The United States relied on information and reports from Emeka Umeagbalasi, a screwdriver trader in Onitsha, Anambra state, to launch air strikes in Nigeria, according to a report by the New York Times.
In October, US President Donald
Trump redesignated Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” in response to
allegations of a Christian genocide in the country.
“Christianity is facing an
existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed,” Trump
said, blaming radical Islamists for the “mass slaughter”.
A month later, he threatened that
the US department of war would invade Nigeria “guns-a-blazing”, to completely
wipe out the Islamic terrorists if the Nigerian government did nothing to
curtail the alleged genocide.
On December 26, the US launched
air strikes on ISIS terrorists in north-western Sokoto state “at the request of
Nigerian authorities”.
According to the report,
Umeagbalasi, founder of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule
of Law, otherwise called Intersociety, is “an unlikely source of research that
U.S. Republican lawmakers have used to promote the misleading idea that
Christians are being singled out for slaughter” in Nigeria.
Umeagbalasi, alongside his wife,
run the non-governmental organisation from his home.
The report said US lawmakers Riley
Moore and Ted Cruz, whom Trump had asked to probe the Christian genocide claims
in Nigeria, alongside congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, “have all cited
his work”.
ASSUMPTION
Umeagbalasi was quoted as saying
he has documented 125,000 Christian deaths in Nigeria since 2009, based on
research from Google searches, Nigerian media reports, secondary sources, and
advocacy groups like Open Doors, a Christian organisation whose data Trump has
cited.
He told the New York Times that he
rarely verifies his data. He also acknowledged that he seldom travels to the
regions where attacks have occurred and usually assumes the victims’ religion
based on the location of the attack.
“If a mass abduction or killing
happens in an area where he thinks many Christians live, he assumes the victims
are Christians,” the report reads.
In an interview with The Sun, Umeagbalasi, when asked
about the source of his data, pointed to “location and space of an incident or
crime scene” and described his methodology as “one of the oldest natural
methods in the world”.
The salesman said he has degrees
in security studies, peace and conflict resolution from the National Open
University of Nigeria and described himself as a very “powerful” and
“knowledgeable” investigator.
A self-acclaimed criminologist,
Umeagbalasi is described
as an expert in the report, where he claimed there is a “strategy to
annihilate all Christians and Islamize Nigeria”.
He claimed 100,000 churches exist
in Nigeria and about 20,000 of them were destroyed in the past 16 years. Asked
about the source of his data, he simply said I “Googled it”.
Relying on information provided by
three congressmen — who have repeatedly referenced Umeagbalasi’s data — Trump
launched a volley of strikes in Nigeria during the yuletide.
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