Reverend Ezekiel Dachomo’s latest remarks in the international community claiming that “Muslims created Boko Haram to remove President Goodluck Jonathan” are not only historically false but dangerously inflammatory. Such narratives deliberately distort timelines, ignore established facts, and risk deepening divisions between faiths in a country already grappling with the scars of violent extremism.
To begin with, Boko Haram did not begin during the Jonathan administration. The sect emerged under President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a fellow Muslim, who in fact ordered the security forces to confront and dismantle the group during the 2009 uprising. That crackdown led to the creation of the Joint Task Force (JTF), long before Jonathan became president. The claim that Boko Haram was created to unseat a Christian president therefore collapses under basic historical scrutiny.
The reality of Boko Haram’s brutality also contradicts the pastor’s narrative. The terror group’s ideology has never been about religion versus religion; it has been about extremist doctrine versus everyone who refuses to submit to that doctrine Muslims, Christians, traditionalists, security forces, and even local leaders.
The worst-hit areas in the insurgency were overwhelmingly Muslim communities:
In Borno’s northern region alone, 23 local government areas were displaced at the peak of the crisis. Gwoza and Bama formed as Khaliphat.
The humanitarian fallout affected almost 9 million people, with a large percent of them Muslims.
In Baga, a town that is over 99% Muslim, nearly 2,000 people were killed in a single day. In Bama LGA, more than 1,500 men were slaughtered and dumped under a bridge. The wife of the Emir was abducted and taken into Sambisa Forest.
The Emir of Gwoza and the Emir of Dikwa, both Muslim traditional rulers, were murdered by the terrorists. More than 700 traditional rulers were displaced from their domain with more than 40 of them brutally killed.
Thousands of women and children were abducted into Sambisa Forest by Abubakar Shekau’s faction without discrimination.
Over 56,000 unaccompanied children were sheltered in Maiduguri alone. Their parents, mostly Muslim had been killed. The government also said more than 60,000 women have been widowed. At one point, more than 40 IDP camps operated within Maiduguri, with billions of naira spent on humanitarian support and rehabilitation.
Despite this catastrophic toll, the narrative of “genocide” or “Christian-targeted killing” was never pushed by those communities that suffered the most. Why? Because those living at the epicenter of the crisis understood that Boko Haram’s target was not Christians or Muslims, it was anyone who rejected their extremist ideology. This is why dozens of mosques were bombed, worship centers attacked, district heads murdered, and Muslim congregations massacred during prayers. Terrorism, by its nature, is blind to the innocence of its victims.
It is therefore reckless and deeply insensitive for anyone, especially a religious leader, to reduce a national tragedy to a sectarian conspiracy. Presenting every attack as an assault on Christians alone is not only false; it fuels division, mistrust, and hate between the two major faiths. It resurrects the old “divide and rule” tactic that extremists themselves rely on to tear communities apart.
What is happening in Plateau is not a religious genocide, but farmer harder crises that escalated into full blown conflict due to the failure of government to address the issue. There has been targeted killing on both sides and must be stopped.
Reverend Dachomo’s statements are endangering peaceful coexistence, Nigeria has suffered enough. Dangerous narratives that pit one religion against another must stop before they create the very conflict we are struggling to prevent.