Congressional Briefing in Support of HR 7457 – The Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026
By Mike Arnold
Ngoshe is a small town in the Gwoza Local Government Area, in northeast Borno State, near the mountainous Cameroon border. The story of Ngoshe is a microcosm of the Nigeria story. I personally know many of its people — the displaced, those who stayed, community leaders, even in the military stationed there.
For a century up to 2014, this was a peaceful Christian region with some 176 churches.
The terror began in the marketplace. Men rode in on motorcycles, harassed and killed people. My eyewitnesses say these first attackers were foreigners — lighter-skinned, seemingly from North Africa. That fits the wider record of jihadis being imported into the country in those years.
When the main attack came, the fighters wore hijabs — disguised as women — and walked up to the military base. The soldiers lowered their guard and were attacked.
The town of Ngoshe had six churches. The attackers destroyed every one and touched no mosque. When a single church was left standing, the men of the village guarded it with bows and arrows. The military drove up and started killing them. They had been told the Christians were the enemy.
That unit learned the truth and quit on the spot. The soldiers stripped off their uniforms and fled into Cameroon with some 2,000 civilians, on foot, at night.
Some 100,000 or more Christians were driven out of Gwoza then — scattered across at least 27 camps in 7 states, plus at least 33,000 from Gwoza into Cameroon.
At least 8 displacement camps sit in Abuja, the capital, holding some 30,000 people. I stumbled into one in 2019. I now run free schools in three. Most of the displaced in those camps are from Gwoza. The UNHCR documented these camps in 2015. Today they deny these camps exist. But the displaced are still there.
The Nigerian government calls these people criminals, beggars, vagrants, and now and then bulldozes their homes. These are peaceful people, many of them widows and orphans, living in nonstop trauma for more than a decade, through no fault of their own. This is genocide, by legal definition, and the Nigerian government is guilty.
In May 2024, ten years after the first Gwoza Massacre, the Tinubu administration declared Boko Haram defeated. Around then, Ambassador Reno Omokri begged me to nominate NSA Nuhu Ribadu for the Nobel Prize for this. I asked for proof and he dropped the subject.
Two months later, my documentary team visited Ngoshe with two of the displaced from an Abuja camp. From Maidiguri they had to travel in a military convoy and sweep the road for IEDs. What they found was post-apocalyptic — the community, churches and schools in ruins, the people living in fear and squalor inside a military cordon. Our team had to leave after just 45 minutes when Boko Haram was spotted a kilometer away. Before they left, they met a military chaplain who had built a new church there — More Than Conquerors — and his brave congregation.
In October 2024 — two months after my team stood inside that church — Boko Haram filmed a recruitment video in Gwoza. It featured members of that congregation, taken while gathering food. An older man from the church was among those whose heads were cut off with dull axes and held up while the crowd cheered. A young girl was sold into sex slavery.
Earlier this year, in 2026, when support for the refugees still in Cameroon dried up, the Nigerian government told them it was safe and paid them to come home.
Thirty-five days later, on March 3, Boko Haram attacked them. Most of the garrison of more than 200 soldiers ran. Of those who stayed, at least four soldiers were beheaded. Hundreds were killed. More than 300 were abducted, including the nieces of an acquaintance of mine. More Than Conquerors Church was destroyed. Three days later, the attackers stood in the central mosque, declared Ngoshe conquered, and renamed it for their caliphate.
Earlier this month, the Nigerian government announced the dramatic rescue of more than 400 women and children there. In truth, there was no rescue. The captives had been held three kilometers from a military base the whole time.
A ransom of roughly 6 billion naira — more than $4 million, paid in US currency, nearly ten years of that entire Local Government Area’s budget — was handed by Nigerian government security personnel to a designated foreign terrorist organization. I have spoken with the man who brokered the terms, and he has the terrorists on tape confirming it. Others on the ground confirm this, too.
When the release was announced, my acquaintance there went to look for his nieces. He was told they were not released because they had resisted converting to Islam. Most of those women and children released were not even from Ngoshe. The women came back in hijab, forcibly converted as the price of release. An imam has been recruited to convert the Christian girls still held in the mountains.
This is Ngoshe, and this is Nigeria. The pattern is consistent: the churches burn, the mosques are spared. And at every turn the Nigerian government is either complicit or catastrophically incompetent. It declared an enemy defeated that was a kilometer away, and still staging mass beheading recruitment videos.
It encouraged and paid Christians to return into a kill zone. It handed millions of US dollars cash to a terrorist organization and called it a rescue. It attacks those who defend themselves, abandons its own soldiers, denies its own displaced. And through all of it, it lies — to its own people, to the press, to the United States — while paying Washington lobbyists millions to keep the lie running.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
This is not just religious persecution. It is not just a humanitarian crisis. What’s happening in Nigeria is an ongoing Islamic jihad conquest with global ambitions. It must not be filed under “international religious freedom” — where good causes go to die. This is a vital national security issue.
Nigeria is the sixth largest nation on earth, on track to be third largest by 2050 — one in 13 humans alive will be Nigerian. A top-five OPEC producer with a trillion dollars in minerals. Its trajectory is unstoppable. The only question is who controls it, and whether it carries great good or great evil.
This is what you must know: Nigeria is captured by a 222-year-old Fulani caliphate. They project the illusion of “secular democracy” like a reverse Wakanda, to hide its rotten core. This caliphate was the largest pre-colonial empire in Africa and it is the largest enslaver of free Africans in history.
Its founder was a Fulani warlord, Usman dan Fodio, a blood descendant of Muhammad. His teachings are widely revered and taught to this day. He founded the caliphate explicitly to be the platform for the Mahdi — their prophesied jihad messiah. To purify this platform, he taught and practiced a virulent doctrine that Muslims who do not submit to their rule and join their jihad should be slaughtered. This is of course in addition to Christians and others who stand in their way.
The colonial British did not conquer this caliphate. They co-opted and rebranded it — partnering with it as their enforcers and dealmakers. They called it Indirect Rule and locked in its control at independence. They armed, supported and covered for it when it starved some 3 million civilians, mostly children, to death from 1967 to 1970, for refusing to submit.
They ruled through military dictatorship for decades. In 1999, one of those dictators wrote and inflicted the constitution Nigeria still uses — a document that names Sharia and Islamic terms 165 times and Christianity zero, and ensures the caliphate North permanent control of political power, money, minerals, the military, and government jobs.
The same tribe, the same tactics, the same results — what we are seeing today in Nigeria is one unbroken jihad and genocide since 1804, following the methods, the teaching, and the prophecy of the caliphate’s founder. This is the longest running genocide on earth today – in total up to 6 million killed, 10 million enslaved, and 25 million displaced since it began, by my own calculation, drawn from the historical record.
This ruling elite is stronger and more in control now than ever. They continue to purify Nigeria to be the Mahdi’s platform. And they are on the verge of completely hijacking the nation’s trajectory.
Today, the man rewriting Nigeria’s national curriculum — every subject, every grade — is literally the top scholar of the boko haram philosophy. He calls his work intellectual jihad. He controls the classrooms of some 50 million Nigerian children today.
The government recently signed a military training deal with Turkey, which works through SADAT — a group whose founder said its mission is to prepare for the coming Mahdi, and which recruits from active ISIS fighters in Syria.
The eight or more black flag groups across the Middle Belt and North now pull in as much as $3 billion a year through organized crime: blood minerals sold to China, mass abduction for ransom and slave trade, heroin, extortion.
Today, as many as 10-12 million displaced persons have as much as a 50-60% chance of being radicalized without intervention. Another 10-15 million are being raised as almijiri — boys and young men given to being brought up in madrassas in the North, fed on nothing but pure jihad theology. And foreign fighters continue to flood in through open borders. This is a ticking timebomb.
To reiterate, with the mass of almajiri, displaced and incoming foreigners, with their classrooms controlled by literally the top scholar for the boko haram philosophy, and their military to be trained by seasoned ISIS fighters preparing for the Mahdi – they are building a massive radical jihad army, on an unprecedented scale.
The Nigerian government is fully captured — its structure, people, and politics — and it is irredeemable. Its corrupt electoral system is mostly a contest over who can loot the most while carrying the caliphate’s water. It cannot and will not stop this 222 year jihad purification project.
Lately it has been pivoting hard to China. Chinese investment in Nigeria leapt to $24.6 billion in 2025 (a thirteenfold jump from 2024, the largest of any nation), Beijing elevated Nigeria to its top partnership tier, and Nigerian banks now settle directly in yuan — all of which will make it effectively immune to U.S. sanctions.
This jihad has already drawn American blood on American soil. The Old Dominion University attacker who killed Lt. Col. Brandon Shah made his ISIS contact in Nigeria.
I am concerned our President is surrounded by deeply conflicted advisors and a highly paid army of lobbyists intent on ensuring this corrupt regime retains power.
It is interesting to note that, so far, supposedly coordinated with the Nigerian government, the U.S. has only struck the jihad factions that are not loyal to Sokoto. Why is that?
HERE’S HOW WE STOP IT
1. Pursue genocide charges against the leaders of this administration. Their deliberate denial of recognition and aid to millions of displaced meets the legal definition of genocide — and it is provable. Treat them like the genocidal tyrants they are.
2. Investigate and move to designate the Sokoto Caliphate structure a terrorist organization. HR 7457’s FTO consideration for the Fulani militias and Miyetti Allah is the first step. The Sultan of Sokoto, ruler of the caliphate, is the apex Fulani leader and chairman of Miyetti Allah.
3. Lead an international census of the displaced, with evidentiary interviews — and rush them aid.
4. Keep bombing the jihadis. Not just ISIS — every black flag group, the Fulani militias included.
5. Secure a free and fair election in 2027, with a referendum on a new constitution that bans Sharia and guarantees self-determination — letting the nations of Nigeria choose their own form of government and their own boundaries, in peace.
The people can build a great nation if we let them. When we do, we won’t just secure our most important ally in a dark part of the world — we’ll keep the fastest-growing nation on earth from becoming the launchpad for global jihad, which is exactly where it’s headed now.
CITATION LIST — NGOSHE: A MICROCOSM OF NIGERIA
Claims in order of appearance
NGOSHE
176 churches; century-long Christian region: Gwoza Christian Community Association (GCCA); author’s field documentation.
2014 attack — foreign, lighter-skinned first attackers: author’s on-camera eyewitness interviews (Enoch Yohanna and others, displaced to Abuja). Corroborated by the documented foreign-fighter record — Tuareg fighters from Mali arrested in Cameroon fighting for Boko Haram, Sept. 2014 (Combating Terrorism Center, West Point).
Hijab disguise; military pre-briefed Christians were the enemy; unit quit and fled to Cameroon with ~2,000 civilians: author’s on-camera eyewitness interviews (Enoch Yohanna, others, 2024).
Six churches destroyed, no mosque touched: author’s eyewitness sources; corroborated by Rev. Polycarp, on camera (2024: every church destroyed, every mosque standing).
Some 100,000 or more displaced from Gwoza; ~27 camps in 7 states: author’s estimate, consistent with Concerned Citizens of Gwoza LGA figure of 91,007 IDPs and refugees (Sept. 2025).
At least 33,000 from Gwoza into Cameroon: The Guardian (Nigeria), Nov. 13, 2014.
8 Abuja camps, ~30,000 displaced; UNHCR documented 2015, now denied; author runs free schools in three: author’s firsthand record (since 2019); UNHCR 2015 documentation.
“This is genocide, by legal definition”: UN Genocide Convention (1948), Article II(c) — deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about a group’s destruction; author’s legal framing.
THE MASSACRE & FAKE RESCUE
May 2024 “Boko Haram defeated” declaration; ten years after first Gwoza Massacre (2014): Tinubu administration / Secretary to the Federal Government, public statements, May 2024.
Omokri/Ribadu Nobel solicitation: author’s direct account.
July 2024 team visit — military convoy from Maiduguri, IED sweep, 45-minute stay, BH 1km away, More Than Conquerors church: author’s documentary footage and direct record; Rev. Polycarp, on-camera interview (2024).
October 2024 recruitment/beheading video — congregation members taken gathering food, beheaded with dull axes, girl sold into slavery: documentary production record; author viewed Nov. 2024.
Jan. 2026 paid return from Cameroon: UNHCR/Borno State repatriation reporting (3,122 returnees, Minawao camp, phase begun Jan. 27, 2026); HumAngle, Feb. 2026.
March 3, 2026 attack — 200+ garrison, most fled, 4+ soldiers beheaded, hundreds killed, 300+ abducted, church destroyed: author’s field sources; Daily Trust soldier account; survivor testimony (Solomon Ali Talake).
March 6 mosque declaration — Ngoshe conquered, renamed for the caliphate: Boko Haram (JAS) video; Rev. Polycarp.
June 2026 “rescue” was a ransom — more than 400 women/children; held 3km from a military base; ~6 billion naira / more than $4M in U.S. currency; ~10 years of LGA budget; broker has terrorists on tape: author’s direct conversation with the broker (BOSYA President Samaila Ibrahim Kaigama); soldier and ground confirmations; naira-to-USD at ~₦1,361/USD (June 2026).
Nieces not released for resisting conversion; most released not from Ngoshe; women returned in hijab, forcibly converted; imam assigned to convert girls still held: author’s acquaintance’s direct account; Prof. Audu Idriss (University of Maiduguri, Ngoshe native son); Emeka Umeagbalasi (Intersociety).
THE BIGGER PICTURE
6th largest nation, 3rd by 2050, 1-in-13 humans: UN DESA, World Population Prospects 2024.
Top-5 OPEC; trillion in minerals: OPEC reserves data; Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
222-year-old caliphate; largest pre-colonial empire in Africa: Murray Last, The Sokoto Caliphate (Longman, 1967); Falola & Heaton, A History of Nigeria (Cambridge, 2008).
Largest enslaver of free Africans in history: Paul Lovejoy, Slavery, Commerce and Production in the Sokoto Caliphate (Africa World Press, 2005); Transformations in Slavery (Cambridge). By 1900, 1–2.5 million slaves held at any given time, in addition to sustained cross-Sahara trade. At least 10 million enslaved over its history.
Dan Fodio — Fulani warlord, blood descendant of Muhammad, teachings revered/taught today: Mervyn Hiskett, The Sword of Truth: The Life and Times of the Shehu Usuman dan Fodio (1973).
Founded as the Mahdi’s platform; doctrine that non-submitting Muslims should be slaughtered: Dan Fodio’s own writings; Lovejoy, “Revolutionary Mahdism and Resistance to Colonial Rule in the Sokoto Caliphate, 1894–1906.”
British Indirect Rule — caliphate preserved as enforcers, locked in at independence: Lord Lugard amalgamation, Jan. 1, 1914; Michael Crowder, The Story of Nigeria (1962).
British armed/covered for the North; ~3 million starved, mostly children, 1967–70 (Biafra): standard historical record; documented in author’s April 2026 briefing endnotes.
1999 constitution names Sharia/Islamic terms 165 times, Christianity zero; locks Northern control of power, money, minerals, military, jobs: Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) — text itself
One unbroken jihad and genocide since 1804; up to 6 million killed, 10 million enslaved, 25 million displaced: Mike Arnold original calculation, drawn from the historical record — the first such cumulative estimate; records destroyed or never kept where bodies lie. Cite as author’s own analysis.
Curriculum chief — top scholar of the boko haram philosophy, “intellectual jihad,” ~50 million children: Prof. Salisu Shehu, NERDC Executive Secretary (appointed Dec. 2024); author of The Islamization of Knowledge (1998); former head, International Institute of Islamic Thought Nigeria; Deputy Sec-Gen, Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. His goal is to purge Western thought from education – literally the philosophy of, “boko haram,” which means “western education is forbidden.”
SADAT — Mahdi mission, ISIS recruitment, Africa footprint: SADAT founder Adnan Tanrıverdi removed as Erdogan advisor over reporting that he worked to prepare for the Mahdi (Nordic Monitor, 2023). SADAT documented training/recruiting ISIS and al-Nusra fighters via Turkey’s “jihadi highway” (The National Interest, May 2026; Michael Rubin/AEI; Syrian Observatory for Human Rights). Operates across nine African states including Syrian-mercenary deployments into Niger on Nigeria’s border (Le Monde/SOHR, 2024).
8+ black flag groups, as much as $3 billion/year from organized crime (blood minerals to China, abduction, slave trade, heroin, extortion): author’s aggregate estimate; conservative documented range $1.7–2.5B (Hudson Institute; Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime).
10–12 million displaced, 50-60% radicalization risk: author’s estimate from field standing.
10–15 million almajiri raised in northern madrassas: UNICEF / Nigerian government estimates (commonly cited as “more than 10 million”).
Government captured, pivoting to China, effectively immune to sanctions: Chinese construction commitments to Nigeria hit $24.6 billion in 2025 (up thirteenfold from $1.8 billion the prior year, the largest of any country); Beijing raised Nigeria to its highest partnership tier in September 2024 (the level reserved for Russia and Pakistan); Nigeria renewed and sought to expand its yuan currency swap and now settles directly in yuan off the dollar rails — routing around dollar-based sanctions; it is bidding for BRICS with Chinese backing; after the Christmas strike on Sokoto, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi publicly urged Abuja to cut U.S. military ties for China, Turkey, and Pakistan; and Chinese miners pay “rent” to the Fulani militias armed by the NSA’s office to work land the massacres clear. Source: Mike Arnold reporting, “The Tinubu Pivot to China” (underlying data: China Global Investment Tracker / AEI); corroborated by Rep. Riley Moore’s China-bribery account (June 2026).
ODU attacker (Lt. Col. Brandon Shah killed) made ISIS contact in Nigeria: FBI 2016 affidavit; Virginian-Pilot (March 2026); AP. Mohamed Bailor Jalloh met an ISIL facilitator in Nigeria, Aug. 2015.
U.S. has struck only jihad factions not loyal to Sokoto: Every documented U.S. strike has targeted ISIS-aligned groups that broke from or never pledged to the Sultan — ISSP/Lakurawa in Sokoto State (Dec. 25, 2025), and ISWAP/Boko Haram in the northeast (May 16–30, 2026). Sources: AFRICOM press releases; CSIS (Feb. 2026); PBS NewsHour (Dec. 2025).
No strike has hit the Sokoto Caliphate structure or the Sultan-chaired Fulani militias (MACBAN) that the briefing identifies as the most prolific killers — the strikes that did land in Sokoto State hit Lakurawa, a group that had turned against the Caliphate-aligned local authorities who first invited it in (Hudson Institute).
