Prominent human rights lawyer and activist, Dele Farotimi, has launched a scathing critique against the Nigerian government, accusing it of deliberately downplaying the scale of killings across the country by using misleading terminology.
Speaking in a charged interview on Channels Television’s Hard Copy, Farotimi vehemently rejected the official description of widespread violence as “farmer-herder clashes,” insisting that the situation amounts to a “genocide.”
His comments come amid heightened international focus on Nigeria’s internal security crisis, including recent remarks from former US President Donald Trump.
“You are calling genocide farmers-herders clash; what nonsense!” Farotimi declared. “How can a farmer who owns nothing be clashing with somebody carrying a Kalashnikov and M-16 rifles? And they are calling it a farmers-herders clash. You even find government persons peddling that idiocy.”
The activist argued that the government’s denial has been exposed by external voices, but stressed that the truth remains unchanged regardless of the messenger. He revealed that he has personally described the killings as genocide for nearly a decade.
“The question is, has Donald Trump lied about the killings?” Farotimi challenged. “It doesn’t change the fact that unacceptable casualties are being recorded within a country that proclaims itself to be at peace. People are being buried in mass graves, and we are still quarrelling over what name Donald Trump called it.”
He concluded with a damning accusation of state complicity, stating, “They don’t need Trump to tell them what is happening in their country; they are complicit in what is happening.”
