In Southwestern Nigeria, which is the heartland of the Yoruba ethnic group, it was commonplace for families to be religiously heterogeneous and harmonious. In the circumstance, the husband could be a practising Muslim and the wife a practising Christian; a mother could be a practising Muslim and the father a practising Christian; and a father could be the adherent of an indigenous religion while the child could be a Christian or Muslim. This heterogeneity created conditions in which various religious festivities were jointly observed.
This harmonious living was at its peak before the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 by the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida military administration inspired by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a means of restructuring the Nigerian economy to create sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty. Features of SAP included the reduction of government spending on social services (including education), trade liberalisation (which meant commodities could be imported into Nigeria without measures to protect the national economy) and the devaluation of the nation’s currency.
These measures came with a sharp rise in inflation, reduction in purchasing power and a lot of economic hardship. In other words, SAP created the direct opposite of the advertised benefits of its adoption. To cope, some citizens had to embark on different kinds of activities. Some of these activities led to aggravated corruption. Some others saw an economic headway in establishing commercially-oriented religious centres, complete with business models and business ethics. This developing entrepreneurial religious culture came with rabid competition for members and the employment of strategies which were not particularly morally edifying.
This led to intra-or-inter-religious conflicts in Southwest Nigeria, and remarkably undermined the religious harmony for which the region was reputed. As the saying goes, “If gold rusts, what shall iron do?” So, inter-religious conflicts, especially between adherents of Christianity and Islam, festered in the other less religiously harmonious regions of Nigeria, and it is widely acknowledged that the media played critical roles in such conflict or potential conflict situations.
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In the April 2006 pamphlet by Andrew Puddephatt titled Voices of war: Conflict and the role of the media – commissioned, edited and published by International Media Support – the phenomenon is described as follows: “Mass media often play a key role in today’s conflict. Basically, their role can take two different and opposed forms. Either the media take an active part in the conflict and have responsibility for increased violence, or stay independent and out of the conflict, thereby contributing to the resolution of conflict and alleviation of violence. Which role the media take in a given conflict, and in the phases before and after, depends on a complex set of factors, including the relationship the media have to actors in the conflict and the independence the media have to the power holders in society.”
These views are relevant for Channels Television which is a privately-owned Nigerian media outfit with a Christian proprietor who is not known to be particularly close to the current leadership of the country. The views are also relevant for conflicts in, especially, Northern Nigeria, which some see as primarily motivated by contests for land, pure criminality and herders-farmers issues, but which some others see as primarily motivated by the desire to launch genocidal attacks against Christians in Nigeria. With time, probably aided by some sections of the media, the allegation of ‘Christian genocide’ gained resonance with some Christian politicians in the United States, and President Donald Trump declared Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern”. He also threatened to invade Nigeria in a war that would be “fast, vicious, and sweet”, to protect Nigerian Christians.
The Nigerian government has countered the ‘Christian genocide’ narrative, and US and Nigerian officials have met with the Nigerian officials assuring their US counterparts that there is no genocide against Christians in the country. The meetings have also discussed strategies for combating the agents of insecurity who have been indiscriminate in their choice of targets and victims.
In the same vein, in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Christmas Day broadcast to the nation on 25 December, 2025, he said: “As your President, I remain committed to doing everything within my power to enshrine religious freedom in Nigeria and to protect all people of different faiths from violence. … Throughout the year, I have had the privilege of engaging with prominent leaders from the two major faiths in the country, particularly amid concerns about religious intolerance and insecurity. We will build on these conversations to strengthen collaboration between government and religious institutions, prevent conflict and promote peaceful coexistence.”
It was in the context of these efforts to promote religious harmony that a mosque in Maiduguri was bombed during Maghrib (early evening) prayers on 24 December, 2025. The BBC’s headline of the report on the attack was “Bomb blast in packed Nigerian mosque kills five”; Al-Jazeerah’s was “Explosion rocks crowded mosque in Nigeria, killing at least five; Deutsche Welle (DW)’s was “Nigeria: Explosion rocks Borno mosque during evening prayers.”; The Cable’s was “Five worshippers killed, 35 injured as suicide bomber attacks mosque in Maiduguri”; The Guardian (Nigeria)’s was “Deadly explosion rips through Maiduguri mosque, at least 7 killed”; and Daily Trust’s was “Many feared killed as suicide bomber attacks Borno mosque.”
However, Channels Television’s headline of the same event was “BREAKING: Many feared dead as bomb blast rocks Maiduguri on Christmas eve.” In a swift response to this misleading headline, an impassioned commentator on X, Boss kitty kitty @Aashfinn, on 24 December, 2025 wrote: “How are we supposed to be fighting terrorism when we’re also forced to fight stupid, bigoted Nigerian media that thrive on twisting facts to inflame religious tension? Terror has no religion, but manufacturing a Christian genocide narrative is sickening, irresponsible and dangerous.”
Moreover, in a 25 December, 2025 release, the Executive Chairman of MPAC, Disu Kamor, said in part: “The Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC), Nigeria, strongly condemns the misleading, insensitive, and deeply troubling editorial decision by Channels Television in its reportage of the bombing of a mosque at a market in Maiduguri, Borno State. … Channels Television, in its caption and framing of the story, deliberately omitted any reference to the mosque and the Muslim identity of the victims, while introducing an entirely unrelated and inflammatory reference to ‘Christmas Eve.’ … Evidence shows that the report was initially published without any reference to Christmas, only for the phrase to be inserted later – clearly to drive engagement, provoke emotion, and potentially inflame religious tensions in an already fragile national context.”
MPAC further stated: “This action raises serious concerns about intentional manipulation, institutional bias, and the weaponization of language in media reporting. MPAC notes with deep concern that this is not an isolated incident. Channels Television has, on multiple occasions, demonstrated intense hostility against Islam and a tendency to downplay, distort, or obscure stories involving Muslim victims, often erasing their religious identity while amplifying narratives that invite suspicion, fear, or hostility toward Islam and Muslims. When Muslim lives are lost, their identities are muted. When Muslim spaces are attacked, the spaces are unnamed. When Muslim pain is reported, politics is inserted. This is unacceptable in a plural, multi-religious society such as Nigeria.”
As a Christian-oriented media outfit, Channels Television threw itself into the religious fray through blatant media bias, which according to Mediatheory.net, in a 2024 account, “refers to the systematic favouritism or prejudice present in the dissemination of information by news outlets. It can manifest in various forms, affecting the way news stories are framed, sources are selected, and also how language is employed.” In other words, as Provalisresearch.com rightly noted in 2025, “Media framing often manifests itself by the choice of some key words, key phrases and images that reinforce a particular representation of the reality and a specific emotion toward it, and the omission of other elements that could suggest a different perspective or trigger a different sentiment.”
In a 23 May, 2025 article in Dextermanley.com, titled Editorial framing choices: How headlines shape public perception and drive engagement, Jessica Hughes noted: “Framing choices often manifest in headlines, where brevity meets persuasion. Compelling headlines utilize keywords to attract clicks, steering readership toward particular narratives.” Hughes also noted: “News outlets often reflect specific ideological perspectives through their editorial choices. Language selection influences audience perception, as certain terms can evoke particular emotional responses aligned with political views.”
In a 23 March, 2025 article titled, How headlines shape public opinion and hide bias, Media Moogle noted: “[H]eadlines serve as gatekeepers of information, filtering what we consider worthy of our attention. They tend to highlight conflict, controversy, or novelty – elements that attract clicks and shares. This focus can distort the overall context, emphasizing sensational aspects while downplaying nuance or complexity. The result is a simplified version of reality that fits neatly into a headline, but may mislead or misrepresent the full story.”
In this regard, the Channels Television’s misleading headline aptly exemplifies ‘confirmation bias’ which the platform, Catalogue of bias, defines as follows: “Confirmation bias occurs when an individual looks for and uses the information [gathered] to support their own ideas or beliefs. It also means that information not supporting their ideas or beliefs is disregarded. Confirmation bias often happens when we want certain ideas to be true. This leads individuals to stop gathering information when the retrieved evidence confirms their own viewpoints, which can lead to preconceived opinions (prejudices) that are not based on reason or factual knowledge. Individuals then pick out the bits of information that confirm their prejudices.”
In a 26 December, 2025 sobering counsel on the Channels Television’s grand error of judgement, a commentator on TikTok, @mrabdulreacts, asked: “How can we heal our fragile unity when our own media fuels division?” He also noted: “Narratives can be more dangerous than bullets … A bomb may destroy a building in seconds, but misleading headlines can destroy trust for generations.” This note is critical when it is considered that a widely held position in media studies is that most people only read headlines, but also go ahead to share, widely, the often misleading and sensational headlines like the Channels Television’s Maiduguri bombing one.
As Andrew Puddephatt suggested, as quoted earlier in this piece, an independent medium may decide, perversely though, to work at cross-purposes with the leadership of the society with respect to conflict. As President Tinubu was trying to encourage peace through his, usually pre-announced or pre-released, Christmas Day message, Channels Television appeared to be trying to exacerbate mutual religious suspicion and hostility. Did Channels Television decide to be pulling in the opposite direction as a counterforce to the government’s efforts to guarantee social cohesion in the country?
Meanwhile, is level of religious bigotry a consideration in the awards Channels Television has been obtaining?
