Former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani has criticised a New York Times report which revealed that claims of a \u201cChristian genocide\u201d in Nigeria, relied upon by United States lawmakers, were sourced from unverified data provided by a trader and small-scale NGO operator in Anambra State.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the report on his X handle, Sani described the development as unfortunate and tragic, saying it was shameful that such claims could influence the highest levels of decision-making in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate and tragic to read the New York Times report that the claim of \u2018Christian genocide\u2019 was sourced from one Emeka, an Onitsha-based screwdriver trader and operator of a small NGO, who falsely claimed to have documented 125,000 Christian deaths using Google searches,\u201d Sani said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/politicsnigeria.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/G-9NgFWXwAAywB8-171x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
According to the former lawmaker, it was alarming that unverified information could \u201ctense up US lawmakers, the President and the intelligence community,\u201d allegedly leading to military airstrikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow such an unverified claim could tense up the US lawmakers, President and the intelligence community that led to airstrikes is one of the most foolish and comical historical events in our lifetime. This is shameful,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Abia Radio News recalls that a New York Times investigation had earlier identified Emeka Umeagbalasi, a trader based in Onitsha, Anambra State, who also runs a small non-governmental organisation, as a key source of data cited by prominent US politicians to support claims that Christians were being systematically targeted in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
The report stated that Umeagbalasi claimed to have documented about 125,000 Christian deaths in Nigeria since 2009, relying largely on Google searches, Nigerian media reports, secondary sources, and information from advocacy groups such as Open Doors.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Kaduna Central Senator, Shehu Sani has criticised a New York Times report which revealed that claims of a \u201cChristian genocide\u201d in Nigeria, relied upon by United States lawmakers, were sourced from unverified data provided by a trader and small-scale NGO operator in Anambra State. Reacting to the report on his X handle, Sani described […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":239678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[790],"class_list":["post-239677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-shehu-sani"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Shehu-Sani_650px.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}