US State Department’s Report on Nigerian Violence Leaves Out Jihad Commentary Claims of a Christian genocide in Nigeria were discounted by the Department of State’s recently published 2020 Country Report which cites land disputes and farmer-herder competition—not jihadism—as the driver of mass homicides in Nigeria’s North West states. The 17,000-word report posted March 30, 2021 spares just 200 words to explain close to 1,000 brutal murders in Nigeria’s Middle Belt during the last year. “Land disputes, competition over dwindling resources, ethnic differences, and settler-indigene tensions contributed to clashes between herdsmen and farmers throughout the north-central part of the country,” according to “2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Nigeria.”