Following the United States’ designation of Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” under President Donald Trump, the Federal Government has denied allegations of targeted killings of Christians in the country. The government maintained that insecurity affects citizens of all faiths, not one particular religious group.
However, many Nigerians have accused top officials of hypocrisy, digging up old social media posts by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his aide Olusegun Dada, social commentator Reno Omokri, and former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode — all of whom previously condemned the killing of Christians under past administrations.
As an opposition leader in 2014, Tinubu had sharply criticised then-President Goodluck Jonathan for failing to stop Boko Haram attacks on churches. In a January 2014 tweet, he wrote, “The slaughtering of Christian worshippers is strongly condemnable. It calls into question the competence of Jonathan to protect Nigerians.” After the April 2014 Nyanya bomb blast that killed at least 88 people, Tinubu again stated, “A government unable to protect its citizens deserves to be queried.”
Olusegun Dada, now Tinubu’s Special Assistant on Social Media, had also condemned the killing of Christians during the Jonathan era. But reacting to Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria, he defended the current administration, saying: “Nigeria stands firmly as a democracy governed by constitutional guarantees of religious liberty.” He added that claims of religious persecution “do not reflect our national reality.”
Nigerians, however, quickly resurfaced one of his old tweets from December 25, 2011, where he wrote: “Boko Haram promised to bomb churches on Xmas day. Jonathan heard, Azazi heard, IGP heard, SSS DG heard, and yet, it happened.”
Similarly, Reno Omokri — a former aide to President Jonathan and now a vocal supporter of the Tinubu government — had also lamented the killing of Christians in the past. In 2012 and 2017, he described the attacks as “genocide” and urged the international community to intervene. In one of his old tweets from January 29, 2017, he wrote: “How to identify a hypocrite: their voice is loud condemning ‘injustice’ against Muslims in the USA yet silent on the genocide of Christians in Nigeria.”
The Nigerian government insists that while acts of terrorism and banditry persist, they are not motivated by religion, as both Muslims and Christians are frequent victims of such violence.
