youth to work together for lasting peace.”

Education, he added, must prepare young people “to build, not to disagree.” “When faith leaders model cooperation,” he said, “we give the next generation permission to see each other as partners, not rivals.”

For Rabbi Uzan, who leads Nigeria’s small but active Jewish community, humanitarian work is part of that same ethos.

“The Jewish community here numbers about 600 members, mostly expatriates,” he told The Media Line. “But our outreach goes far beyond our own. We’re working with local authorities and Muslim and Christian leaders to support Nigerians of every background.”

Those relationships, Uzan said, enabled initiatives like the Karomajiji water project and the inclusive school. “Africa remains a continent full of potential,” he said. “We envision more partnerships—between Jewish organizations, diplomats and local communities—focused on education, health and sustainability.”

While Nigeria’s faith leaders stress unity, Christian-rights groups abroad are turning up the pressure.

In London, Christian Solidarity Worldwide welcomed the US designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, calling it “an overdue acknowledgment of grave violations of freedom of religion or belief.” Mervyn Thomas, the organization’s founder and president, urged Tinubu to “act decisively against impunity” and demanded accountability for attacks on clergy and churches.

From the Netherlands, Open Doors—one of the world’s largest Christian aid networks—issued a similar warning, describing Nigeria as “the deadliest place in the world to be a Christian.” Its 2025 report documented more than 200 deaths and thousands displaced in Benue state, where the organization runs trauma-healing programs and livelihood support.

“We’re helping Nigerian Christians who lost everything,” said an Open Doors coordinator. “But we also remind the world that faith endures—communities still pray together, even in ruins.”

Such reports have shaped international perceptions of Nigeria as a theater of persecution. Analysts inside the country warn, though, that these portrayals obscure the structural drivers of violence.

“We are indeed losing precious lives,” said Umar Yakubu, executive director of the Center for Fiscal Transparency and Public Integrity in Abuja. “But we’re losing them to terrorism, banditry, and communal conflicts fueled by poor governance—not a campaign to eliminate one faith.”

Labeling Nigeria’s crisis as genocide “acts as a toxic wedge” that deepens divides, Yakubu argued. “Tens of thousands of Muslims, including imams and traditional rulers, have also been killed,” he said. “Religion becomes the scapegoat when institutions collapse.”

Under pressure from Washington and domestic critics alike, Tinubu has reshuffled security chiefs and expanded military operations against armed groups across the north and central belt. Officials say the goal is to restore order, not to defend one religion over another.

“Peace is a prerequisite for development,” Imam Abdulwaheed Abubakar declared after Friday prayers at the State House Mosque, attended by Tinubu and the spiritual leader of Nigeria’s Muslims, Sultan of Sokoto Sa’adu Abubakar. “Nigerians must support peace initiatives regardless of faith.”

The US president has pledged cooperation with Nigeria “on the protection of communities of all faiths” but rejected militarized rhetoric. “This government will never accept foreign troops on Nigerian soil,” Tinubu’s spokesman said.

From London to Lagos, the debate over how to interpret Nigeria’s bloodshed—as persecution, corruption, or collapse—has become as political as it is moral.

Our interfaith harmony is fragile but real. We must not allow others to turn our pain into their politics.

Imam Ashafa cautioned that importing Western narratives risks inflaming divisions. “Our interfaith harmony is fragile but real,” he said. “We must not allow others to turn our pain into their politics.”

Chitrik agreed. “Outsiders see only conflict,” he told The Media Line. “But the people I met—Christian pastors, Muslim imams, Jewish teachers—are already building coexistence every day. It’s quiet work, but it matters.”

Back in Karomajiji, the new well now runs daily, serving both Christians and Muslims. Women fill buckets each morning while children play nearby, unaware of the global debate over their country’s future.

“Everywhere I went, people of faith were helping one another—drilling wells, teaching children, feeding the hungry,” Chitrik said before returning to Istanbul. “Coexistence isn’t utopia. It’s already happening. The challenge is to protect it before the world’s noise drowns it out.”