Intersociety Alleges INEC Boss Amupitan Wrote Legal Opinion On Nigeria’s Religious Killings

In response to questions from the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Disinformation Unit, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) clarified the sources and methodology used in its figures on claimed religious genocide in Nigeria.

The organization’s conclusions, according to Intersociety chairman Emeka Umeagbalasi, came from a variety of reliable reports, including a legal brief written by Prof. Joash Amupitan, SAN.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has appointed Amupitan as its chairman.

This comes after the BBC allegedly accused the group of falsifying and inflating numbers in order to promote a false narrative of “Christian genocide” in Nigeria.

According to reports, US President Donald Trump had previously threatened to use force against Nigeria by designating it as a country of particular concern.

The US President cited the government’s inability to protect religious minorities and what he called persistent brutality against Christians.

The Nigerian government, however, vehemently denied that any religious organizations were persecuted there.

Intersociety clarified in a statement on Thursday that its statistics included events that occurred as early as 2009, when the Boko Haram insurgency began. As a result, several churches in the North-East, the epicenter of the war, were destroyed or closed.

As part of the 312-page “Religious Freedom in the World 2025” report published by Aid to the Church in Need at the Vatican on October 21, 2025, Umeagbalasi stated that Amupitan prepared the legal opinion for a significant international report titled “Genocide in Nigeria: The Implications for the International Community.”

Over 13,000 churches were destroyed or closed, according to the report’s legal opinion section. This statistic was first mentioned in Anna Mulder’s Open Doors Report (2015), which covered the Boko Haram conflict from July 2009 to December 2014, according to Intersociety.

It further stated that Ewelina Ochab, a renowned scholar and opponent of Christian persecution in Nigeria, was another source of inspiration for Amupitan.

Citing data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in December 2024, which stated that 614,373 Nigerians perished from insecurity between May 2023 and April 2024, the rights group further encouraged the BBC to challenge the Nigerian government over its own data.

According to Intersociety, its data came from both primary and secondary sources, including as stories from domestic and foreign media, victim communities, research organizations, declassified state papers, eyewitness accounts, and diplomatic sources.