A heated confrontation broke out on Piers Morgan Uncensored when former Canadian MP Goldie Ghamari directly accused Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, of lying about the scale of violence against Christians in his country.
The clash began after host Piers Morgan quoted a report claiming more than 50,000 Christians have been killed and 18,000 churches destroyed or closed in Nigeria since 2009. Tuggar rejected the figures as exaggerated and insisted his government does not record victims by religion. He told the studio that in the past five years only 177 Christians had been killed and 102 churches attacked.
Ghamari, appearing via video link, interrupted with visible anger. “What is happening in Nigeria is a jihad,” she said. “The government is complacent at best and complicit at worst. The Nigerian Army has been given orders to allow Fulani militants to pass through communities while attacks are taking place.”
Drawing on her own political experience, she looked straight at the camera and declared, “I was a politician for seven years, Piers, and I can tell when someone is lying and avoiding the truth. That’s exactly what this foreign minister is doing — he is avoiding eye contact — and shame on him for lying.”
Tuggar responded sharply, accusing Ghamari of ignorance and of “playing games with people’s lives from thousands of miles away.” He revealed that his own father-in-law was killed by Boko Haram and insisted the primary victims of Islamist extremism in Nigeria are fellow Muslims who reject the terrorists’ ideology.
The exchange has reignited international debate over Nigeria’s worsening security crisis, just weeks after the United States again designated the country a “Country of Particular Concern” for severe violations of religious freedom.