Incomplete Data tells an Incomplete Story:   
The problem with ORFA

Data can be helpful and useful and inform strategy and decisions.  But what happens if that data is incomplete or biased?  A different and potentially dangerous story will emerge. Such is the case with Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA). Many authors looking for statistics about Nigeria turn to the ORFA for their data.  But their data is not telling the full story.  Multiple attacks are left out, the suffering of millions of people ignored.

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ORFA claims to be advocating for religious freedom but in reality it is telling the story of suffering Christians. When you ask traumatised Christians about stories of their suffering, you will hear stories about traumatised Christians.  When you ask everyone, including Muslims, including Fulani, you hear a different story.

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What Christians are not telling are the relentless attacks that they do, the sermons broadcast loudly across villages (within earshot of Fulani) describing them as from the devil, church collections to raise money for weapons and appalling hate speech by so called Christians online and in person.  It is true that some Fulani have attacked Christians.  We do not condone that by any means at all. 

 

However, retelling these stories without telling the other side creates a dangerous one-sided narrative that is leading to ethnic cleansing of Fulani from areas where only a short time ago they and their animals were welcomed each year as the animal manure fertilised the soil. 

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It is true that some Christians are suffering in Nigeria – but that is not the full story.  The full story is that EVERYONE is suffering, regardless of religion or ethnicity. We cannot allow our empathy with one particular ethnicity or religion to blind us to the suffering of others. 

 

The work of ORFA and those perpetuating this genocide narrative using their data has repeatedly been shown to have a strong and unfair anti-Fulani bias as these resources show:

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• Mary Crickmore, Whole Truth Nigeria. “The pattern of ethnic prejudice against Fulani in ORFA and Steven Kefas’s writing; with scholarly research showing multiple ethnic groups perpetrate violence.” 

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• Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde, Former Commissioner of Education in Bauchi State. “Genocide Nomenclature in Nigeria”

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• Professor Adam Abba-Aji Edmonton, AB, Canada. “Critical Appraisal of Mike Arnold’s Findings on Alleged Christian Genocide in Nigeria.”

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• UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Professor Nazila Ghanea, 19 June 2026.  Ms Ghanea found “There is no evidence cases of mass killings, displacement, abduction & related incidents in Nigeria are directed at a particular belief system to qualify as religious persecution."

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• Two academic critiques of Steven Kefas article “How Fulani Militias Became Nigeria’s Deadliest Group While Escaping Global Notice”​

  1. FUDMA International Journal of Social Sciences (FUDIJOSS) View of 2023 Christmas Eve Attack in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State: Dynamics, Impact and Policy Suggestion

  2. ​Cletus Famous Nwandkwo, Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; “The Moral Economy of the Agatu “Massacre”: Reterritorializing Farmer-Herder Relations”

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 When we report on events in Nigeria, we need to balance compassion with wisdom, insight and understanding.  We need to use words carefully so that we don’t become complicit in dangerous and biased narratives that are making life intolerable for millions of innocent Fulani who just want to get on with their day to day life.  It is good  to highlight the suffering of Christians, but we need to do so without becoming blinded to the harm (hate speech and attacks) that those Christians are also perpetrating.  We need to condemn the atrocities perpetrated by the minority of Fulani people without stereotyping an entire people group leading to ethnic cleansing of Fulani from villages and areas where they have lived for generations.

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Moving forward:

How can we write about Nigeria in a balanced way that reports atrocities accurately and fairly, that builds peace for all people?  Here are some suggested action points for moving forward:

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• Read and consider carefully the critiques listed above.

• use a wider network of sources of information and to avoid perpetuating unfair stereotyping of a whole people group.

• Acknowledge and report the hatred and anti Fulani bias of many Christians

• Acknowledge and report attacks on the Fulani: List of Attacks on Fulani: Most of the attacks on this list were perpetrated by Christians

• Take a look at our Top tips for Balanced Reporting about Nigeria

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Note for those in  Christian media:

• If you are Christian media and truly concerned for the welfare of Christians in Nigeria, please also write accurately about the desperate need for discipleship among traumatised Christians, the need for trauma healing, to live as Jesus taught us in times of crisis, to love our enemies, to reach out to the lost.  Please also write about the challenges of Fulani Christians and their people who struggle so much on every side, hated by their own people because they are Christians, hated by Christians because they are Fulani, yet consistently showing the power and love of Christ in their lives, as this interview with a Fulani Christian demonstrates.