The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has said that the ongoing insecurity and killings across Nigeria cannot be described as genocide, despite recent claims by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, stated this on Tuesday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
His comments came amid escalating diplomatic tension following Trump’s threat of possible U.S. military action against Nigeria over alleged persecution of Christians.
“I cannot say there’s genocide in Nigeria, and from what we have seen, we cannot describe what’s going on as genocide. The question here is not about how the Americans are framing it. The question is that people are being killed in Nigeria,” Abdullahi said.
He criticised the Nigerian government for failing to take proactive diplomatic steps to correct international perceptions about the country’s security crisis.
According to him, a report released by the US State Department in 2024 had raised concern about alleged genocide in Nigeria but the federal government failed to engage the department to clarify the situation.
He said, “I just told you here; a 2023 report released in 2024 by the U.S. State Department said they’ve engaged with Nigeria. Somebody in government ought to have seen this and said we must engage with America to let them know that they are misreading what is going on in Nigeria.”
The ADC spokesperson expressed disappointment that the government’s inaction had allowed foreign actors to frame Nigeria’s internal security challenge in ways that could deepen national division.
“We feel embarrassed that outsiders are framing our security challenge along these lines that can only further divide us because we refused to protect our own people; because the government refused to do what they should do,” he said.
Abdullahi added that while the ADC acknowledges the severity of the killings and violence, it rejects any foreign intervention.
“We don’t want anyone to come into Nigeria to fix our problems for us,” he said.
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