By Kingston Magare 18.1.2026
It has been revealed by the New York Times that the US used raw intelligence from a trader in Onitsha market Anambra State to launch air attacks on terror gangs last December in Nigeria.
The trader identified as Emeka Umeagbalasi who is also an NGO operator had reportedly claimed based on media reports, sources, groups and google searches he documented that there have been 125,000 Christian deaths in Nigeria since 2009. And based on this the President Donald Trump administration seized on it to amplify their claims of Christian genocide in Nigeria.
“The man, Emeka Umeagbalasi, owns a tiny shop selling screwdrivers and wrenches in this market in Onitsha, the commercial hub of southeast Nigeria…
“But this screwdriver salesman is also an unlikely source of research that U.S. Republican lawmakers have used to promote the misleading idea that Christians are being singled out for slaughter in Africa’s most populous nation,” the New York Times reported.
He admitted to rarely verifying the data and assuming victims’ religions based on geographic location, saying, “If a mass abduction or killing happens in an area where he thinks many Christians live, he assumes the victims are Christians.”
He also claimed that 20,000 of Nigeria’s 100,000 churches had been destroyed in the past 16 years, figures he says he found by “Googling it.”
The New York Times noted that his reports have been cited by U.S. lawmakers such as Senator Ted Cruz, Representative Riley Moore, and Representative Chris Smith — and even by former President Donald Trump to justify military actions in Nigeria.
On Christmas Day President Trump ordered some strikes at locations in Sokoto, the full impact of those strikes remain unknown.