Femi Fani-Kayode: The Convenient Crusader – A Tale of Selective Outrage and Political Hypocrisy

Femi Fani-Kayode: The Convenient Crusader – A Tale of Selective Outrage and Political Hypocrisy In the annals of Nigerian political discours...

Femi Fani-Kayode: The Convenient Crusader – A Tale of Selective Outrage and Political Hypocrisy

In the annals of Nigerian political discourse, few figures embody the art of rhetorical fire and ideological somersault quite like Femi Fani-Kayode. Once a thunderous voice against the shadows of religious persecution, Fani-Kayode, the erudite former aviation minister, and self-proclaimed defender of the oppressed has morphed into a ghostly echo of his former self. His sudden silence on the relentless slaughter of Christians in Nigeria, a tragedy that continues unabated under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is not just puzzling, it is a damning indictment of a man whose principles appear as malleable as clay in the hands of political expediency.  As a Yoruba son championing his tribesman in Aso Rock, Fani-Kayode's mute complicity in the face of innocent blood cries out for scrutiny. This is the story of a hypocrite unmasked, a warning to all who place faith in the fleeting loyalties of power brokers.

To understand the depth of Fani-Kayode's betrayal, one must rewind to the dark years of Muhammadu Buhari's presidency (2015–2023), when Nigeria's Middle Belt and northern regions became charnel houses for Christian communities. Under Buhari, Fulani militias, Boko Haram insurgents, and bandit syndicates unleashed a torrent of violence that claimed tens of thousands of lives, disproportionately targeting christian believers who refused to renounce their faith. Reports from human rights watchdogs painted a grim picture: over 52,000 Christians killed since 2009, with the Buhari era accounting for the lion's share. Churches burned, villages razed, and families shattered, all while the federal government, accused of complicity or indifference, looked the other way.

It was in this inferno that Fani-Kayode emerged as a biblical Jeremiah, his words a clarion call for justice. In 2017, he branded Buhari a "Christian-hating mass murderer" and a "closet radical Islamist," decrying the president's alleged protection of Fulani herdsmen who "slaughtered" believers in their homes, farms, and places of worship. "The Buhari government has palpable hatred for all believers," he thundered in an op-ed, vowing that "until vengeance comes, the Buhari government and all those that support them shall know no peace." He lambasted the administration for deploying the Nigerian Air Force to "bomb" Christian self-defense groups in Adamawa State while shielding the very militias accused of genocide.

Fani-Kayode's outrage was unrelenting. In 2018, he seized on a presidential aide's slur against the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)  calling it a "CAN of worms" as proof that "Buhari is anti-Christ and hates Christians."  He warned of a covert agenda to "Islamise Nigeria," commending Christian elders for resisting what he saw as Buhari's theocratic ambitions. By 2019, as Boko Haram and ISWAP rampaged, he declared that "Christianity CANNOT be defeated," but only after excoriating the "Fulani militants and all those misguided souls in Nigeria and the Buhari Government that secretly support and encourage them."  His essays and tweets painted a vivid portrait of a nation teetering on the brink of religious apocalypse, with Buhari as the architect.

This was no armchair activism. Fani-Kayode's barbs resonated across Nigeria and the diaspora, amplifying the cries of the persecuted and pressuring an indifferent regime. He positioned himself as the Yoruba intellectual warrior, unafraid to wield his pen against northern hegemony and Fulani dominance. In those days, his voice was a beacon for the afflicted, a reminder that silence in the face of slaughter is complicity.

Fast-forward to May 29, 2023, when Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Fani-Kayode's fellow Yoruba and a man he once defended fiercely was sworn in as president. The transformation was as swift as it was stark. The prophet fell silent. Where once he raged against the machine, he now curates paeans to the new order, extolling Tinubu's "religious tolerance" and claiming Christians are "treated equally and fairly" under the current dispensation. No more jeremiads on Fulani incursions; instead, a curated defense of the status quo.

Yet the blood continues to flow. Under Tinubu, Nigeria remains a slaughterhouse for the faithful. In the first 220 days of 2025 alone, over 7,000 Christians were killed  a pace that outstrips global totals for faith-based violence. Benue and Plateau states, Christian heartlands in the Middle Belt, have borne the brunt, 218 dead and 6,000 displaced in a single spate of attacks in 2025, 200 more massacred in Yelwata village by Fulani gunmen shouting "Allahu Akbar." Palm Sunday 2025 saw 56 believers gunned down in Bokkos, by April, another 120 in Plateau, with villages razed and survivors fleeing like refugees in their own land. Amnesty International tallies 1,336 deaths in Plateau from December 2023 to February 2024 alone, a grim testament to the administration's faltering security measures.

Even as global voices from U.S. lawmakers pushing sanctions to comedian Bill Maher decrying a "systematic" erasure of Christians raise alarms, Fani-Kayode dismisses them as "disinformation" and "propaganda" aimed at maligning Tinubu's government. In a May 2025 screed against a Buhari-era ally, he boasts of Tinubu's visit to the Vatican as proof of interfaith harmony, ignoring the 32 Christians killed daily on average. His X feed, once a torrent of condemnation, now echoes with biblical defenses of the president: "A massive Tsunami awaits those that seek to remove Bola Tinubu." No mention of the "tsunami" of tears from Benue's widows.

This is not oversight, it is orchestration. Fani-Kayode's defection to the APC in 2022, after years of anti-Buhari vitriol, was a masterclass in realignment. Now, as a de facto apologist for Tinubu, he trades moral thunder for tribal solidarity. The Yoruba presidency a long-sought prize has bought his peace, even as Christian graves multiply.

Fani-Kayode's volte face is hypocrisy incarnate. Under Buhari, a Fulani Muslim from the north, he decried every atrocity as evidence of an "anti-Christian agenda," accusing the regime of "colluding" with jihadists to "exterminate Christians."

Under Tinubu, a Yoruba Muslim from the southwest and his ethnic kin, the same playbook is shelved. The violence persists – Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Fulani militias undeterred yet Fani-Kayode preaches harmony, warning against "dividing us on religious lines." If outrage was his weapon when politics soured, silence is his shield when it sweetens.

This is the peril of selective righteousness:: it erodes trust in all who wield it. Fani-Kayode, once a voice for the voiceless, now embodies the very servility he once mocked in others. His tribal lens prioritizing Yoruba ascendancy over universal justice blinds him to the universal sin of slaughter. Christians, whether Igbo, Idoma, or Berom, are not pawns in ethnic chess, their blood demands accountability, not alibis.

Beware the Chameleons of Conscience Nigerians, take heed. Femi Fani-Kayode's silence is a siren song of caution in a nation where leaders pivot with the winds of power. He raises alarms when the throne is occupied by adversaries, fueling division for personal gain, but cloaks injustice in complacency when allies reign. This duplicity endangers us all, it normalizes genocide by degrees, emboldens killers, and fractures the fragile bonds of multi-faith country.

To the church, the youth, and the diaspora: Do not be swayed by silver tongued sophists whose faith is in favoritism, not fairness. Demand better from Tinubu's government equitable security, not ethnic exceptionalism. And to Fani-Kayode. Your quill, once dipped in the ink of indignation, now drips with the wax of complicity. History will judge not your eloquence, but your echoes or lack thereof – amid the cries of the slain.

At Family Writers Press International, we stand with the persecuted, unbound by tribe or tenure. Let this be the death knell for hypocrisy. The innocent deserve voices that endure, not evaporate.

Family Writers Press International.