The threat by the American President to attack Islamist terrorists in Nigeria to against killing of Christians in the country, took another dimension with the call to extend such protection to people of South East.
The detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, in a letter to the American President, Donald Trump, urged him to launch an independent inquiry into the “state-sponsored genocidal killings” of Christians and Igbo people in Nigeria’s South-East region.
Kanu in the letter dated November 6, 2025, and delivered through the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, said U.S.-led independent inquiry should have “full access to mass graves, military logs, and survivor testimonies” to confirm the state-sponsored massacres of Judeo-Christians in Eastern Nigeria.
Said Kanu in the letter: “I extend warm greetings to you in the name of the Judeo-Christian faith and values we both hold dear.
“Your bold declaration on October 31, 2025, that the United States is ‘prepared to act’ militarily and cut aid if Nigeria fails to protect its Christian population ignited hope in the hearts of millions who have been abandoned by the world.
“You have seen the truth: Christians in Nigeria face an existential threat. I write to you now to reveal that this genocide is not confined to the North; it has metastasized into the Igbo heartland, where Judeo-Christians are being systematically exterminated under the guise of counter-terrorism.”
He cited several incidents which he claimed were evidence of “a hidden genocide” against Judeo-Christians in the South-East, including the 2016 Nkpor and Aba massacres, the 2017 “Operation Python Dance” raid on his Afaraukwu home, and the 2020 Obigbo killings.
The IPOB leader backed his claims with multiple human rights reports, such as Amnesty International, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, and Nigerian rights group, the Intersociety, noting that the “Amnesty International (2016) reported ‘at least 150 peaceful Christian worshippers killed, bodies dumped in rivers.’ UN Special Rapporteur Agnès Callamard confirmed that at least 60 were killed and over 70 injured in St. Edmund’s Catholic Church during prayers.
“This was not a clash. It was a massacre of worshippers commemorating their fallen.
“In Aba, 22 were killed on-site, and 13 bodies were exhumed from a borrow pit. Children were executed for singing ‘Sweet Jesus.’”
Kanu alleged that these attacks were perpetrated by Nigerian military forces under the command of former Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai.
“In 2021, President Buhari appointed him Ambassador to Benin, granting him diplomatic immunity to evade ICC prosecution,” Kanu said, calling it “state-sponsored impunity on a genocidal scale.”
The letter also recounted Kanu’s personal ordeal since 2015, claiming that he has survived four assassination attempts and was “forcibly abducted from Kenya in an extraordinary rendition operation” on June 20, 2021, an act a Kenyan High Court later ruled illegal.
He reminded Trump that the Nigerian Court of Appeal had discharged and acquitted him in October 2022, but that “the government defied its own judiciary, refusing to release me as ordered.
“I was never released, so there was no re-arrest, only continued unlawful imprisonment in blatant violation of the constitutionally protected double jeopardy safeguards.”
Kanu cited the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and said that his imprisonment had been declared “arbitrary, unlawful, politically motivated.”
He described his continued detention as “a state capture of the rule of law to silence a Judeo-Christian voice.”
Kanu urged Trump to “launch a U.S.-led independent inquiry into state-sponsored massacres of Judeo-Christians in Eastern Nigeria, with full access to mass graves, military logs, and survivor testimonies.”
He also called for “emergency Congressional hearings on the Igbo Christian genocide” and the imposition of Magnitsky Act sanctions on top Nigerian officials, including former Army Chief Buratai and former DSS Director-General, Yusuf Bichi.
He further appealed for U.S. support for “an internationally-supervised referendum on self-determination for the Igbo people,” describing it as “the only peaceful path to ending this circle of violence.”
Kanu stressed, “Mr. President, history will judge us by what we do when genocide knocks.
“You have the power to stop a second Rwanda in Africa. One tweet, one sanction, one inquiry could save millions.”
He signed off as “Mazi Nnamdi Okwu Kanu, Leader, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Prisoner of Conscience – DSS Custody, Abuja,” emphasizing that he remains committed to non-violence and faith: “We seek only justice, truth, and freedom, even from a prison cell.
“May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob grant you wisdom and courage to deliver His people once again.”
