Intersociety Accuses BBC-Africa of Bias, Says Its 16-Year Religious Persecution Reports Remain Indisputable

By Tony Okafor, Awka

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has accused the BBC-Africa’s “Global Disinformation Unit” of partisanship and unprofessional conduct in its recent inquiries into the organisation’s long-standing reports on religious persecution in Nigeria.

Intersociety, in a statement issued in Enugu on Friday, alleged that the BBC-Africa sent it “nine presidentially scripted and rooted questions” as part of a calculated effort to discredit its 16-year-old research findings on the killings of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria since 2010.

The organisation said it had submitted a 16-page response to the BBC-Africa’s queries on November 2, ahead of the November 3 deadline given, but that the broadcaster “refused to publish or reflect the response” on its platforms as earlier promised.

According to Intersociety, its comprehensive reply has now been published verbatim by Sahara Reporters on November 6, 2025, “in solidarity with truth and transparency.”

The publication, it said, can be accessed via the Sahara Reporters website and through its own online portal.

“We thank Sahara Reporters for standing for truth by publishing our grounded response to the BBC’s partisan inquiries. The BBC-Africa, instead of adhering to journalistic ethics, has continued to promote disinformation, ignoring our clarifications and refusing to balance their report,” the statement read in part.

The group’s chairman, Emeka Umeagbalasi, a criminologist and researcher, said the BBC’s correspondence—signed by one Olaronke Alo of the Disinformation Unit—contained several “threatening and leading questions” which appeared designed to delegitimise Intersociety’s data on religiously motivated killings.

Umeagbalasi alleged that the BBC’s reporter “misrepresented” its August 10, 2025 publication by excluding reference to “an estimated 60,000 non-violent Muslim deaths,” which were duly recorded in the original report.

“Her conduct left us with the conclusion that she was on a hatchet job, likely presidentially commissioned. Despite our insistence that she reflect our findings accurately, she bluntly refused,” he stated.

Intersociety maintained that it had chosen to document every exchange to prevent misrepresentation, noting that its final response was prepared “in readiness for any eventuality which is now playing out.”

The organisation defended its data-gathering methodology, describing it as rooted in “natural and scientific social research methods.”

It said its findings were based on verifiable parameters such as time, location, victim identity, and motive of each attack, gathered from local monitors, eyewitnesses, and corroborated media sources.

“It is impossible to discredit our 16-year-old reports rooted in natural and scientific data collection. Our work is valid until a superior counter-research is produced. Computer-based data searches cannot invalidate field-based investigations built over a decade and a half,” the group asserted.

Intersociety also claimed that successive Nigerian governments since 2015 had sought to suppress its findings by influencing social media platforms to remove reports critical of official narratives.

“Even if 100 BBC-Africa units are assembled against us, they can never discredit our reports,” the statement declared.

In its correspondence, BBC-Africa reportedly sought clarifications on Intersociety’s statistics, including the source of its claim that 125,009 Christians had been killed and 19,000 churches destroyed since 2009.

The broadcaster also questioned the organisation’s methodology and its alleged affiliation with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), an accusation Intersociety firmly denied.

Intersociety described such inquiries as “a deliberate attempt to politicise human rights research” and insisted that its work had always focused on both Christian and Muslim victims of violence across Nigeria.

While dismissing allegations of bias, the organisation reaffirmed its commitment to promoting justice and accountability irrespective of ethnicity or religion.

It also called on the Nigerian government to prioritise security and prevent the country from sliding into what it termed “a complex humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Our mission is to ensure Nigerians live harmoniously and securely, not to serve any ethnic or political interest,” Umeagbalasi added.

The statement was jointly signed by Umeagbalasi; Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Head of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law; and Chidinma Udegbunam, Head of Campaign and Publicity, all of Intersociety.

For more details, the organisation directed the public to read its full 16-page response published by Sahara Reporters and on its website at https://intersociety-ng.org.