In a market in southeastern Nigeria, a short man wearing one earbud recently made his way to the tool section, dodging wheelbarrows of sugar cane and porters carrying stacks of hard hats.
The man, Emeka Umeagbalasi, owns a tiny shop selling screwdrivers and wrenches in this market in Onitsha, the commercial hub of southeast Nigeria.
But this screwdriver salesman is also an unlikely source of research that U.S. Republican lawmakers have used to promote the misleading idea that Christians are being singled out for slaughter in Africa’s most populous nation. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Representative Riley Moore of Virginia and Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey have all cited his work.
Armed with his ideas, President Trump launched airstrikes on the other side of Mr. Umeagbalasi’s country on Christmas Day.
To Mr. Umeagbalasi, that the American president had taken up a cause he had promoted, was “miraculous.”
“If nothing is done,” he said in an interview from his home, “Nigeria will explode.”
Mr. Umeagbalasi says he has documented 125,000 Christian deaths in Nigeria since 2009, but told The New York Times that he often does not verify his data.
He acknowledged that his research was mainly based on “secondary sources,” including Christian interest groups, Nigerian news reports and Google searches.
Source : The New York Times