Intersociety accuses New York Times of falsifying report, says Christian genocide data verified

Umeagbalasi

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has accused the New York Times of falsifying parts of its report that told how the United States relied on its often “unverified” information to assert claims of a Christian genocide in Nigeria.

In the report published on Sunday, the New York Times said Emeka Umeagbalasi, Intersociety founder, admitted that he “often does not verify his data”.

“He acknowledged that his research was mainly based on ‘secondary sources’, including Christian interest groups, Nigerian news reports and Google searches,” the report said.

“He acknowledged that his research was mainly based on ‘secondary sources’, including Christian interest groups, Nigerian news reports and Google searches,” the report said.

Umeagbalasi was quoted as saying he has documented 125,000 Christian deaths in Nigeria since 2009 and claimed 100,000 churches exist in Nigeria, and about 20,000 of them were destroyed in the past 16 years, based on his internet crawling. According to the report, the screwdriver salesman is “an unlikely source of research that U.S. Republican lawmakers have used to promote the misleading idea that Christians are being singled out for slaughter” in Nigeria.

The report also alleged that Umeagbalasi claimed the 25 schoolgirls recently kidnapped in Kebbi were mostly Christian despite authorities saying they were all Muslim.

The New York Times added that the Intersociety leader called the Fulani “animals” and said all Fulanis should be confined to one Nigerian state, “a move that would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing”.