Xtian Genocide In Nigeria: The Screwdriver Salesman Distraction

By Tosin Adeoti

Recently, a narrative spread rapidly across Nigerian media and social platforms. It claimed that the reason President Trump and his advisers authorised airstrikes in Nigeria was information supplied by a “screwdriver salesman” in Onitsha.

The story originated with a New York Times report and was excitedly amplified locally by outlets such as The Cable and The Nation. The framing was deliberate and dismissive. Emeka Umeagbalasi was portrayed primarily as a man who owns a small shop selling screwdrivers and wrenches in a market in the commercial hub of southeast Nigeria. The implication was clear. How could someone like this possibly influence U.S. foreign policy? 

The same report noted that Mr. Umeagbalasi’s work has been cited by senior U.S. lawmakers. It also made clear that his research relies heavily on secondary sources and is not always independently verified. That admission matters, but not in the way it is now being deployed. 

The critical question is not whether Mr. Umeagbalasi is a rigorous or reliable researcher. It is whether the claims he points to stand or fall with him.  

Reports of targeted violence against Christians in Nigeria are not the product of one activist or one market stall in Onitsha. They are supported by a wide range of independent sources that long predate and extend far beyond his work. Conflict-monitoring organisations, international NGOs, church networks, and media investigations have repeatedly documented attacks on Christian communities as part of Nigeria’s broader security crisis. ACLED, an independent global organisation that collects and analyses conflict data, has shown that attacks on civilians have risen alongside a noticeable increase in assaults on churches and Christian leaders, both Catholic and Protestant.  

In that context, reducing U.S. concern or action to the influence of a single, imperfect source is misleading. Discrediting the messenger does not erase the violence. It simply avoids engaging with the evidence. 

Instead of interrogating that evidence, much of the Nigerian media response has focused on ridiculing the individual and, by extension, dismissing the deaths of Christians at the hands of jihadist groups. This is a familiar tactic. Undermine the source, trivialise the issue, and hope the underlying facts fade from view. 

The timing is also instructive. In the same week, Business Insider reported that the Nigerian government had engaged a U.S. lobbying firm under a $9 million contract to manage perceptions of its response to violence against Christian communities, amid rising scrutiny from Washington and worsening security conditions. Against that backdrop, it is difficult to treat the current framing as accidental. It reads instead like narrative management. 

Even the New York Times acknowledged a crucial limitation. The Nigerian government does not publish comprehensive data on victims of violent attacks or their religious identities. Many attacks occur in remote areas and are reported weeks or months later, if at all. The absence of official statistics does not negate the violence.

Yet that very absence is now being weaponised to suggest that reports of Christian persecution are exaggerated or fabricated. That is denial at its worst. 

On 25 December 2025, the United States launched what it described as “powerful and deadly” strikes against Islamic State–linked militants attempting to establish a foothold in north-western Nigeria. One can argue for or against those strikes, question U.S. intervention, or interrogate its motivations. Those are legitimate debates. 

What should not be acceptable is the use of propaganda to deny the suffering that prompted international attention in the first place, or the use of public funds to manufacture narratives that insult the dead and the communities left behind. 

This is not new. Governments have long used lobbyists and public relations firms to reshape international perception. From Cold War information campaigns, to Middle Eastern regimes hiring Western firms to sanitise human rights records, to apartheid South Africa’s efforts to launder its global image, the pattern is well documented. Money does not change reality. It only changes what powerful audiences are encouraged to see. 

The danger is not that a small shop owner in Onitsha was taken seriously. The danger is that a state, confronted with evidence of failure, would rather spend millions contesting the narrative than confront the violence itself. 

That is a far more uncomfortable story than the screwdriver salesman.

*Adeoti is a commentator on public issues