A security consultant and cleric, Reverend Ladi Thompson, has faulted what he described as the Federal Government’s denial of genocide in Nigeria, insisting that the killings linked to religious extremism over the past two decades amount to genocide.
Speaking on Channels Television on Tuesday morning, Thompson warned that the crisis has reached a level that could attract international intervention, declaring that “America will not sit and watch Nigeria destroy itself.”
Thompson, who once served as Special Adviser to the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), said Nigeria’s refusal to confront the ideological and structural roots of terrorism has allowed the menace to thrive.
“If a nation has over 200 million people, and between 200,000 to 400,000 people die over a span of 25 years for something that is not right, a right-thinking nation should stem what the cause is,” he said.
“There is a way Nigerians think, and that is a problem.”
The clergyman said he had warned, more than 15 years ago, that a global resurgence of religious extremism was taking root locally in Nigeria under the cover of religion and ideology.
“For the first 15 years, it was affecting Christians tactically — we were talking about the rape of young girls and kidnapping. It was so clever that we couldn’t detect what it was. After 20 years, it began to kill Muslims,” he explained.
He described the extremist ideology as a “dragon” that had penetrated key sectors of the country, including education, politics, and the media.
Thompson recounted a past incident involving a Lagos journalist who exposed a school textbook promoting extremist indoctrination — a revelation that nearly cost the journalist his job and freedom.
“A journalist wrote about a textbook approved in Nigeria that taught classical conditioning of students’ minds, it had a certain character that forced people to convert to Islam and executed them when they refused,” Thompson said.
“He was sacked and charged to court. But when we found old copies of the original book from the second-hand market, the case was thrown out, and he was reinstated.”
Thompson warned that the problem had grown beyond religion, turning into a full-fledged network that now influences major national systems.
“What we are up against is a dragon. It uses religion and education. This hydra has its head in media, in politics, in education — and practically everything. Many nations have learnt to deal with it, but Nigeria never got it right,” he said.
He further condemned the continued silence and perceived complicity of authorities regarding religiously motivated killings and kidnappings, particularly referencing the cases of Leah Sharibu, the Dapchi schoolgirl still held captive by Boko Haram, and Deborah Samuel, a student lynched in Sokoto for alleged blasphemy.
“It is wicked for anybody who knows Leah Sharibu, who was taken at 14, raped brutally, now with two children in captivity. People remember Deborah Samuel in Sokoto who was killed for religious reasons, and the students who killed her were never tried,” he stated.
The clergyman also made strong claims about foreign involvement and government negligence, saying that the United States and other global powers are aware of what is happening in Nigeria and may not remain passive if the situation continues to deteriorate.
“Everybody in the world knows where Leah Sharibu is and the locations of terrorist camps. There is government complicity — it’s a global problem, and not all governments will wait for Nigeria to destroy itself,” he warned.
“If Nigeria goes, West Africa goes — and with it, its resources. Why is the President not addressing that? Why is he not responding factually to what Trump said? Why would America sit and watch when you catch a terrorist and absorb him into the Nigerian Army?”
Thompson also criticised government denial of the ongoing crisis, particularly dismissing claims that genocide was not taking place.
“It’s unfortunate what the President said, that genocide is a lie. People like us will show them that it is not a lie,” he declared.
