Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State has rejected claims suggesting that Christians in Nigeria’s South-East are victims of a religious genocide, describing such assertions as false and misleading. Soludo, who spoke during a live media chat on Channels Television, said the violence in the region is rooted in social, political and economic grievances, not religious persecution.
The governor’s remarks come in response to recent statements by U.S. President Donald Trump, who accused the Nigerian government of allowing widespread killings of Christians and threatened possible military action to “protect” them.
Soludo, however, argued that the situation in the South-East is far more complex than the U.S. narrative suggests.
“There is a deeper conversation and introspection about what goes on in the country,” Soludo said. “In this part of the world, eastern Nigeria, it is not religious. People are killing themselves, Christians killing Christians. The people in the bushes are Emmanuel, Peter, and John, all Christian names, and they have maimed and killed thousands of our youths. It has nothing to do with religion.”
The former Central Bank governor explained that the region is almost entirely Christian, noting that the perpetrators and victims of the ongoing violence share the same faith.
“In this part of the country, we are 95 percent Christians, and the people in the bushes killing people bear Christian names,” he added. “It is wider than the categorisation of Christians and Muslims. Nigeria will overcome, and it will end in conversation.” “While the United States is entitled to its opinions, its actions must still align with international law,” he said.
