Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, on Tuesday engaged in a heated exchange with former Canadian lawmaker Goldie Ghamari during an appearance on Piers Morgan’s programme, following renewed allegations of widespread persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
The confrontation began after Morgan referenced figures from the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), which claimed that over 50,000 Christians have been killed and more than 18,000 churches destroyed in Nigeria since 2009.
Tuggar dismissed the statistics as inaccurate and misleading, stressing that the government does not record fatalities based on religion. He said available data showed that 177 Christians were killed and 102 churches attacked within the last five years. He emphasised that all victims of insecurity are regarded simply as Nigerians.
The debate intensified when Morgan introduced Ghamari. The former legislator alleged that the security challenges in Nigeria amounted to jihad, drawing parallels to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. She claimed that the Muslim backgrounds of President Bola Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima signalled a government sympathetic to Islamist agendas, further alleging links between Nigeria’s leadership and Iran.
Ghamari accused Tuggar of “lying” and “avoiding the truth”, prompting the minister to accuse her of making baseless claims and trivialising Nigeria’s challenges from afar. He argued that her comments showed little understanding of Nigeria’s ethnic and religious dynamics.
On claims regarding Tinubu and Shettima’s religion, Tuggar noted that Nigerians prioritise geopolitical balance over faith, explaining that the President hails from the South while the Vice-President is from the North.
When asked by Morgan whether he condemned attacks on Christians by extremist groups, Tuggar affirmed that he did and revealed he had personally lost family members—including his father-in-law—to Boko Haram attacks. He stressed that both Muslims and Christians are victims of extremist violence.
Ghamari, however, insisted that attacks on Muslims “do not negate” what she described as targeted ethnic cleansing of Christians in Nigeria. Tuggar sharply criticised her stance, accusing her of fuelling tension from “the comfort of another continent”. He argued that such rhetoric mirrors the foreign interference that contributed to Sudan’s fragmentation and warned that similar efforts would fail in Nigeria.
He described her position as an attempt to undermine Africa’s largest democracy, telling her: “Move on to your next project. You’re a disgrace.”
