By EMMANUEL OGEBE

On April, 24 2018, I checked my messages before going into the State Dept for a briefing on religious freedom in Nigeria. What I saw would make me break down in tears during my presentation. Two priests, Fathers Felix Tyolaha and Joseph Gor, had been slain during morning mass at St Ignatius Mbalom in my home state of Benue along with 15 congregants. The following week, Trump told visiting Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari “You need to stop the killing of Christians in Nigeria.”

On April 5, Easter Sunday, 2026 Islamist Fulani terrorists struck St Ignatius Catholic Church and killed 17 Mbalom villagers. Again. Eight years after Trump’s first warning to Gen. Buhari and five months after his 2nd term warning to President Tinubu.

In 2015, I testified in Congress providing data of 10,000 members of the Church of the Brethren (EYN) slaughtered in northern Nigeria - the largest fatality of any single church in contemporary Christendom - earning the ire of both Gen Buhari and Obama’s administration for my advocacy. Last year I reached out for updated figures. It’s now over 20,000 killed by jihadists – in one church!

In April, I got this proof of survival text response: “On Friday evening…Our neighbor went to clear her farm with her four children on a motorcycle unfortunately she clashed with the Boko Haram people and they killed her 3 children and she pleaded for them to leave the 15-year-old boy but they told her that they don’t kill women but if she stop them from killing the boy then they will kill the both of them. Unfortunately, they shot him on the head.

“They entered town, went to a football field, killed boys playing a match and burnt so many motorcycles on the field from there they entered church EYN (COB) Guyaku and burnt it down with two men inside…

“That night my mom, my elder brother and my junior brother slept on the mountain but they kept on shooting bullets towards the mountain.

“It was traumatizing because we’ve gone through this experience and we actually gave up that day thinking we will be killed but thank God we escaped.

“We came back home the following morning and 38 people were killed - 37 men and 1 lady - which they said any lady that died is a missing bullet because they are not there to kill women only men.”

Debbie is a university student whose pastor dad was beheaded by terrorists in a famous video in January 2021. Five years later, his family is still running…

I just got this distress message in May:

“…yesterday, while we were at a burial ground we suddenly heard gunshots and everyone had to run for safety before some people later returned to complete the burial.

Dad, the fear is too much. For the past three days we have been sleeping in the bush because it is not safe at home. Please help me so I can travel to Maiduguri and stay at my aunt’s house where it is safer.”

This is from a Chibok girl who escaped after the mass abduction of 2014. She returned home from university last week and then they were attacked again. She’s been running for 12 years…

Since 2012, Chibok has been attacked 131 times with 4,332 killed and 91 of her 275 abducted classmates still missing. This May, 51 children as little as 2 years old were abducted. Less than half a dozen of them were born at the time of the original 2014 Chibok school mass abduction. 50% of the Chibok community has been displaced. Even though the Chibok schoolgirls we relocated to the US are safe here, many have families displaced or killed in continuing terrorism in Nigeria. And Chibok are the lucky ones.

The neighboring Christian communities of Gwoza have been completely deChristianized. Over 100,000 are refugees in Cameroun – some for a dozen years now. Out of 176 churches, only about two dozen have not been destroyed. Middlebelt Leader Dr Bitrus Pogu says Gwoza is the textbook case of Nigerian Christian genocide. Boko Haram released a video of the slaughter of 1000 infidels when it proclaimed Gwoza its caliphate seat. When hundreds of refugees returned from Cameroon this year, some were killed and abducted in Ngoshe and Pulka, Borno state.

Innocent civilians are not the only mass casualties of terror. Since Boko Haram’s first violent terror attack on a Yobe state police state on Christmas Eve 2003, its has spiraled to becoming the world’s deadliest terror group per GTI multiple times.

In recent months, Boko Haram has attacked over half a dozen military installations killing most of the commanding officers, Generals and colonels in elevated levels of attacks similar to Jan 2012 when Boko Haram attacked the military, the airforce, the Dept of State Security and even police barracks where it murdered almost 40 cops alone in one day.

And just like Barkin Ladi, in 2012, terrorists again massacred a community then returned to kill mourners at the funeral the following day this May in Plateau state - caught on live camera.

Boko Haram’s first violent terror attack was when President Tinubu was governor of Lagos and Obasanjo was president. Gov Kashim Shettima who’s accused of fomenting the Chibok abductions to undermine President Jonathan is now Tinubu’s VP so how on earth can their administration claim that anti-terror advocates are politically motivated against them?

I flew to Nigeria to join thousands at the funerals of Frs Joseph Gor and Felix Tyolaha and 15 members of St Ignatius church in May 2018.

Representing the President was VP Osinbajo (a pastor and law professor) who ironically had sparred with me at a Houston townhall that Christians were not being killed in Nigeria. Officiating was the Catholic Archbishop who at a Catholic university lecture in Washington said there was no persecution in Nigeria.

Propaganda and spin in global capitals ultimately collapsed by a stack of caskets at the graveside as these two VIPs buried two of their fellow clergymen in the blood-speckled brown sands of Benue state. The tears of thousands drowning out the tall tales of titans…

The following morning, we got the news - some who had been at the funeral with me yesterday had been killed overnight.

This is genocide. This is what it looks like. And this is one thing Trump has been consistently right about. And it’s not about politics or President Tinubu regardless of what his multimillion dollar lobbyist shills say. It’s about girls tired of running for 12 years from sex slavery.

And it’s not only about Nigeria’s Christians either. Last month, the U.S. embassy evacuated nonessential personnel – a rare once in a dozen year occurrence in over half a century of diplomatic relations. Prior evacs included:

i. Biafra civil war in the ‘60s,

ii. June 12 prodemocracy unrest in ‘90s,

iii. COVID pandemic 2020 and

iv. Terror bomb in U.S. Embassy residence in 2022.

The U.S. Embassy has evacuated twice in the past three years for terror threats averaging 1.5 years compared to the overall average of 1 in 15 years (five times in over 60 years) for war, civil unrest and global pandemic – all major cataclysmic events. Fighting global jihadists in Nigeria defends America and protects the world too.

Nigerian jihadists were Al Qaeda’s foreign fighters in Sudan and Afghanistan before returning, after U.S. defeat of the Taliban, to ramp up terror in Nigeria decades ago but now ISIS has likewise relocated to Nigeria. America may be late to this battle but it’s been the same war since 911. This is why Trump’s ISIS strikes in Nigeria last weekend make sense (more so than Venezuela) though belated.

Days ago, terrorists abducted 40 teachers and Baptist school students in southern Nigeria’s Oyo state - beheading a teacher on video and breaking new ground for terror. It’s a first for them but Christian genocide is 2.0 in the north…

Rev. Fr. Joseph Gor, had worried in a facebook post on January 3rd, 2018:

“Living In fear: the Fulanis are still around us here in Mbalom. they refuse to go. they still go grazing around – no weapons to defend ourselves.” Trump heard months later and is acting now.

•Emmanuel Ogebe, Esq, is an award-winning international human rights lawyer based in Washington D. C. who has played a role shaping US Congressional and foreign policy on Nigeria. Mr. Ogebe has been a guest speaker at university campuses across the US and radio and TV programs around the world, including CNN, Fox, Al Jazeera, BBC, the Geneva Summit, United Nations, World Bank, the Canadian Parliament etc. His decades of advocacy led to the US designations of Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization (2013), Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (2020) and International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s determination of crimes against humanity in Nigeria (2020) to mention a few achievements. He was consulted by Presidents Clinton (2000) and Bush’s Administrations (2003) on their visits to Nigeria. He currently serves as Special Counsel for the “Justice for Jos” Project, advocating for and assisting survivors/victims of terror. Mr Ogebe is a recipient of several awards including President Obama (2009), the Darfur Women Action Group (2016), Diaspora groups in the US as well as US States and local authorities citations and recognitions in Florida, Arkansas and New Jersey amongst others. In 2025, Emmanuel Ogebe received a Diaspora Merit award from the Nigerian government as an outstanding citizen abroad for his humanitarian work and development of the law. The award was bestowed at Nigeria’s presidential villa where he was once a political prisoner of a military dictatorship on the 29th anniversary of his captivity. He came into exile in the U.S. a year after his imprisonment.