By SUNTV Global Channel | January 15, 2026
A Nigerian lawyer and human rights advocate, Franc Utoo, has delivered an emotional testimony before the United States Congress, accusing the administration of President Bola Tinubu of deliberately downplaying what he described as a genocide against Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
Utoo also questioned reports that the Nigerian government allegedly spent about $9 million in unbudgeted public funds to hire foreign lobbyists in the United States, arguing that the money should have been used to address the deepening humanitarian crisis caused by mass killings and displacement.
Speaking during the congressional hearing on Wednesday, Utoo said he appeared not only as a legal professional and policy advocate, but as a direct victim and survivor of violent attacks.
“I come from the epicentre of the genocide of Christians in Nigeria,” he told U.S. lawmakers. “I am one of the biggest victims.”
Utoo, a former Principal Special Assistant to the Governor of Benue State between 2020 and 2023, said he hails from Yelwata community, one of the areas hardest hit by attacks allegedly carried out by armed Fulani militias.
He explained that he belongs to the Tiv ethnic group, the largest predominantly Christian group in the Middle Belt and northern Nigeria, which he said faces an existential threat.
“We are facing an existential threat in the hands of Fulani ethnic militia who are committed to wiping our people off the face of the earth,” he said, tracing the violence to what he described as a long-standing ideological campaign dating back to the 1804 jihad.
Utoo rejected official narratives that describe the killings as communal clashes, insisting the violence amounts to genocide.
“Our story has just one side — genocide. Genocide,” he said.
Giving a deeply personal account, Utoo told U.S. lawmakers that his village was attacked on June 13, in what he described as the deadliest single-night massacre in Nigeria in 2025.
According to him, 278 people, mostly his relatives, were killed during the attack.
“These are not just numbers,” he said. “These are my cousins, my siblings, my nephews, my nieces.”
Utoo revealed that all 13 of his siblings, including his youngest brother who is just three years old, are currently living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, alongside his two mothers.
“As I speak to you right now, my three-year-old brother is in an IDP camp,” he said. “This morning, four people shared just one pack of noodles.”
He added that his late father, a traditional village head, was responsible for more than 40 children, many of whom are now displaced following the attack.
Utoo accused the Nigerian government of criminalising victims while shielding perpetrators, citing a case in which two men from a neighbouring community were charged with terrorism for killing 12 cattle in self-defence, while no arrests have been made over the killing of hundreds of villagers.
According to him, the two men were arraigned under Nigeria’s Terrorism Act 2022, with a Fulani man listed as both the prosecutor and sole witness.
“Instead of solving this problem, the government is spending millions of dollars on foreign lobbyists,” Utoo said. “That $9 million could have addressed the suffering on the ground.”
He alleged that while the government focuses on image management abroad, displaced families remain trapped in IDP camps with no plan for resettlement, while their ancestral lands are allegedly occupied by armed groups.
In a direct appeal to U.S. lawmakers, Utoo urged the United States to use its moral authority to protect persecuted Christians in Nigeria, especially as international attention grows following recommendations by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
“You are the conscience of the free world,” he told Congress. “The strength of America is not only in its military or wealth, but in its moral authority. And we ask you to use that authority to defend us.”
— SUNTV Global Channel
