Nigerian lawyer and human rights activist Franc Utoo on Wednesday testified before the United States Congress, accusing the Nigerian government of deliberately minimising reports of massacres and genocide, particularly in the country’s Middle Belt region.
Utoo also alleged that about $9 million in unbudgeted public funds had been used to hire foreign lobbyists, rather than to address the growing humanitarian crisis affecting thousands of victims displaced by violence.
Addressing U.S. lawmakers, the former Principal Special Assistant to the Governor of Benue State from 2020 to 2023 said he was appearing not only as a legal practitioner and policy advocate, but also as a survivor of attacks on Christian communities.
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He disclosed that he is from Yelwata community in Benue State, an area severely affected by violent assaults he attributed to suspected Fulani militias.
“I come from the epicenter of the genocide of Christians in Nigeria, because I’m one of the biggest victims. My tribe is called the TIV ethnic group from Benue State. We are the biggest ethnic group of the Christian faith in the Middle Belt of Nigeria and in the entire northern part of Nigeria.
“We’re facing existential threat in the hands of Fulani ethnic militia, who have committed themselves to wipe our people off the face of the earth. They started this journey in 1804 when they staged the Jihad. And in their quest to progress southwards of Nigeria, our people, the TIV ethnic group, stopped their progression.”
“Our story has just one side. Genocide. Genocide.”
