Talk:Killings in Southern Kaduna

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Despite the vigorous opposition to the move, these are not based sufficient in terms of evidence that the current title is the common name or that the comments are more grounded in righting great wrongs. Discarding such opposition shows that there is consensus to move to the proposed title. As for merging into other articles, this can be done independently of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 07:15, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Southern Kaduna genocide → Killings in Southern Kaduna – Per WP:NPOVTITLE and WP:COMMONNAME. No international organizations or scholars call these events genocide, there are 3x as many Google hits for "Southern Kaduna crisis" than "Southern Kaduna genocide", and like 20x as many for "Killings in Southern Kaduna". Katzrockso (talk) 19:46, 27 November 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. CoconutOctopus talk 20:03, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Note: Wikipedia talk:Genocide has been notified of this discussion. Katzrockso (talk) 19:52, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Support per nom (edit: or even better merge into Southern Kaduna crisis) (t · c) buIdhe 21:10, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Disagree - When there was no international attention prior to the move by President Donald Trump, it remained a localized issue within that region of Nigeria. While others call it genocide, others just report it as "killings". But we all know what genocide means. If this isn't a genocide, the Gaza genocide is much more not qualified to be called a genocide. Renaming the page from having "genocide" to having "killings" based on the simple statement of "there are 3x hits for "Southern Kaduna crisis" than "Southern Kaduna genocide"" seems like an excuse to change the sense of the acts. I may be wrong, but this is what it seems. I vote for the page to stay as it is. Kambai Akau (talk) 21:39, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

The articles was moved to Gaza genocide because there are >1000 scholarly sources calling it a genocide, whereas that is not the case here. (t · c) buIdhe 21:42, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Buidhe, I believe if President Trump never spoke about this, this discussion won't be taking place at the moment. That is how insignificant the topic is in the international media. Kambai Akau (talk) 21:46, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not right the wrongs that have occurred. That the international media has not covered this topic may be sad, but it doesn't we can declare the occurrence of a genocide not acknowledged by any scholars or violates policies NPOV. Katzrockso (talk) 22:20, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

But which scholar says it is not a genocide? Kambai Akau (talk) 23:24, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Wrong question. The correct question is: What names do reliable sources use for the events described in the article? How frequently is each name used? Ideally, one of them will meet the criteria of WP:COMMONNAME. — Chrisahn (talk) 23:30, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Fine. Kambai Akau (talk) 00:07, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

"But we all know what genocide means." No, we don't. It's a complex subject with many definitions. Also, we don't go by what "we all know". That's not how Wikipedia works. I don't see an argument in this comment that's valid according to our rules. — Chrisahn (talk) 21:46, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

At least, the link to Wikipedia's definition was highlighted to show that we as Wikipedians should know what it is. Kambai Akau (talk) 21:48, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

P.S.: "I vote for" – This is not a vote. — Chrisahn (talk) 21:50, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I lacked the appropriate word to call it. Maybe you can help. Kambai Akau (talk) 21:53, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Most editors use the term "!vote". :-) — Chrisahn (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Nice. Maybe the word "suggest" will do. Kambai Akau (talk) 22:03, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

I dont know why we want to subject this matter to public debate or opinion.We are quick to try and pacify without feeling the pain people have been subjected to over time, allow the people tell their stories and sing their songs there own way.Wikipedia is a free platform that should not get into the issues that will discredit it. It is not killings this is planned, sponsored and inflicted on a section over time without redress for no reason stated and you have not seen any hope of ending or escaping from it.The people causing the mayhem are not mincing words and people in government said it at that time "surrender your ancestral land or die" Jjnzamah (talk) 22:11, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Will renaming or moving it to killings stop the act, restore the peace, resurrect the dead and rebuild the ruins. Who and what do we want to please by the way who is complaining? I cant see the objectives of this exercise any where, I may be blind. Jjnzamah (talk) 22:18, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Renaming/moving the page title will increase compliance with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, such as WP:NPOVTITLE, WP:COMMONNAME, etc. Katzrockso (talk) 22:22, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Disagree with the name change, because for the fact it took forever for the international community to see the systemic and ethnic cleansing doesn't mean it's not existing. Southern Kaduna has been a targeted, killed and displaced for decades. Let the original name stand because that's exactly what it it. Friday musa (talk) 22:20, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

-Strongly Disagree Wikipedia should help keep this article and the title in its original form since it met the policy for publishing at first instance,when the crisis started it had different faces until it finally unveiled.It was first religious, then farmers herders clash, then climate change with resultant migration then political,now land grabbing by ethnic cleansing that has since gone to dimensions of a genocide. Jjnzamah (talk) 22:35, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

President Donald Trump is a true Democrat who understands the plight of Americans and extends such feeling to all marginalized groups and communities in countries where impunity is a norm. Truly, there is genocidal killings in Atyap land most places in southern Kaduna Genesis shan (talk) 22:51, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Comment: Most comments here so far are, to put it bluntly, useless. They express feelings and opinions but don't contain valid arguments. Please, everyone, read WP:RMCOMMENT. Make yourselves familiar with the article titling policy at Wikipedia:Article titles. Do not make recommendations that are not sustained by arguments. Such comments should be and will be discounted in the decision about this requested move. — Chrisahn (talk) 23:20, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Some of them also appeared out of nowhere after years of inactivity, which is curious. Katzrockso (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Changing one controversial title to another without a discussion that leads to consensus is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. Consensus among editors determines if there does exist a good reason to change the title. If it has never been stable, or it has been unstable for a long time, and no consensus can be reached on what the title should be, default to the title the article had when the first major contribution after the article ceased to be a stub was made.

Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised at Wikipedia:Requested moves, and consensus reached before any change is made. Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia.

In discussing the appropriate title of an article, remember that the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is "right" in a moral or political sense. Nor does the use of a name in the title of one article require that all related articles use the same name in their titles; there is often some reason for inconsistencies in common usage. For example, Wikipedia has articles on both the Battle of Stalingrad and on Volgograd, which is the current name of Stalingrad.

Although titles for articles are subject to consensus, do not invent names or use extremely uncommon names as a means of compromising between opposing points of view. Wikipedia describes current usage but cannot prescribe a particular usage or invent new names.

Above, is the stand of wikipedia and I think it is clear to all of us we can not reach a consensus as we discuss and there are better ways to improve this same article than this, we should shield our swords some of us are already distracted from contributions we make with the little time we have at our disposal, this is already counter productive pls the big guys should allow us to grow, 'we dont leave here' we only surface when we have the time and I think WIKIPEDIA FOUNDATION IS COMFORTABLE . we are volunteers! . Jjnzamah (talk) 02:40, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

We are already engaged in a requested move, started because the move I made was reverted. I'm not sure why you are copying from WP:TITLECHANGES.

Policy-based arguments are required in such a discussion, merely claiming that the status quo should be maintained is not really an argument. Katzrockso (talk) 03:46, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Why the haste? If the title harms nothing, why should it be changed? The title follows Wikipedia's manual of style quite alright. I suggest the page remain as it is because the acts rhyme with the descriptions of a genocide. You and @Buidhe think that it moves. Well, the best one can do is to suggest. I reverted the page to its original title because a discussion like this ought to be done. Kambai Akau (talk) 04:08, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

"If the title harms nothing, why should it be changed" because article titling is based on our policies, not on whether not something "harms" anything (by some ambiguous motions of 'harm', nothing on Wikipedia harms anyone - does that mean we shouldn't ever change anything?). The policies clearly dictate that morally laden terms should not be used without strong evidence (see MOS:CONTROVERSIAL) and that we should reflect the WP:COMMONNAME by which scents are referred to. Katzrockso (talk) 05:07, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Kambai Akau @Jjnzamah: You still haven't provided valid arguments. You really need to read Wikipedia:Article titles (the whole page, not just parts that seem to support your opinion) and WP:RMCOMMENT. In addition, you should read the essays Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid on discussion pages and Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (this isn't a deletion discussion, but similar rules apply). And then you should provide arguments that are valid according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. — Chrisahn (talk) 07:41, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Sorry @Chrisahn. It seems I am running out of argument mojo. Whatever decision is made, I guess I am fine. Goodluck. Kambai Akau (talk) 23:22, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Katzrockso - "Harm [nothing]" there is an idiom meaning "disturb". Maybe it's sort of a stronger word. I take that back. Hope it has been disambiguated enough. On further policy-related arguments, I have nothing to say. I guess one has said quite much. Kambai Akau (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Support merge into Southern Kaduna crisis, as suggested above. The latter article is merely a stub at the moment. As far as I can tell, no sources call this a genocide, so that title is WP:OR and far from WP:NPOV. — Chrisahn (talk) 22:10, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I would support this too, though I didn't open it as a merge discussion so I'm not sure how that would work.

There are a few sources, largely advocacy groups from the region, that call it genocide, but they're not cited in the article. Katzrockso (talk) 23:20, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I think WP:OTHEROPTIONS applies in this case. An uninvolved editor can close this RM and decide that the result of the discussion is to merge the article into Southern Kaduna crisis, and then that editor or anyone else can perform the actual merge. — Chrisahn (talk) 15:57, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Oppose/Disagree. If needed, it can be moved into Southern Kaduna genocide accusation. ≠Move into article≠

SOKAPU is accusingNasir el-Rufai of organizing mass killings. el-Rufai has issued statementswith genocidal intent. Christian Solidarity International has calledon the United Nations Security Council to issue a genocide warning for Nigeria including Kaduna where Fulani militants attacked 11 Christian villages, killing 50 people. The Coalition Against Kajuru Killings has accusedel-Rufai of colluding in genocide. Guz13 (talk) 16:24, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

This would also violate NPOV because we would be going by the word of a very small number of groups claiming an event is genocide vs the vast majority of mainstream coverage (see HRW , CRT , Amnesty International ). Exceptional titles require high quality sources that don't exist here. Katzrockso (talk) 21:37, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

This article is discussing "allegations" of genocide in Kaduna and there are several organizations describing it as a genocide. These organizations are sourced in the article. Guz13 (talk) 02:09, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

This article is about attacks and displacements etc. The genocide allegations are a very minor part. The word "genocide" occurs only a single time (!) in the text. It would be misleading to have "genocide" in the article title. — Chrisahn (talk) 02:35, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

It only occurs a single time because others have removed the word from the article.

Diff example 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Southern_Kaduna_genocide&diff=1322873749

Diff example 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Southern_Kaduna_genocide&diff=1233511160

I can add the genocide accusations back into the article with proper sourcing. Guz13 (talk) 02:48, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, in both of these edits, the word was removed because it was unsourced. I recently removed another occurrence of the word because it was unsourced. That's how Wikipedia is supposed to work. — Chrisahn (talk) 03:28, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

You're more than welcome to add the accusations back into the article, but we also need to add other POV e.g. .

There certainly isn't sufficient evidence to frame the title in that manner as that does not match the common name or satisfy NPOVTITLE Katzrockso (talk) 07:56, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

As you changed your position after people replied to your original comment, you should highlight that you have changed it using strikethrough. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:52, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Support move - based on references in the article and a quick search on Google scholar there doesn't seem to be the level of sources necessary for calling it a genocide in the title. Of academic sources, those that come up do discuss the violence and killings, but only ever use the word "genocide" when they quote NGOs or random citizens (in the case of a paper analysing social media narratives of violence in post-colonial Nigeria). -- Cdjp1 (talk) 20:01, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

There are multiple sources on Google Scholar which describe the violence as a genocide.

1. https://www.academia.edu/40661786/FULANI_HERDSMEN_ATTACKS_IN_NIGERIA_A_CASE_OF_GENOCIDE_IN_THE_MAKING
2. https://ikengajournal.com.ng/admin/img/paper/Complete-IKENGA-Vol.-18-No.1%20(1).pdf#page=246
3. https://onlineresearchjournals.com/aajoss/art/280.pdf
4. https://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/soa/article/view/1232

Guz13 (talk) 01:03, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

1. Does not mention Kaduna.
2. Does not call it genocide, the closest is, as I stated in my comment, saying that some NGOs have called it genocide.
3. Again, does not call it genocide, the closest is, as I stated in my comment, saying that some NGOs have called it genocide.
4. Does not call it genocide, but as I previously mentioned says some citizens of Nigeria have called it genocide while analysing social media narratives of violence in post-colonial Nigeria.

So of the four sources you've provided, 0 of them call it a case of genocide. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 09:15, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

On 1) Indeed, that article talks about Plateau state (p. 72-73). It also doesn't make a statement conclusively affirming genocide. This is the closest; "it is axiomatic to say that there is a strong indication that genocide and/or crimes against humanity are occurring in Nigeria; at least, they are in the making." Katzrockso (talk) 09:23, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

To clarify my comment somewhat, the sources in the article that refer to this as genocide are an NGO for Kaduna people, a priest, and Christian Solidarity International. These I argue are enough to say that some people have characterised the killings as genocide within the article, but not enough to support the current title of the article, either as a common name for the killings, or to show that this is how they are viewed by specialists and experts. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 09:22, 9 December 2025 (UTC)