In a heated exchange on Piers Morgan's show, Canadian politician Goldie Ghamari clashed with Yusuf Tuggar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, over allegations of Christian persecution in Nigeria. The interview, which aired on Tuesday, saw Tuggar challenge the claims, clarify figures, provide context, and address Nigeria's complex security challenge.
Morgan presented figures from the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) claiming over 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009 and 18,000 churches destroyed. Tuggar dismissed these figures as inaccurate, challenging the religious framing and stating that the government does not tally deaths by faith, viewing all victims as Nigerians first.
When pressed for numbers, Tuggar claimed that only 177 Christians were killed and 102 churches attacked in the last five years in Nigeria. Ghamari, a former Canadian MP, alleged that Nigeria's insecurity is a form of jihad, drawing a nexus with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. She cited the shared Islamic faith of President Bola Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima as 'evidence' of a complicit Islamist government in the insecurity miasma.
Ghamari's comments were met with criticism from Tuggar, who called them a display of ignorance and dismissed her speech as waffling. He accused her of treating the lives of Nigerians like a game, sitting far away and not understanding the situation. Tuggar argued that Nigerians are more concerned with regional balance than religion, with Tinubu from the south and Shettima from the north.
Morgan asked Tuggar if he condemned the attack on Christians by Islamist militants, to which he replied affirmatively. He shared a personal story of losing his father-in-law to an attack by Boko Haram, a Muslim terrorist group, and emphasized that the aim of these groups is to kill and maim, regardless of the victim's faith.
Ghamari responded that the killing of Muslims does not negate the targeted ethnic cleansing of Christians in Nigeria. Tuggar countered that people like Ghamari trade in starting wars from a distance, without understanding the context, and suggested she was making money from her inflammatory statements. He accused her of not knowing the difference between ethnic groups in Nigeria and of agitating for the breakup of the country, drawing parallels to the situation in Sudan.
Tuggar concluded by emphasizing the importance of freedom and democracy in Nigeria, and criticized Ghamari for her lack of concern for the loss of lives. He called her a disgrace to Canada and accused her of not caring about the lives of Nigerians, only seeking to break up the country for her own agenda.
