Today, Nigerian leaders are busy playing the biblical couple, Ananias and Sapphira, on allegation that they abet genocide in Nigeria. They do this while being enveloped in how to rig the 2027 elections. As they do, Citizen Yahaya Sharif-Aminu is on a death row. On February 23, 2020, this then 22-year-old was arrested for posting blasphemous statements on WhatsApp against Prophet Muhammad. The Kano bigoted mob, renowned for its hyena-like thirst for flesh and blood, immediately burnt down Sharif-Aminu’s family home.

For context, Sharif-Aminu is an adherent of the Tijaniyya Sufi Islamic order. That WhatsApp message ostensibly elevated, in estimation, Ibrahim Niasse, a Tijaniyya Muslim brotherhood Imam, higher than Prophet Muhammad. Tijaniyya laud Niasse, a Senegalese cleric, for reviving the sect by spreading it across West Africa.

Under Section 382(b) of the Kano State Sharia Penal Code 2000 where he was domiciled, it is illegal for a self-professed Muslim to insult the Quran or any of the Islamic prophets. The Penal Code’s recompense for such infractions, upon conviction, is death. The twelve states of the north, predominantly Muslim, are under the suzerainty of the Sharia laws.

During trial in March 2020, Sharif-Aminu was denied legal representation and was held incommunicado. On August 10, 2020, the Hausawa Filin Hockey upper-Sharia Court sentenced him to death by hanging. His appeal for “leniency,” was spurned by the Sharia judge because, “a case of blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) is among the things that a person who made them shall not be excused.” After the sentencing, then Governor of Kano State, Abdulahi Ganduje, shocked a sane world when he said he would not hesitate to sign the execution order.

In August 2020, another boy, a minor by then, named Omar Farouq, was equally convicted for blasphemy. An allegation that he made derogatory statements to a colleague in a heated argument became his albatross. Immediately, like Sharif-Aminu, a heartless mob comprising Stone-Age-minded Almajiris, typical to Northern Nigeria, descended on his home and burnt it. Omar was eventually sentenced to a ten-year imprisonment on account of being a minor.

An appeal court ordered a retrial of Sharif-Aminu’s case which again returned a judgment of death penalty on the musician. Since January 18, 2023, the case has been before the Supreme Court. The world was riled to its nadir when, in reaction, Lamido Abba Sorondinki, counsel for the Kano State government, said, “This applicant made blasphemous statements against the Holy Prophet.. If the Supreme Court upholds the lower court’s decision, we will execute him publicly…Anybody that has uttered any word that touches the integrity of the holy prophet, we’ll punish him.”

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Ancient wisdom of my people says that no one needed to tell apart an àtànpàkò (thumb) from the omońdinrín, (little finger). Among fingers seated on the phalanges that make up the five fingers of the hand, the thumb and little finger stand out. Apart from these two, the phalanges also comprise the index, middle and the ring fingers. So, the Yoruba say, it is the àtànpàkò that points the way forward while omońdinrín describes where to go. In the last couple of weeks, like the àtànpàkò, US Senator for Texas, Ted Cruz, seems to be pointing Nigeria to Nigerians. In bursting the bubble of the Nigerian government’s appetite for its decades-old delicious broth of hypocrisy and duplicity, Cruz might just as well have been the àtànpàkò.

The Cruz’s bursting of the bubble reminds me of an ancient tale of Ida the slave boy. Not minding his years of servitude to him, Ida’s slaveholder once got him dressed in a resplendent attire, in preparation for a celebrities’ event he was invited to. So, on arrival, the organizers took Ida to where children of invited guests sat. Not long after, the celebrant, visibly perturbed, walked up to the slaveholder and asked, “Your son should have told us his specially-prepared meal was not enough. We found out he left the exalted group of children of guests and stepped into where slaves were having their meals”. Unfazed but matter-of-factly, the slaveholder told the celebrant, “You may have thought him my son but his behaviour has revealed that he is a slave.”

On his X account recently, Cruz, a Republican senator, revealed the systemic contradictions of the country we call ours. Government then began running, in the Nigerian parlance, from pillar to post, to deconstruct its age-long unsavoury profile. In his post, Cruz revealed how the rest of the world is aghast at Nigeria’s national disharmony. He also alerted the world of Nigeria’s Achilles’ heel and how its leaders’ hypocrisy constitutes the nation’s vulnerability. Cruz had written: “Officials in Nigeria are ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamist Jihadists.” He further remonstrated barbaric portions of the Nigerian blasphemy laws of northern Nigeria, especially provisions which “criminalize expression, behavior, or belief perceived as insulting religion.”

The statistics of Islamists’ killings in Nigeria are grim. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that Boko Haram had killed 350,000 Nigerians as at 2021. Ex-Chief of Defence Staff, Lucky Irabor, in a new book, also estimated that the insurgents had massacred “no fewer than 2,700 officers and soldiers” in over 12 years.

On September 9, 2025, Cruz doubled down on this allegation by sponsoring a bill requesting the U.S. Secretary of State “to designate the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, (CPC)” while demanding it to impose appropriate sanctions, with a caveat that, “It’s time to hold those responsible accountable.” Unfavourable and potentially unsettling for countries so tagged, the CPC is an acrid wage for countries found to have engaged in or abetted “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”

Pronto, as Americans say, Nigeria drifted into a self-imposed dilemma which, again, can be summarized in an ancient wisdom of a man insistent on scouring the world for who owed his late father money. In the process of this stiff-necked attempt to demonstrate financial purity, he may stumble on one who his late father owed money. Today, like a rat struggling to free self from the choke-hold of a cobra, the Nigerian government is trapped in the center of the world’s anger. Like that man seeking who owed his father money, Nigeria’s government is choked by its own vomit.

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In May, 2022, Deborah Yakubu, a Christian student of Sokoto State College of Education, faced similar gruesome fate in the hands of the cadaver-seeking mob of northern Nigeria. Her crime was an alleged comment she made in aid of her Christian faith which allegedly disparaged Islam. The mob promptly stoned her to death and then incinerated her. The police were too scared of this murderous mob to intervene. They eventually arrested two student colleagues of Deborah’s but set them free subsequently. In northern Nigeria, it is a very rare spectacle to see murderers who kill in the name of religion arrested and prosecuted.

On account of Deborah’s killing in far away Bauchi State, Rhoda Jatau, a Christian, nurse, and mother of five, escaped death by the whiskers. Her crime was sharing the video created by someone else condemning the killing of Deborah. Immediately, a mob descended on her. It destroyed her store and injured so many people in the process. Arrested on May 20, 2022 and charged for blasphemy, Jatau’s reprieve only came after global outrage, leading to her acquittal in December, 2024.

In Northern Nigeria, many people have faced such persecution, resulting in death. In June 2023, during dispute with someone near his shop, a Muslim butcher living in Sokoto, Usman Buda, had a mob accuse him of blasphemy. He got an instant mob judgment of instant death. So also was Mubarak Bala. An ex-President of the Nigerian Humanist Association and an ex-Muslim, his charge for allegedly “blasphemous” Facebook posts got him convicted by the Kano State High Court on April 5, 2022. He was then sentenced to 24 years imprisonment. Recently in Bauchi State, an Islamic cleric, Idris Abdulaziz, was also charged for blasphemy. Realizing the fate that awaited him, Abdulaziz, as my people would say, immediately paid tribute to the hare. Also in 2016, Abdulazeez Inyass, during a secret trial in Kano, was sentenced to death for blaspheming Prophet Muhammad. Also of the Tijaniya sect, his crime was saying that Sheikh Niasse “was bigger than Prophet Muhammad”.

Of no less religious tyrannic proportion is a recent order by a Magistrate Court that two popular
creators, Idris Mai Wushirya and Basira Yar Guda, must, within 60 days, formalize a marriage relationship within 60 days. The two had posted series of viral videos wherein both engaged in romantic displays considered “indecent”. The Sharia courts in the north are notorious for handing down barbaric sentences of floggings, amputations and death penalty.

I went into details of all the blasphemy laws in northern Nigeria to be able to situate the fact that, let us even for a minute forget about the gauntlet of Boko Haram, the intense and barbaric censorship on freedom of religion in the north is Nigeria’s albatross. Unfortunately, Nigerian leaders abet it by their willing conscription into a tyranny of silence. Northern leaders can’t disclaim it for fear of not being rejected at the polls and Aso Rock is afraid to dabble in it for political expediency.

Blasphemy laws of northern Nigeria, which clearly violate the Nigerian constitution, are a legal relic in today’s modern world. Nigeria shares this untoward and disreputable space with six other countries – Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia – which still have the laws in their rule books. For instance, in Iran, Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, professionally known as Amir Tataloo, faced the Sharif-Aminu hell. An Iranian singer, rapper and songwriter controversial for his full body tatoo, Tataloo was also sentenced to death on January 19, 2025 for blasphemy.

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The most abhorrent in all this is that northern leaders, from the Sultan to the lowest person, approve of this antediluvian blasphemy laws. Most times, what can be termed a licence-to-kill pall of silence from northern leaders hovers over the land. Amnesty International corroborated this when it said, “government officials rarely publicly condemn mob violence for blasphemy.” Ex-VP Atiku Abubakar, for instance, was appalled when his social media handler excoriated the barbaric murder of Deborah and immediately ordered it deleted. In August 2020, as governor, Ganduje, ex-APC chair currently undergoing trial for corruption, vowed to “waste no time in signing the warrant for the execution of the man who blasphemed.”

The truth is that, there is a connect between the barbaric blasphemy laws of northern Nigeria and the allegation of genocide by Ted Cruz. Having profiled Nigeria as a country that is receptive to barbarism, it fits into the trope to submit that the animalism of genocide is a Nigerian way of life.

Now, let us come to the Ted Cruz allegation. In an interview with the Fox News Digital, Cruz alleged further that over 52,000 Christians had been killed in Nigeria since 2009, and over 20,000 churches and Christian schools got destroyed within this period. This rattled the Nigerian government which knew that if Cruz’s allegation carries the day, its pot of soup would go sour in America. Senate President Godswill Akpabio, House of Representatives Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu and others defended this pot of soup. In his characteristic gruff, presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, took the usual Bolekaja route. “Senator, stop these malicious, contrived lies against my country. We do not have a religious war in my country,” he blabbered at Cruz.

But, President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop Daniel Okoh, said the church “affirms, without hesitation, that many Christian communities in parts of Nigeria, especially in the North, have suffered severe attacks, loss of life, and the destruction of places of worship.”

To diffuse and defuse the controversy, the Nigerian government instigated a fact-finding mission to engage the narrative. It led to a pulling off of shroud from the face of pretentious patriot, Reno Omokri, who, as it would be revealed, lives off a life of packaging and make-believe. Having packaged the fact-finding team to Nigeria, like the man insistent on scouring the world for who owed his late father money, both Omokri and his sponsors got deconstructed. Mike Arnold, an ex Mayor of Blanco, Texas, against the bid to pull wool over the world’s eyes, confirmed that there is indeed genocide against Christians in Nigeria.

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The controversy of whether there is genocide against Christians in Nigeria is not a new one. It dates back many years. For decades, many Christian communities in the North have been wiped out by terrorists, while churches and houses were razed. People were also beheaded by Jihadists. Under the Muhammadu Buhari government, the European Union gave incontrovertible evidence of the occurrence of these brutal killings. Doubtful that Buhari himself was not a member of the insurgents, he was surely acutely sympathetic to their cause.

Blaming Cruz for claiming that the Nigerian government ignores and “even (facilitates) the mass murder of Christians by Islamist Jihadists” runs against the grain of available facts. Like Ida the slave boy, Nigeria revealed to the world its true colour. Pushed to the wall to explode, in January 2012, then president Goodluck Jonathan admitted that there were Boko Haram sympathizers in his government. Earlier in November 2011, a Nigerian senator was charged for alleged links to the Boko Haram Islamist militants. Said Marilyn Ogar, DSS’ then spokeswoman, the organization’s arrest “confirms the service’s position that some of the Boko Haram extremists have political patronage and sponsorship”.

Also in May 2019, former president Olusegun Obasanjo admitted that the Boko Haram insurgency was religious in colour. Earlier in 2012, ex-Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, also claimed that there was a “systematic ethnic and religious cleansing” in Nigeria.

While the Nigerian government has blindly remonstrated Cruz’s claim, Professor Ebenezer Obadare, Nigerian-American academic and Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow for Africa Studies at the American Council on Foreign Relations, in a piece entitled The government of Nigeria V Sen Ted Cruz, would seem to have successfully fitted together the jigsaw of why and who Boko Haram kills in its genocide. He asked the Nigerian government to first seek to understand the raison d’être of Boko Haram’s strikes. Once Aso Rock does this, he counsels, it would do less of this barren attempt to disclaim a globally known truth.

Rather than engage in driving away its own shadows, unveiling what Boko Haram represents would make the Tinubu government effectively face its reality. And the reality is that, though Boko Haram attacks Christians and Muslims too, its polytheist (the belief in or worship of more than one god) strikes make it look like it is religion-blind. The truth however is that the insurgents are after Christians and their “accomplices” in Islamic regalia.

“From Boko Haram’s perspective, there is no difference between mainstream Muslims and Christians: they are all ‘polytheists’ who suffer from a common affliction: ‘unbelief’” (of Islam) – my addition – Obadare wrote.

Instead of government spending Nigeria’s scarce resources on religious leaders and asking them to defend the indefensible, knowledge of the above fact could wake it up from its slumber. Government is also said to spend on foreign lobbyists, asking them to help it make the corpse of this genocide allegation walk. However, Prof Obadare’s take on the insurgency should get Aso Rock to be alive to the truth: Boko Haram’s genocide is against Nigerian Christians, even if its strikes stray to mainstream Islamic faith adherents.

The court granted bail to Sowore with N500,000 and two sureties, which his legal team was working to perfect at the time of the police action.

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja shortly after the incident, human rights activist, Deji Adeyanju, accused the police of violently attacking and removing Sowore moments after his bail was granted.

Adeyanju alleged that more than 50 armed officers stormed the court premises, descended on Sowore, and took him away by force while refusing to present a valid remand order.

“Sowore had just been granted bail, and while we were conferring with him here, the police suddenly launched an attack. More than 50 officers violently descended on him and took him away by force. We don’t even know where they have taken him,” he said.

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He said the officer who led the operation briefly displayed what he claimed was a remand order but refused to allow Sowore’s lawyers to inspect it.

Adeyanju said, “The officer flashed the document, and when we insisted on reviewing it, he pocketed it and ordered that they must go.

“When we asked where they were taking him, he said Kuje Prison. We demanded to see the remand order as endorsed by the court, but he refused.”

He further alleged that during the scuffle, the police accused Sowore of insulting the Inspector General of Police, saying, “Because Sowore called the IG useless, they must deal with him.”

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The lawyer said the officers tore Sowore’s shirt during the confrontation and dragged him away even as his legal team was still perfecting his bail conditions.

However, while responding to Sowore’s re-arrest via X (formerly Twitter), the Force Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, said the police acted within the law, adding that officers were empowered to use commensurate force to carry out their duties.

Hundeyin, who attached a remand warrant to his post, wrote, “Except we want to be mischievous, we all know that once court grants a suspect bail, it comes with the caveat that until the bail conditions are met, the suspect remains in custody.

“Where it is clearly spelt out on the remand warrant that the suspect be remanded in a correctional facility, not police custody, it is the duty of the police to hand over the suspect to the Nigeria Correctional Service, who would then process his bail conditions.

“This has always been the practice. Why should this be different? Also, as law enforcement officers, we are empowered by law to employ commensurate force to get our mandate achieved.”

Global football body FIFA has stirred a storm of reactions across Nigeria after showcasing the Birnin Kebbi Stadium project in Kebbi State — a facility co-funded with the Nigeria Football Federation — on its official social media pages.

FIFA on Saturday used an image of the project, dating back to 2023, as the new profile banner on its official X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook accounts.

The image, showing a half-furnished stadium in Birnin Kebbi, quickly went viral.

Built under the FIFA Forward Programme, the stadium was meant to symbolise progress in grassroots football. But as the photo circulated online, fans flooded social media with outrage and speculation.

Some netizens interpreted FIFA’s post as a subtle jab at the NFF, following recent allegations of fund mismanagement.

The uproar comes just days after football critic Chinedu Mobike, via his official Instagram handle #c_mobike, on October 23, 2025, accused the NFF of squandering millions of dollars meant for infrastructure projects, including its twin project in Delta State.

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Mobike, in his viral video, claimed that FIFA gave the NFF “1.2 million dollars for two stadiums” — one in Kebbi and another in Ugborodo, Delta State — which, he alleged, “till today did not see daylight.”

Comparing Nigeria’s FIFA-funded projects with those of other nations, Mobike alleged that while “other countries used the funds to truly develop football, Nigeria produced nothing to show.

“The NFF should sit up…There are no active projects promoting football or sports in Nigeria,” Mobike said.

According to The PUNCH, the next day, Friday, October 24, 2025, the NFF issued an official statement, which it described as a “fresh clarification to misinformation” by some social media users (names not mentioned) who claimed the NFF “collects millions of dollars from FIFA annually to misappropriate.”

The statement, retrieved from the NFF website, was titled: “NFF: Monies received from FIFA & CAF are for specific purposes, and audited in every cycle.”

While Mobike’s video reignited calls for reform, the hashtag #SaveNigerianFootball has been trending on X, as users express frustration and hope that collective pressure might finally bring transparency to Nigerian football governance.

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In its October 24 statement, the NFF firmly denied any wrongdoing, explaining that every dollar received from FIFA or CAF is tied to a specific purpose and audited annually.

“The monies meant for development purposes are tied to specific projects.

“FIFA Forward funds are properly specified and under strict adherence to financial regulations, compliance, monitoring, and auditing at every stage,” the NFF said.

The Federation cited ongoing FIFA Forward projects such as the NFF/FIFA Players’ Hostel and new training pitches at the MKO Abiola National Stadium, stressing that every phase is verified before funds are released directly to FIFA-approved consultants.

Dismissing the viral reports as “fictitious figures,” the NFF added that those spreading misinformation “would find no reason to seek clout if they had any idea how much it costs to organise a single match of any of the national teams.”

But the clarification failed to calm the storm.

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Instead, FIFA’s quiet profile update on Saturday reignited debate, with many Nigerians reading it as a silent but deliberate signal.

Many questioned how long it would take to fully complete a mini-stadium project that came to light in May 2023, after the groundbreaking event in September 2020 by the former Kebbi governor, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu.

In December 2023, it was reported that Kebbi State Governor Nasir Idris unveiled the FIFA/NFF-backed stadium project, saying it was designed to “boost the morale of youths in the state.”

He noted that the project cost $1,183,000, with the state government donating four hectares of land and paying ₦19 million in compensation to landowners.

Earlier, in May 2023, FIFA described the Kebbi project as part of its commitment to grassroots football, writing on its website InsideFIFA: “It is no surprise, then, that Birnin Kebbi, the capital of Kebbi, was chosen back in 2020 as the site for the construction of an artificial football pitch now available for young boys and girls to use.

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“Meanwhile, a second pitch is under construction in Ugborodo… these two ambitious projects have received around USD 2 million in funding from FIFA through its Forward Programme.”

Online Reactions
Social media erupted with interpretations and comparisons.

Some users viewed FIFA’s action as subtle recognition rather than mockery. One X user, @Poka741997, wrote: “FIFA updating their header is symbolic. It’s recognition for Nigeria, even if the stadium’s budget is modest by international standards.”

Others saw it as a global embarrassment.

User #_AsiwajuLerry commented: “FIFA changed their Twitter header to the $1.2m stadium built by the NFF. Global shame.”

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Echoing that sentiment, #OyokunyiOkon added: “This is embarrassing. The NFF should be ashamed that FIFA is showcasing a $1.2 million ‘stadium’ in Kebbi that clearly reflects misplaced priorities and poor accountability.”

Comparing Nigeria’s project to Senegal’s 50,000-seat Stade Abdoulaye Wade, user #FemiOguntayo2 remarked: “Nigerians want to build a world-class stadium with $1.2m… Haba! We know NFF is corrupt but haba na…

“This is Stade Blaise Sené (also known as Stade du Sénégal or Abdoulaye Wade National Stadium) in Diamniadio, Senegal. Its total construction cost was $270 million, funded largely by the Senegalese government and built by Turkey’s Summa Construction Company. FIFA’s way of mocking the NFF. How did they spend $1.2m on that stadium? Exposing the kwaruption in the NFF?”

Another user, #mario99amr29, suggested FIFA’s post was deliberate: “We know what’s at play.

“If FIFA can display this at the expense of other successful projects, maybe it’s a subtle callout. Nigeria vs Kenya: A case study.”

As of press time, FIFA had yet to issue any official comment explaining the use of the Kebbi stadium image on its banner. PUNCH