Trump’s Comment: INEC Chairman Amupitan Authored Legal Opinion On Religious Violence – Intersociety
In response to questions from the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Disinformation Unit, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) clarified the sources and methodology used in its figures regarding purported religious genocide in Nigeria.
The organization’s conclusions were derived from a variety of reliable reports, including a legal brief written by Prof. Joash Amupitan, SAN, according to Intersociety chairman Emeka Umeagbalasi.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, has appointed Amupitan as its chairman.
This comes after the BBC allegedly accused the group of manipulating and inflating statistics in order to promote a false narrative of “Christian genocide” in Nigeria.
According to reports, US President Donald Trump had previously threatened military action against Nigeria by designating the country as a country of particular concern.
The US President cited the government’s inability to protect religious minorities and what he called persistent brutality against Christians.
The Nigerian government, however, vehemently disputed that any religious organizations were persecuted in the country.
Intersociety clarified in a statement on Thursday that its statistics included events that occurred as early as 2009, when the Boko Haram insurgency began. As a result, several churches in the North-East, the epicenter of the war, were destroyed or shut down.
According to Umeagbalasi, Amupitan wrote the legal opinion for a significant international report titled “Genocide in Nigeria: The Implications for the International Community,” which is included in the 312-page “Religious Freedom in the World 2025” report that Aid to the Church in Need at the Vatican released on October 21, 2025.
Over 13,000 churches were destroyed or closed, according to the report’s legal opinion section. This number was first mentioned in Anna Mulder’s Open Doors Report (2015), which covered the Boko Haram conflict from July 2009 to December 2014, according to Intersociety.
It further stated that Ewelina Ochab, a renowned scholar and opponent of Christian persecution in Nigeria, was another source of inspiration for Amupitan.
Citing data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in December 2024, which stated that 614,373 Nigerians perished from insecurity between May 2023 and April 2024, the rights organization further encouraged the BBC to challenge the Nigerian government over its own data.
According to Intersociety, its data came from both primary and secondary sources, including as stories from domestic and foreign media, victim communities, research organizations, declassified state papers, eyewitness accounts, and diplomatic sources.
