Nigeria’s minister of foreign affairs Yusuf Tuggar and former Canadian lawmaker Goldie Ghamari engaged in a heated exchange on Piers Morgan’s show after sharp disagreements over claims of Christian persecution in Nigeria.
Tuggar appeared on the programme, which aired on Tuesday, to challenge figures, explain the country’s security situation and respond to concerns raised by Morgan. In the opening part of the interview, Morgan cited numbers from the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law which claimed that more than fifty thousand Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009 and that eighteen thousand churches have been destroyed.
Tuggar dismissed the figures and rejected the framing as religious, arguing that the government does not record deaths by faith and regards all victims as Nigerians. Morgan pushed back several times.
“You do seem to be avoiding my questions. You don’t seem to know how many Christians have been murdered, which I find surprising,” he said.
When asked for specific numbers, the minister responded that only 177 Christians were killed and 102 churches attacked in the past five years.
Tensions rose again when Ghamari joined the discussion. She accused the Nigerian government of enabling what she described as a jihad and drew a link between Nigeria’s insecurity and the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023. She also claimed the shared Islamic faith of President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima was evidence of an Islamist agenda.
“By the way, this is a government that is working closely behind the scenes with the Islamic Republic of Iran. You should ask the foreign minister why Nigerian school children are holding pictures of the Ayatollah who is a brutal dictator and is murdering my people in Iran,” she said.
The far-right activist of Iranian descent went on to say she could tell when someone was “lying and avoiding the truth” and accused Tuggar of doing just that.
Tuggar fired back, calling her comments ignorant and accusing her of treating the issue like a game from a safe distance abroad. He dismissed her claims and questioned her understanding of Nigeria’s ethnic and social landscape.
On the suggestion that Tinubu and Shettima’s religion plays a role in the crisis, Tuggar said Nigerians care more about regional balance than religious identity. He reminded the guests that Tinubu is from the south and Shettima from the north.
Morgan then asked if he condemned attacks on Christians by Islamist militants. Tuggar said yes and spoke about his own loss.
“I lost my father-in-law to an attack by an Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, so I myself am a victim. I’ve lost family members to attacks and they were Muslims,” he said.
He added that Boko Haram targets both Muslims and Christians and that its main enemy is a Muslim who does not accept its ideology.
Ghamari responded by insisting that the killing of Muslims did not “negate the fact that there is a targeted ethnic cleansing of Christians in Nigeria”.
Tuggar accused her of stoking tensions for political gain and warned against attempts to push Nigeria toward conflict.
“People like her trade in starting wars in faraway places where they have no contact, they have no understanding of, and they can do that from their armchairs from a safe distance,” he said.
He also accused her of encouraging the kind of agitation that led to the division of Sudan and said Nigeria would not be pushed down a similar path.
“It’s not going to happen to Nigeria. Move on to your next project. You’re a disgrace,” he said.
The segment ended with no resolution, but it drew significant attention online and renewed debate about the accuracy of claims surrounding religious violence in Nigeria.
