In Depth:  Nigeria

Luke Randall

More than 7,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2023, representing 90% of the overall worldwide total killed because of their faith, making it the deadliest country in the world for Christians.

The African country has been a dangerous place for Christians for years, mainly because of Islamic terror groups such as Boko Haram, (who infamously kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in 2014 and regularly post online videos of their members beheading Christians) as well as Fulani Herdsmen and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). A particularly brutal attack saw 200 Christians slaughtered and 500 more injured by Islamic fundamentalists between 23 and 25 December 2023.

Luke Randall

The Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) has called for the Nigerian government to strengthen religious rights, following their discovery that Christians have been the most violently persecuted group in Nigeria during the last four years.

A study by ORFA revealed that 16,700 Christians have been violently killed out of an overall civilian total of 55,900, mainly by Islamist extremists. This makes them the most discriminated-against people group in the country. Other groups to feature high on the list were security forces and terror group members.

Luke Randall

The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) has said, in a statement at the 56th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, Switzerland, that the Nigerian government must do more to protect Christians from the ‘brutal violence’ of extremist groups.

The WEA spoke of ‘patterns of repeated violence’ by extremist groups in Nigeria which are wiping out communities and displacing thousands. It called on the country’s government to do more to ‘disarm violent groups’ and ‘boost security’ in the nation.

Iain Taylor

On a warm afternoon, the ululation, drumming and singing of a choir of two-dozen women can be heard across Gan Gora, a tiny village in Nigeria. ‘We are happy you arrived safely,’ they sing in Hausa, welcoming visitors to the community branch of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Zangon Kataf, Kaduna. One song is from the book of Habakkuk: ‘Oh Lord, how long must I call for help, but you do not listen?’

The Guardian has reported how about 100 women dance regularly, including Rifkatu Dauda Kigbu, 53, hobbling on a fractured knee. This is a weekly meeting of zumunta mata, a fellowship of married women. Their visitors are zumunta mata members from an ECWA in Gonin Gora, a Kaduna suburb.

Iain Taylor

Persecuted church agency Open Doors is calling upon the Nigerian President urgently to liberate the 500 or so mostly women and schoolchildren abducted by Islamist terrorists in the past few weeks.

In Gamboru Ngala, a market town in Borno State, 200 people were kidnapped when they were going to collect firewood. The other abduction, from Kaduna State in northern Nigeria, saw 280 students, some as young as eight years old, taken by gunmen on motorcycles.

The Nigerian Government has revealed that a further 11 of the Chibok women, abducted in 2004 by militant group Boko Haram, have gained their freedom since June.

The announcement says that the women are currently staying at an Interim Care Centre in Maiduguri. The women are accompanied by at least 21 children they have given birth to while in captivity – the women having been made pregnant by their captors.

Iain Taylor

An expert on Islamist terrorism has expressed alarm after gunmen stormed a church in southwest Nigeria on Pentecost Sunday, killing as many as 50 worshippers, including women and children.

Witnesses said the gunmen detonated explosives before opening fire on the churchgoers. Officials were still calculating the final death toll days later.

Three new reports confirm the rising tide of violence against Christians in Nigeria and suggest that more Christians are being killed there than anywhere else in the world.

According to the latest report by Nigerian NGO Intersociety, in the four months from January to April 2021 Nigeria ‘lost no fewer than 1,470 Christians … the highest number recorded since 2014’.

In central and north western Nigeria, kidnappings, ransom demands and attacks on villages have increased, it has been reported.

Families are forced to pay a ransom to kidnappers, encouraged by the police and security forces who say they cannot free any persons abducted. Some analysts say the kidnapping ring has now become a big franchise involving shadowy politicians and security forces.

A congregation has reacted with joy as portions of Scripture were read out in their own language for the first time from a new Bible translation.

The town of Yenagoa celebrated the translation of the New Testament into the northeast Nigerian Epie language.

‘Nobody seems to care what happens in this part of the world’ said Archbishop Ben Kwashi of Jos in Northern Nigeria, the General Secretary of GAFCON, on BBC Radio News.

He said he was losing hope because 1,000 lives had been lost in the past 12 months, as nomadic Muslim Fulani Herdsmen with guns and knives had launched attacks on villages populated by Christian farmers to force the Christian communities off their land. The Federal Government of Nigeria had failed to disarm these herdsmen and it was even suggested that President Buhari, himself from the Fulani community, was supporting their land grab.

On 24 July, in Zikpak, ten people were killed, and approximately 11 were seriously injured during an attack by armed assailants of Fulani extraction. One of the victims was a child aged five, whilst another was a 25-year-old man, who had recently graduated from an evangelical theological seminary and was about to be married.

The attackers also burnt down five houses and then attempted to set a local church building ablaze, but rain extinguished the flames. Six of the injured survivors are reportedly in specialist hospitals. According to local sources, security agents arrived at the scene well after the assailants had left (despite the fact that Zikpak is less than 2km away from a Joint Task Force base).

A report was published on 15 June titled ‘Nigeria: Unfolding Genocide?’

It points out that the violence has claimed the lives of thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. It has caused untold human and economic devastation and heightened existing ethno-religious tensions. Despite the scale of the violence, the conflict is much less well known internationally than the ten-year-long Boko Haram insurgency.

Two Nigerian pastors were abducted in Kogi state in January, as kidnapping cartels that have plagued the central state for the past three years directed their aim at Christian leaders.

In a departure from numerous kidnappings of high-profile business and government leaders in Kogi state since 2013, gunmen abducted Pastor David Onubedo of Deeper Life Bible Church on 25 January in Okene after a Bible study. Onubedo’s captors are reported to have contacted his wife and the leadership of the church to demand 50 million naira (£173,000) for his release.