<\/p>\n
Brad Brandon, CEO of Across Nigeria, is pushing back on the media narrative surrounding Christian persecution in Nigeria, explaining the intricacies of the issue and clarifying key points.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a persecution issue,\u201d Brandon said. \u201cI mean, you\u2019ve got over 50,000 Christians that have been killed since 2009; 18,000 churches have been destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additionally, he said there are \u201cinternally displaced persons camps\u201d with millions of people being housed there. The majority of these individuals are reportedly Christian.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir communities and their villages are being destroyed, and they have nowhere else to go,\u201d Brandon said. \u201cSo there is an issue of Christian persecution going on, no doubt. Christians are being targeted. They are second-class citizens all throughout northern Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brandon said there are a lot of complexities to the issue, though, and proceeded to explain some of the confounding and difficult elements.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people cite, \u2018Well, there\u2019s a lot of Muslim on Muslim violence. And that\u2019s absolutely true. Boko Haram will target Muslims just as fast \u2026 as anybody else,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are very familiar with several schools, Islamic schools, who\u2019ve had Muslim children kidnapped by Boko Haram. They end up holding them for ransom. These are Muslim children and holding them for ransom, and that\u2019s a lot of times how Boko Haram will fund their operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said this targeting of non-radical Muslims is a reality, with extremists angry that these individuals refuse to embrace their version of Islam.<\/p>\n
Still, Brandon said the overall numbers paint a very clear picture of what\u2019s happening inside Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the overall numbers, clearly Christians are being targeted, and \u2026 the killing, and the persecution, and the displacement are all disproportionate by far against Christians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brandon decried media outlets that are doubting this reality as coming from specific ideologies or even leaning too far into the Nigerian government\u2019s narrative.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were out outright denying that there was any persecution against Christians going on,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I look at that as just a bias against Christianity, really, in the media \u2014 secular media.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump recently redesignated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern, a designation that will put further scrutiny on Nigeria\u2019s handling of persecution. Then, last week, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu\u00a0issued a state of emergency\u00a0following mass abductions.<\/p>\n
Watch Brandon above to see him explain the intricate nature of these issues.<\/p>\n
As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for\u00a0Faithwire\u2019s daily newsletter\u00a0and download the\u00a0CBN News app\u00a0to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brad Brandon, CEO of Across Nigeria, is pushing back on the media narrative surrounding Christian persecution in Nigeria, explaining the intricacies of the issue and clarifying key points. \u00a0 \u201cIt is a persecution issue,\u201d Brandon said. \u201cI mean, you\u2019ve got over 50,000 Christians that have been killed since 2009; 18,000 churches have been destroyed.\u201d Additionally,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2860,2861,2166,2225,1141,2862,2859,98],"class_list":["post-11485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jesus","tag-dismantles","tag-disturbing","tag-expert","tag-horror","tag-media","tag-narrative","tag-nigerian","tag-persecution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}