This post has already been read at least 1188 times!

Amid continuing reactions trailing President Donald Trump and his administration’s redesignation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, with international consequences and the United States declaration of intention to deploy military forces against terrorists in the West African country, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), a respected human rights advocacy organization founded in 2008 and renowned for its expertise in research and investigation concerning religious persecution, has publicly denounced a recent report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)-Africa’s Global Disinformation Unit.

Intersociety maintained that the BBC-Africa unit, led by Olaronke Alo and Peter Mwai, attempted to execute a “presidentially scripted and rooted” hatchet job to discredit its long-standing compiled reports on “Christian and Muslim Butcheries” in Nigeria since 2010.

The organization extended special gratitude to Sahara Reporters for providing a platform to publish its comprehensive 16-page response, which the BBC-Africa allegedly refused to reflect or publish on its news sites as earlier promised.

The Contentious BBC Inquiry and Allegations of Partisanship

Intersociety detailed how the inquiry began when Olaronke Alo reached out, ostensibly for a story on the mass killings of Christians in Nigeria. However, suspicions arose as Alo allegedly “defied decorum and reportorial professionalism” by starting to ask “threatening and partisan questions.” A critical point of contention was Alo’s alleged “mischievous” twisting of Intersociety’s August 10, 2025, report by deliberately excluding the “estimated 60,000 nonviolent Muslim deaths” from the headline and narrative, focusing solely on the Christian figures. Despite repeated insistence by Intersociety to reflect the correct number, Alo refused, leading the organization to conclude she was on a mission to execute a “hatchet and dirty job, likely to be presidentially commissioned and scripted.”

Alo subsequently requested Intersociety’s email to mail nine questions, promising that the answers would be reflected and shared on BBC news platforms to prevent misquoting. Intersociety, having sensed partisanship, prepared the detailed 16-page response and submitted it on November 2, 2025, ahead of the November 3 deadline. However, the BBC-Africa refused to publish or fairly balance the response, prompting Intersociety to publicly label the corporation as “integrity-challenged” and having a “long running battle with reportorial neutrality and professionalism.”

Intersociety’s Defense: Rooted in Scientific Data Collection

Intersociety vehemently declared that it is “impossible to dispute and discredit” its 16-year-old reports because they are “rooted in natural and scientific data collection” and compiled through tireless investigation.
The organization, which identifies itself as a research-based human rights, rule of law, democracy, security, and safety advocacy organization, explained that its core strategy relies on establishing the time, location, and space of an incident or crime scene. In a fatal incident, they rely on a set of core questions: Who killed them, where were they killed, when, why, how many were killed/abducted/injured, and was there justice accountability?

Data is generated using both primary sources (direct, survivors’ and eyewitnesses’ accounts) and secondary sources (local/international media, victim-communities, research and investigative groups, declassified state actor accounts, respected international persons, and diplomatic accounts). It was noted that due to security concerns, survivors’ and eyewitnesses’ accounts are often kept anonymous.

Intersociety noted that its advocacy scope is broader than that of other groups, covering both state and non-state actor attacks on Christians and their places of worship across all six geopolitical zones of Nigeria since 2010.
Justifying the Controversial Figures
In its response, Intersociety provided a detailed justification for the figures, including the initially unquoted 60,000 moderate Muslim deaths which the organization tracked alongside the Christian casualties.
On the 125,000 Christian Deaths:

Intersociety reconciled the BBC’s query on the increase from the 2023 figure of 50,000 by presenting a cumulative breakdown:
* 52,250 deaths attributed to Islamic Jihadists and radical security forces between July 2009 and April 2023.
* 24,000 deaths recorded between April 2023 and October 2025, including estimated ‘dark figures’ of captivity killings.
* 18,000 permanently disappeared Christians during the Boko Haram Insurgency (2009-2014), citing the International Red Cross’s report of over 22,000 missing Nigerians.
* A newly discovered 30,000 ethno-religiously related killings from a special investigation into massacres by security forces and Jihadist Fulani Militants in Eastern Nigeria (August 2015 to December 2024).
These figures sum up to 125,000 defenseless Christian deaths since 2009.

On the 19,100 Churches Destroyed:
Intersociety combined the 13,000 burnt/destroyed/closed churches figure quoted from a 2015 Open Doors report (covering 2009-2014) with an estimated 6,100 additional churches attacked between 2015 and October 2025. This latter figure includes over 1,000 churches belonging to the Organization of the African Instituted Churches (OAICs) that Intersociety claims were destroyed by deployed security forces in Eastern Nigeria under the pretext of “IPOB/ESN/BIAFRA counterterror operations.”

On Victim Identity and Conflict Characterization:
Addressing the BBC’s query on how Intersociety concluded a victim’s religion when media reports failed to, the group countered that its data is “not solely built on media reports.” They use further analysis and possess a grounded knowledge of the “location of most of the Northern areas with dominant indigenous Christian population” (e.g., Southern Borno/Damboa), enabling them to identify the religious background of victims even when general media, often under state censorship, fails to mention it.
Furthermore, Intersociety dismissed the “Herder-Farmer conflict” as a “deceitful and misleading” characterization, stating that the gathered statistics show the attacks are “well coordinated and systematically targeted at defenceless Christians,” making the conflict primarily one driven by religion.

Final Rebuttal: No Affiliation with IPOB

Intersociety took the opportunity to address the Nigerian Army’s recurring claim, also included in the BBC’s questions, that the organization is affiliated with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The organization boldly stated: “Intersociety is not affiliated to or an affiliate of IPOB and can never be.” The group clarified that it merely focuses on protecting vulnerable civilians in the East and exposing the false blanket labelling of citizens as “IPOB members.” It accused the Nigerian Governments of applying the “Weapon of Cultural Violence” against Easterners and charged the Army with using the false IPOB-affiliation label to “ward off being checkmated over its human rights abuses and corruption in Eastern Nigeria.”

In conclusion, Intersociety maintained that its research work remains “indisputable and substantially valid” until a rival organization conducts a counter-research with “superior facts and figures,” stressing that “Palmtop-based or computer room data loophole search engine results can never amount to valid disputation of findings of a research or investigative work.”

The Street Services Reporters Newspaper recalls that Donald Trump officially designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) on October 31, 2025, and subsequently declared his intent to deploy US military action against terrorists in Nigeria on November 1, 2025.
Trump cited an “existential threat” to the Christian population in Nigeria, saying that thousands were being killed by “radical Islamists” and that the Nigerian government was not doing enough to stop the violence.

The recent redesignation was the second time Nigeria was placed on the list during the Trump administration; the first was in December 2020. The designation was removed by President Joe Biden in November 2021. The 2025 redesignation followed lobbying from Republican senators and a recommendation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Trump made a series of posts on his social media platform, Truth Social, stating he had instructed the “Department of War” (a historical term for the Defense Department) to “prepare for possible action”. He threatened to cut off all aid to Nigeria and enter the country with forces to “completely eradicate” the terrorists responsible for the atrocities if the Nigerian government did not move quickly to address the situation.

There has been allegations that Trump relied on data by the InterSociety in his actions, hence the venture by BBC-Africa, which the InterSociety has described as a failed attempt to discredit its report spanning about 16 years period.

This post has already been read at least 1188 times!