Civil rights activist and Executive Director of Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalasi, has slammed the New York Times for publishing that they admitted to not verifying their data.

Umeagbalasi spoke on Monday during an interview on ‘Prime Time’, a programme on Arise Television monitored by DAILY POST.

He said: “Let me come in here. With due respect, New York Times didn’t do any investigation. They said we admitted that we don’t often verify our data. That’s the exact word of New York Times. And to that extent, we disagree. It is totally incorrect.

“That was not what we told New York Times. What is the point of granting the New York Times an interview if we don’t verify our data? Then about the data, the New York Times also became economic with the truth.

“In our report, we stated clearly in our report that both Christians and Muslims have religious freedom, and our data estimates that between 2009 and 2025, no fewer than 125,000 Christians and an estimated 60,000 Muslims were killed by Islamic jihadists.

“We are not referring to data released by National Bureau of Statistics belonging to Nigerian government that stated that between 2023 and 2024, 614,000 Nigerians were killed as a result of insecurity.

“That is not the data we are talking about. We are talking about religiously motivated killing. That’s the one we are referring to, okay? That is our own data. And let me also tell you that you can never be part of a data you never generated.

“And let me also make it clear as a criminologist that what rules the world in matters of Criminal Justice Administration is circumstantial evidence.

“Even if you go to the scene of crime, you only go there to be told of what happened. You were not there when the whole thing happened. You must be told the story.”