In a statement released Saturday, Intersociety described the invitation as “undeserved” and “morally bankrupt.”

A report by human rights organisation, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has condemned the invitation extended to President Bola Tinubu to attend the papal inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in Vatican City, citing widespread violence under Tinubu's watch.

In a statement released Saturday, Intersociety described the invitation as “undeserved” and “morally bankrupt.”

The organisation claimed that during President Tinubu’s two-year tenure (May 2023–May 2025), many Christians and Nigerian citizens have been “hacked to death” and others abducted by jihadist groups.

“The systematic uprooting of indigenous Christians of Northern Nigeria — threatened, abducted, disappeared, hacked to death, or forced to flee their homes and sacred places of worship or learning — is divided on a state-by-state basis;

"There are additional millions of urbanised Christians in the states’ cities, where they are severely and systematically threatened and abused for professing the Christian faith.

It is also important to note that the degree of threats and attacks by Jihadist Fulani herdsmen on Christians and other non-Muslims living in the South-East, South-South, and South-West has dangerously increased — from 0.5% in January and – May 2015 to 30% in the current Old Eastern Region and 35% in the Old Western Region.”

“The Vatican’s gesture is misguided,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, lead researcher and chairman of Intersociety. “It rewards complicity and silence in the face of atrocity.”

The group further criticised the inclusion of prominent Nigerian Catholic clerics in the presidential delegation, calling it “a disturbing endorsement of state failure.”

Intersociety warned that this collaboration between political leaders and religious figures risks turning clerics into “presidential image launderers,” who may “demarket the defence of the Christian faith.”

The group noted that jihadist violence is responsible for displacing over 40 million Christians in Northern Nigeria, with entire communities sacked and forests, churches, and farmlands seized.

“The scale of dispossession is staggering,” said Chinwe Umeche, Head of Democracy and Good Governance.

Citing data gathered since 2010, Intersociety attributed the killings to three forms of religious violence: jihad in Muslim-ruled areas, jihad against non-Muslim territories, and state-enabled killings by Fulani militants.
“The Catholic Church must not legitimise leaders under whose watch these crimes are committed,” Umeagbalasi emphasised.

“Doing so is a betrayal of the persecuted.”
Intersociety concluded its statement with a call for religious leaders to “stand with victims, not their oppressors.”

The Nigerian presidency had acknowledged the “Papal invitation sent by Cardinal Pietro Parolin,” noting that Pope Leo XIV “underscored the need for President Tinubu’s physical presence at this moment of particular importance for the Catholic Church and the world afflicted by many tensions and conflicts.”

Pope Leo further stressed: “Your great nation is particularly dear to me, as I worked in the Apostolic Nunciature in Lagos during the 1980s.”

President Tinubu’s entourage includes the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu; Archbishop of Owerri and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Archbishop Lucius Ugorji; Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja; and Alfred Martins of Lagos.

The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Hassan Kukah, is also part of the president’s entourage.

Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, will be formally installed to the exalted office on Sunday, May 18, at St. Peter’s Square.