The Muslim Public Affairs Centre, MPAC Nigeria, says the end-of-mission findings of UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Prof. Nazila Ghanea, confirm its long-standing position that Nigeria is not experiencing a state-directed genocide of Christians.
In a statement issued Friday, June 27, 2026, MPAC welcomed Ghanea’s assessment following her official visit to Nigeria from June 8 to June 19, 2026. The group quoted the Qur’an, 17:81 — “The Truth Has Come, and Falsehood Has Vanished” — to frame the moment.
“No evidence of intentional state policy”
MPAC said the Rapporteur’s independent, evidence-based assessment found “no evidence of an intentional state policy aimed at destroying a religious community,” which is the legal threshold for genocide under the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
In her words, Ghanea stated: “Did we see a direct government instruction… with an intentionality of destroying one religious community or another? I did not.”
The UN envoy also found no evidence that mass killings in Nigeria are directed at a particular belief system to qualify as religious persecution as state policy. She further acknowledged, according to MPAC, that both Muslims and Christians are victims of the ongoing violence, and that in some contexts Muslims have been the primary targets — a point MPAC says is often missing from dominant Western media coverage.
MPAC Executive Chairman Disu Kamor described the findings as “an affirmation of what MPAC and allied voices within Nigerian society have consistently maintained over many years of advocacy, research, and public engagement,” rather than “a moment of triumphalism.”
The Centre cited its own iMPACt Reports — including “Dispelling the ‘Christian Genocide’ Narrative in Nigeria” and “The State of Religious Freedom in Nigeria” — and years of policy submissions and media engagements documented at http://www.mpac-ng.org. MPAC argues that Nigeria’s security crisis is driven by “multi-dimensional and structural” factors: resource competition, climate-induced displacement, proliferation of small arms, collapse of state presence in large areas, and longstanding governance failure — “not a theological war between faiths.”
It added that the framing of the crisis as a “systematic, state-directed extermination of Christians” is “factually dishonest” and has been “politically weaponised to serve external agendas, to distort international humanitarian attention, and to inflame communal tensions within Nigeria itself.”
On ‘persecution’ and ‘genocide’ language
MPAC said it understands the anguish that leads communities to use terms like “persecution” or “genocide” when violence goes unpunished. Ghanea herself noted “pockets where horrendous mass atrocities and international crimes are being experienced,” and said victims increasingly use those terms because of impunity and lack of justice.
However, MPAC cautioned that “empathy for suffering must not become a licence for legal and political misrepresentation.” It stressed that the terms carry specific definitions under international law and that using them outside those definitions “distorts the truth, inflames division, and ultimately disserves the very victims in whose name such claims are made.”
“The real emergency is impunity and governance failure”
The group said the most urgent issue in Ghanea’s statement is her identification of impunity and governance failure as the central challenge. The Rapporteur warned that Nigeria’s inability to prevent violence, investigate crimes, and prosecute perpetrators fuels mistrust and creates a perception of state complicity, even without a formal policy.
MPAC pointed to the lynching of Ummulkhairi, a young Muslim woman in Kaduna, as an example. “Her killing was not a statistic. It was a name, a life, a family shattered,” the statement said. While arrests have been made, MPAC said “the justice she is owed remains outstanding” and called on authorities to ensure perpetrators “face the full weight of the law.”
“Her case is a mirror held up to the conscience of the Nigerian state — and what it reflects is a failure of protection,” MPAC said, adding: “We pray it will not progress into a failure of prosecution, and a failure of the most basic covenant between a government and its people.”
The Centre urged the Federal Government to treat the Rapporteur’s visit as “a strategic inflection point” to address why the state’s capacity to prevent, investigate, and prosecute atrocity crimes “remains so catastrophically inadequate.” It said every Nigerian — Muslim, Christian, and others — deserves state protection.
Appeal to international partners, especially U.S. Evangelical groups
MPAC called on Nigeria’s international partners — governments, multilaterals, faith-based and media organisations — to “recalibrate their engagement” based on the UN findings. “Advocacy built on a false factual foundation does not help Nigerian communities; it helps those who profit from division,” it said.
It singled out American Evangelical Christian organisations that have promoted the “Christian genocide” narrative about Nigeria. MPAC acknowledged their “sincerity of intent” but said that “does not absolve an organisation of responsibility for the consequences of its actions.”
According to MPAC, when foreign groups with access to U.S. Congress, international media, and significant funding characterize the crisis as a one-sided religious war against Christians, they “actively empower the most extreme and least accountable local voices” and “make the work of peacemakers — Christian, Muslim, and secular alike — measurably harder.”
The Centre cited Ummulkhairi’s case as evidence of “selective solidarity,” noting that “the near-silence of many advocacy organisations, local and international, on her case is telling.”
MPAC therefore called on American Evangelical organisations to “cease the incitement of extreme local Christian voices in Nigeria” and to stop funding or platforming actors whose effect is to “radicalise domestic discourse, deepen inter-communal suspicion, and push Nigeria toward the precipice of the religious conflict they claim to oppose.” Instead, it urged support for “Nigerian-led peacebuilding initiatives” and engagement with credible Nigerian and international research, as well as with Christian and Muslim voices working to keep the country united.
Looking ahead
MPAC said it hopes Ghanea’s full report to the UN Human Rights Council will bring further international clarity and “generate the kind of diplomatic and institutional pressure” that compels government action.
Rooted in “Islamic values of justice, mercy, and human dignity, and in our commitment to Nigerian pluralism,” MPAC said Nigeria’s future lies “not in the narratives of those who wish to divide us, but in the collective courage of those who refuse to let it be divided.” The Centre pledged to continue tracking developments, engaging stakeholders, and advocating for the rights, dignity, and security of all citizens under the rule of law.
For further information, contact:
Disu Kamor, Executive Chairman, Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC) Nigeria
kamor.disu@mpac-ng.org | http://www.mpac-ng.org | @mpacng
Note: MPAC Nigeria is an incorporated public service agency working for Muslim empowerment and the promotion of civil, religious, and political rights within the framework of Nigerian pluralism.
