Mike Arnold and his “Christian genocide” in Nigeria

The reader must have by now heard of Mike Arnold. He is, of course, the latest sensation on the Nigerian corner of social media, particularly X, formerly Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Arnold is a former mayor of a small town in Texas, United States, and if that’s all he is, we won’t be bothered. Lately, […]

The reader must have by now heard of Mike Arnold. He is, of course, the latest sensation on the Nigerian corner of social media, particularly X, formerly Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Arnold is a former mayor of a small town in Texas, United States, and if that’s all he is, we won’t be bothered. Lately, however, he is more well-known for making repeated false claims of “genocide” against “Christians” in Nigeria in his social media posts.

Arnold is not the first person to make this clearly false claim about a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria. In its most recent form at least, the claim started with U.S satirist Bill Maher. This was quickly taken up by mostly Republican politicians in Congress, notably Senator Ted Cruz, and Riley Moore. Cruz, in fact went beyond social media posts to sponsor a bill in the US Senate titled “Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025” which is seeking to have Nigeria re-designated as a “Country of Concern” over matters of religious freedom in the country, a designation that often attracts some sanctions against a country or its officials. This prompted the Nigerian government, most notably through the Minister of Information and National Orientation Mohammed Idris, to swiftly dismiss the claims as “a propaganda externally woven by those who want to weaken our unity… I therefore urge us … to vehemently reject these despicable single narratives about Nigeria.”

Unfortunately, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has not seen it fit to address Nigerians and the world on such as serious matter. The President must address the nation on this.

While Arnold is not the first or even a high-profile voice among those making these claims in recent weeks, it is he who has engaged Nigerians directly and most effectively on this issue. He addresses Nigerians directly as his explicit audience, and speaks as if he regards himself as the evidence of the genocide against Christians, by claiming to have visited Nigeria several times over the past decade on some spurious “fact-finding missions” during which, according to him, he had interviewed all kinds of people here, including governors, presidents, and internally displaced persons. No one has verified those claims, yet, but they help to make him relatable and his claims believable. But that’s also what makes him the most dangerous of those false friends peddling these blatant lies against Nigeria and Nigerians.

Arnold is in luck, however. Whatever his motive and whoever he is working for, they have selected their target well. So many aspects of Nigerian politics and culture will make it easy for these dangerous detractors to succeed, however devilish their aims. Arnold has come out of nowhere but he is now a hero, a champion and “defender” of many who only a few days ago had never heard of his name before. His account on the platform X, formerly Twitter, was only set up in November last year, and until two weeks ago he had no more than a couple hundred followers. Now he has more than 20,000 new ones, all of them Nigerians.

And there, I think, lies the problem. Only Nigerians would see a “messiah” in a total stranger out of nowhere who comes to defend them against some imagined enemies. Only Nigerians would not pause to ask themselves whether the stranger has his own hidden motivations that might not work well for all of us. Nigerians believe the rest of the world is a playground, and only Nigeria is a battleground. We have a competitive and conflictual attitude towards our compatriots, but readily embrace and welcome foreigners we met only a minute ago.

All you need to make a Nigerian, a group of Nigerians, or the whole country to behave how you want is to invoke religion, region or ethnicity. Once you bring “Muslim” or “Christian” or similar identities into any issue, then most Nigerians will lose their critical thinking abilities, and it would not matter whether they are a professor or a motor-park tout. People in many countries of the world are not like this. They can have any issues between them, but they would not welcome a foreigner taking sides between them. If Mike Arnold were a Nigerian and he goes to the US and tries to pick a side on issues between Black and White Americans, or between Democrats and Republicans, or between Catholics and Protestants, scarcely any Americans will listen to him, let alone turn him into a folk hero.

We have been here before. At the peak of the Boko Haram crises between 2011 and 2014, many highly-placed Nigerians, among them Christian religious leaders, politicians, and government officials, insisted that the whole situation was a calculated attempt to bring down the government of President Jonathan. As a political narrative, it was completely false. After all, Jonathan left office more than 10 years ago and the issue is still there. But while it was an easy and unfounded narrative, it resonated with millions of Nigerians, among them many top government officials, religious leaders and perhaps even President Jonathan himself. Worse than that, many people still believe that same easy and unfounded narrative today. Of course, then as now, the casualty numbers tell a whole different story: Muslims are the vast majority by any count.

But my point is that this uniquely Nigerian tendency to fall for easy but mutually destructive narratives is dangerous in international affairs. For one, it will make us easy target for someone else’s agenda, which, quite often we may not even understand ourselves. We must all be careful what we wish for. All too often, the conflicts in developing polities like ours are sometimes the result of strings being pulled by various interested parties from thousands of miles away. Anyone in doubt about this should read the historical records about the thousands of proxy wars between various parties during the Cold War, almost all of which happened in Africa, Asia and Latin America, rather than between the real opponents, the U.S and the then U.S.S.R.

That is what we must ask ourselves today. What is the motivation behind this claim right now? Why now? And why by these particular set of people like Bill Maher and Ted Cruz? The Boko Haram crises has been going on for more than 15 years, what has Ted Cruz, Bill Maher and even Mike Arnold ever said or done about it before? Why now? And why just out of the blue? Above all, why the same time as the world is witnessing an actual genocide in Gaza, according to many authorities? This is a question for all Nigerians, regardless of their religious leanings.

Our media can help with in-depth reporting about what actually constitutes a genocide, how it is determined, by whom, and whether or not that’s what we have in Nigeria. The New York Times published a Guest Essay earlier this year in which a world-renowned expert on genocide wrote categorically that the situation in Gaza is a genocide. Why can’t our media invite authorities like that, rather than fly-by-night mayors who have no idea what they are talking about? We are all victims of Nigeria in one way or another, and it is entirely our responsibility, both individually and as a collective, to make our country better.

Neither Americans nor any foreigners can do that for us.