By Merciful Omoba
The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, has dismissed claims of genocide in northern Nigeria following remarks by former U.S. President Donald Trump that Christians were being massacred by jihadists.
Trump recently alleged that Christians in Nigeria faced an “existential threat” from radical Islamists and threatened U.S. military intervention if the killings continued.
However, Youssouf, speaking at a press conference on Wednesday in New York, said there was no evidence of genocide in the region, urging caution in making such sweeping statements.
“The complexity of the situation in northern Nigeria should push us to think twice before making such statements,” he said. “The first victims of Boko Haram, the most prominent jihadist group in the region, are Muslims, not Christians.”
Nigeria, home to about 230 million people, is almost evenly divided between a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim-majority north.
The country has faced years of insurgency by Boko Haram and its splinter groups, which have killed over 40,000 people and displaced more than two million since 2009, according to UN data.
