MURIC renews calls for Amupitan’s sack over gen0cide 

MURIC renews calls for Amupitan’s sack over genocide

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), a faith-based rights organisation, has renewed its call for the sack of the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Joash Amupitan.

A statement by the Executive Director of the group, Professor Ishaq Akintola, said its call stems from Amupitan’s legal brief to the United States, claiming there is a Christian genocide in Nigeria.

Prof. Akintola, in the statement on Monday, asked the Federal Government why the new INEC boss has not been removed since “the revelation of his unpatriotic, costly and dastardly act three weeks ago, despite advice from Muslim groups.

“It will be recalled that in our press statement of 10th November, 2025, we demanded the removal of the newly appointed INEC boss, Professor Joash Amupitan, who was accused of writing the legal brief to the United States on Christian genocide in Nigeria. Earlier on, the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria (SCSN) and the Da’wah Coordination Council of Nigeria (DCCN) made the same demand.

“Apart from these Islamic organisations, many other groups made the same call, including the Voice of Liberty Nigeria and to the best of our knowledge, the new INEC boss has not denied authorship of the false, controversial, divisive and mischievous legal brief to America. Neither has the government.”

“Yet the latter has maintained a curious silence on this very sensitive matter. Is FG waiting for a chance to bury this matter when other burning issues overtake it? Is Amupitan a sacred cow?”

Amupitan’s brief

The INEC chairman had, in a 2020 report, written a legal brief which accused state actors of participating in acts of alleged genocide and mass killings across the country.

Amupitan, in the report, called on the United States and the United Nations to urgently intervene in the Nigerian situation and halt the violence under the administration of then-President Muhammadu Buhari, who is now deceased.

In the report titled “Nigeria’s Silent Slaughter,” Amupitan called for urgent intervention to stop what he termed “Pogrom and attacks against the Christians and minority groups in Nigeria.”

The document — published by the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON), a global advocacy network promoting human rights and religious freedom — was officially signed under Amupitan’s law firm, Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan (SAN) & Co., Legal Practitioners & Corporate Consultants, with offices in Jos and Abuja.

Meanwhile, Dr Suleiman Suleiman, a Daily Trust columnist, described the brief as a major report to explicitly accuse Nigeria of “genocide” and to openly call for foreign intervention.

In his column published in the Monday edition of the Daily Trust newspaper, Suleiman said the report is the root cause of the diplomatic and national security crises Nigeria has found itself since late September this year.

He said, “The implications of this rabid conspiracy theory—but effective political hatchet job—dressed up as a ‘legal brief” should by now be clear. Amupitan handed foreign interests a dossier on Nigeria that has now been used to attack Nigeria politically, diplomatically, rhetorically, and — who knows? —militarily.”

Suleiman urged President Tinubu to sack Amupitan as INEC chairman to affirm his own inaugural oath to “bear true allegiance” to Nigeria alone, and to “preserve, protect and defend” the constitution.

“Amupitan cannot serve at the helm of one of Nigeria’s high offices of state by day, and still be writing dangerous dossiers to foreign interests against the same country by night. He must either choose one or apologise for the other,” he said.