In Southwestern Nigeria, the historic heartland of the Yoruba ethnic group, religious coexistence was once deeply ingrained in everyday life. Families were often religiously heterogeneous yet harmonious: a Muslim husband with a Christian wife, parents of different faiths raising children who chose Islam, Christianity or indigenous beliefs. Religious festivals were commonly celebrated together, reinforcing social cohesion.

This tradition of harmony began to erode significantly after the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986 by the military government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, under the influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). SAP policies—such as reduced government spending on education and social services, trade liberalisation and currency devaluation—triggered soaring inflation, weakened purchasing power and widespread economic hardship.

As livelihoods collapsed, some Nigerians turned to corrupt practices, while others found opportunity in the rise of commercialised religious enterprises, complete with aggressive business models and intense competition for followers. This shift contributed to rising intra- and inter-religious tensions, particularly in a region once celebrated for tolerance.

The erosion of harmony in the Southwest mirrored growing religious conflicts across Nigeria, especially between Christians and Muslims. Scholars and analysts have long warned that the media plays a decisive role in either escalating or de-escalating such conflicts. In his 2006 pamphlet Voices of War: Conflict and the Role of the Media, Andrew Puddephatt observed that media outlets can either inflame violence through partisan reporting or promote peace through independence and responsible framing.

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These concerns resurfaced sharply on 24 December 2025, when a mosque in Maiduguri, Borno State, was bombed during Maghrib prayers, killing worshippers. International and local media clearly identified the target as a mosque. Headlines from BBC, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, The Cable, The Guardian (Nigeria) and Daily Trust all referenced the mosque or Muslim worshippers.

However, Channels Television published the headline: “BREAKING: Many feared dead as bomb blast rocks Maiduguri on Christmas eve.” The omission of the mosque and the emphasis on “Christmas Eve” drew widespread criticism for being misleading and inflammatory.

Reacting on X, commentator Boss Kitty Kitty (@Aashfinn) condemned the framing, warning that it fed a dangerous “Christian genocide” narrative, despite evidence that terrorism in Nigeria targets victims indiscriminately. The Muslim Public Affairs Centre (MPAC) also issued a strong statement, accusing Channels Television of editorial bias, deliberate omission of Muslim identity, and the weaponisation of language to provoke religious tension.

MPAC argued that the headline change—adding “Christmas Eve” after initial publication—suggested a calculated attempt to drive engagement at the expense of national unity. The organisation further alleged a pattern in which Muslim victims are anonymised while narratives that heighten suspicion against Islam are amplified.

Media scholars describe this practice as media bias and confirmation bias, where editorial choices reinforce preconceived narratives while excluding crucial context. Studies consistently show that headlines shape public perception, especially in an era where many readers share stories based solely on headlines without reading full reports.

The controversy came just a day after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his Christmas Day 2025 broadcast, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to religious freedom, protection of all faiths, and peaceful coexistence. While the President sought to calm tensions and promote dialogue, critics argue that irresponsible media framing risks undermining these efforts.

As one commentator, @mrabdulreacts, noted on TikTok: “Narratives can be more dangerous than bullets… misleading headlines can destroy trust for generations.” The Maiduguri bombing coverage has therefore reignited urgent questions about journalistic responsibility, religious sensitivity, and whether sections of the Nigerian media are contributing to division in an already fragile society.

How a Misleading Channels TV Headline Reignited Nigeria’s Religious Tensions

Experts Warn US Strikes in Nigeria Could Harm Civilians, Fuel Sectarian Tensions

Security analysts and local observers have raised concerns over the recent United States military strikes in Nigeria, warning that the operations could misfire and exacerbate tensions rather than curb terrorism.

The strikes, carried out in Sokoto State on Christmas Day under the guise of counterterrorism, mark the first US military operation on Nigerian soil in modern history. The action follows repeated claims by former US President Donald Trump, who alleged a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria and threatened military intervention.

According to eyewitnesses, the areas targeted have no established history of terrorist or bandit activity, with some strikes reportedly affecting civilian-populated areas rather than forested hideouts typically associated with terrorist groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP. Analysts warn that this raises questions about intelligence accuracy and operational planning.

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Mallam Ibrahim Agunbiade, writing on the implications of the strikes, emphasized that Nigeria’s security challenges are regionally specific. Boko Haram and ISWAP are concentrated in the North-East, while armed banditry is largely confined to forested regions in Zamfara and Niger states. “Any counterterrorism effort that ignores these realities is either grossly incompetent or deliberately misleading,” he noted.

Experts also caution against framing Nigeria’s crisis as a religious conflict, pointing out that both Muslims and Christians are affected by terrorism. Weaponizing religion to justify foreign military intervention could delegitimize Nigeria’s sovereignty and inflame sectarian tensions.

Agunbiade stressed that the country needs intelligence-driven cooperation and respect for its territorial integrity, rather than indiscriminate bombardments that may increase civilian casualties, deepen resentment, and destabilize communities.

“The goal must be accuracy, accountability, and restraint. Anything less is not counterterrorism; it is a reckless intervention with potentially devastating consequences,” he wrote.

Experts Warn US Strikes in Nigeria Could Harm Civilians, Fuel Sectarian Tensions

Nigeria’s growing begging economy, By Farooq Kperogi

As the economy bites harder and end-of-year festivities rev up, the routine “tax” on middle-class Nigerians (the few of them that still exist, that is,) the political class and Nigerians in the diaspora predictably intensifies.

December is always expensive in Nigeria, but it now comes with an additional, informal levy: the expectation that anyone perceived as doing “well” must redistribute their resources far beyond family obligation.

For a long time, begging in Nigeria was associated with what Marxists once called the lumpen proletariat, that is, the dirt-poor, socially marginal and largely unorganized underclass. In Nigeria, this image was most vividly represented by the almajirai in the North, children sent to Qur’anic schools who were expected to fend for themselves through street begging.

That picture no longer captures the reality. Begging has morphed into a flourishing, multi-layered industry with widening entrants, diversified platforms and increasingly normalized practices. What was once stigmatized has become routinized, rationalized and, in some cases, even celebrated.

One major accelerant of this shift is online begging, or e-begging. It first gained social legitimacy through “giveaways” staged by social media influencers seeking to grow the numerical strength of their subscriber base and boost engagement metrics. What began as a marketing tactic quickly turned into a cultural script. The logic is that public generosity creates visibility, visibility creates clout and clout converts to income.

But the giveaways did something more corrosive. They normalized public solicitation. Today, hordes of Nigerians drop their names and bank account numbers in comment sections without the slightest embarrassment. Sometimes they do so during announced giveaways. Increasingly, they do so even when there is no giveaway at all. The request itself has become the performance.

This represents a sharp cultural break. Shame and moderation, once important moral regulators in many Nigerian societies, have been eroded. Mendicancy has shed its stigma. Asking publicly for money, repeatedly and without restraint, no longer attracts social penalty. In some online spaces, it attracts admiration for “boldness.”

To be clear, taxing wealthier relatives to feed, clothe and educate poorer kin is not new. Many Nigerians from economically deprived homes benefited from the kindness and generosity of more successful relatives. I am one of them.

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We also learn that when we climb the ladder, we have a moral obligation to pay it forward. This ethic of mutual aid is deeply embedded in many Nigerian cultures, and it has helped countless people survive in the absence of a functional welfare state.

What has changed is not the ethic itself but its scale, scope and coercive intensity.

In the last few years, driven by rising inequality and the normalization of begging as an income strategy, the financial and emotional burden placed on comparatively well-off professionals has widened dramatically. The obligation now extends well beyond extended family. Acquaintances, friends of friends, former classmates, distant community members and even strangers now feel entitled to private redistribution.

Worse still, not everyone whose burden is carried by others is poor. For many, begging has become a source of passive income, an alternative revenue stream or even the primary means of livelihood. I have heard multiple accounts of people who built entire houses, from foundation to finishing, purely from proceeds of beggary. This is no longer emergency relief. It is enterprise.

What sustains this culture is a peculiar sense of entitlement. For example, Nigerians who live abroad, especially in countries with stronger currencies, are widely imagined to be awash in vast oceans of money.

The brutal realities of rent, taxes, health insurance, childcare and precarious labor markets abroad are erased. They conveniently replace the lived experience of diasporan Nigerians with a crude, ignorant exchange-rate arithmetic.

As a result, even acts of real sacrifice are interpreted not as generosity but as sprouting from effortless abundance.

I once extended a significant financial favor to a relative. Instead of gratitude, I later learned that this person had told another relative that I did not deserve too much praise because the dollar-to-naira exchange rate meant that “a few thousand dollars” from me amounted to millions of naira. The assumption was that thousands of dollars are to Americans what thousands of naira are to Nigerians.

This is fantasy economics, of course, but it is powerful fantasy. It turns helpers into inexhaustible wells. Nothing they give is ever enough because the imagined surplus is infinite.

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Politicians and people close to political power experience the same dynamic. Merely being adjacent to authority is enough to generate demands. People assume access to limitless resources, contracts, favors and cash. Every refusal is read as “wickedness.” Every gift is insufficient. Gratitude disappears because entitlement has taken its place.

What makes this phenomenon especially troubling is that it is rarely recognized as structural. It is personalized, moralized and weaponized. If you resist, you are accused of selfishness or betrayal. If you comply, you’re seen as embodying boundless abundance, and the demands escalate. Either way, the individual absorbs the costs of collective failure.

There is no question that the scale and persistence of begging are increasing daily in Nigeria. Previously proud and self-respecting people now engage in what can only be described as executive begging: polished, strategic, emotionally manipulative solicitation performed by people who know exactly how to frame vulnerability for maximum extraction.

Unfortunately, this is not a victimless system. Fairly well-to-do Nigerians, both at home and abroad, are stretched and stressed. They are not simply “helping family.” They are informally tasked with carrying portions of the nation’s social welfare burden. They subsidize state collapse with private sacrifice. But no seems to know or care.

The consequences are profound. Many delay building their own homes. Others postpone retirement savings. Some abandon entrepreneurial ambitions. Intergenerational wealth transfer becomes impossible when today’s surplus is permanently pre-empted by yesterday’s deprivation. What looks like generosity in the short term reproduces fragility in the long term.

This is why the phenomenon deserves systematic study. How much is the begging economy worth annually in Nigeria? What proportion of household income flows through informal redistribution networks? How much investment, savings and productive capital formation is foregone as a result? Until we quantify these questions, we will continue to treat a structural crisis as a series of private moral dilemmas.

Individualizing a structural problem harms everyone. It breeds resentment among givers, dependency among receivers and moral confusion in society at large. We end up with a culture where no one feels responsible for fixing institutions, but everyone feels entitled to someone else’s paycheck.

Nigeria needs a system where the burden of state failure is not casually transferred to individuals lucky enough to escape it. We need social norms that reward productivity and dignity rather than permanent solicitation. We need public policy that reduces desperation instead of romanticizing survivalism. Most of all, we need to recover the idea that begging should be a last resort, not a business model.

Until then, Nigeria’s growing begging economy will continue to expand, insidiously taxing the few who manage to stay afloat while deepening the very inequalities that made it possible in the first place.

Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based professor of Journalism