
One of Nigeria’s leading clerics, Mgr. Matthew Hassan Kukah has called for an end to what he calls a “culture of death” in Nigeria.
The cleric was reacting to the 2025 World Watch List published by UK-based NGO, Open Doors-an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.
Nigeria again accounts for the country with the highest number of Christians killed for their faith in 2024. Of the 4,476 Christians murdered last year, 3,100 of them were in Nigeria.
“Though fewer Christians were killed for their faith in Nigeria compared to last year, it remains disproportionately deadly for Christians, with 3,100 paying the ultimate price for their faith,” the report states.
The report documented 209,771 cases of Christians displaced due to their faith and 54,780 Christians subjected to physical or mental abuse in the past year. It said that approximately 380 million Christians globally endure “very high or extreme levels” of persecution or discrimination.
This means that one in seven Christians worldwide face such challenges. The situation is even direr in Africa, where one in five Christians is persecuted, and in Asia, where the number rises to two in five.
A separate report published by Pontifical Charity, Aid to the Church in Need puts the spotlight on the growing dangers faced by clergy and religious in the world. These dangers range from murders to kidnappings. In 2024, the ACN report documents 122 incidents involving priests and religious, which included 13 murders and 38 kidnappings.
It shows a slight drop in the number of clergy killed in Nigeria, but Kukah says that no one should be “lulled into any feeling that there is respite.”
“One priest who has lost his life to bandits or any unnatural death is too many,” the cleric told Catholic World Report.
“We cannot therefore celebrate the fact that we are witnessing a reduction. We want to see the eradication and punishment and total abolishment of this culture of death in our country. So, I am still saddened that these evil men and women are still on rampage, ravaging our country and leaving tears and blood in their wake.”
Nigeria is home to about 235 million inhabitants, with 54.2% of them identifying as Christian, most of whom are in the southern part of the country.
The country has since 2009 been fighting a Boko Haram insurgency whose ultimate aim is to create a caliphate. It’s murderous campaign has since led to the deaths of at least 350,000 people, according to a 2021 report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). And Boko Haram has since been joined by other terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP and Fulani herdsmen. Christians have been bearing the brunt of their murderous campaigns.
According to Global Christian Relief, at least 4000 Christians are killed in Nigeria every year as a result of their faith.
A report issued in 2023 by, the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety) said at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians had been murdered since 2009.
Within the same period, 18,000 Christian churches and 2,200 Christian schools were set ablaze. Approximately 34,000 moderate Muslims also died in Islamist attacks.
A few specific incidents highlight the severe persecution faced by Christians in Nigeria.
In June 2022, over 50 Christians were killed at St. Francis Xavier Church in Owo State, Nigeria. The Nigerian government attributed the massacre to ISWAP, while local witnesses blamed Fulani militias.
In 2022, four Catholic priests were murdered in Nigeria, and an additional 23 priests and a seminarian were kidnapped.
In December 2023, around 140 Nigerian Christians were massacred near Jos. Fulani jihadist militias also targeted Christian farming communities across Plateau State, resulting in a death toll of 200.
Emeka Umeagbalasi, the board chair of Intersociety told CWR that the latest reports, both by Open Doors and Aid to the Church in Need is a fair reflection of what Nigerian Christians go through every day.
“The data we at Intersociety have shows that not less than 5000 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2024. At least 6000 others were abducted, and our previous studies indicated that 10% of those abducted never came back alive,” he told CWR.
He said whole Christian communities have been overrun and uprooted by jihadist organizations, including Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen, Fulani bandits and several others. He said Churches in these communities have been pulled down and replaced with mosques.
“The remaining Christians there are being threatened or enticed with such material things like motor bikes, bags of rice and sewing machines, to abandon Christianity and join Islam,” Emeka told CWR.
Father Moses Lorapuu, Director of Communication and Vicar General Pastoral for the Catholic Diocese of Makurdi in Nigeria’s Benue State, told CWR that “the Nigerian space remains the most dangerous place for the Catholic priests and the religious.”
“In fact, it is the most risky environment for Christians,” he added.
“As I respond to you now, there were killings of Christians in Lafia diocese,”Lorapuu said, further highlighting the precarious situation of Christians in Africa’s most populous nation.
Anti-Christian violence was initially concentrated in the north, where twelve Muslim-majority states declared sharia law in 1999. The rise of Boko Haram in 2009 exacerbated the situation. But the violence has since spread southwards to Nigeria’s “Middle Belt,” with radicalized Fulani herdsmen attacking Christians and seizing their lands.
Lorapuu said that the kidnapping and killing of Christians in Nigeria are becoming normalized “…and gradually, the Islamic terrorists are winning. Their bigots who are in positions of authority do not pretend about their mission to Islamize Nigeria.”
Those persecuting Nigeria’s Christians have found willing accomplices in the Nigerian military, according to Intersociety’s Emeka Umeagbalassi.
“The worst part of it is that the military, the security forces, are found to be conspiratorially involved,” Emeka told CWR.
He cited an August 18, 2024 incident in which soldiers reportedly stormed three Catholic parishes in Umunze, a community in Orumba South Local Government Area of Anambra State, along with an Anglican church and several Pentecostal centers. Local newspapers said then that the military forces dispersed worshippers after two of their colleagues had been killed in the area. The military claimed they were rather involved in a ‘cordon and search operation.’
But Emeka rejects that argument, describing the Nigerian military as “a branch of a government jihad, a state jihad.”
“They either conspire in the massacre of Christians or are directly involved,” he told CWR.
“South Eastern Nigeria has the highest concentration of Christians and Christian churches. Military personnel here have been found encouraging attacks against Christians. Some of the killings
perpetrated by the military are purely religious. Civilians that have been killed were killed by the military, and they were killed on account of who they are, where they belong, their faith, and ethnicity. So it’s not only the Fulani jihadists that are killing; the military is also involved in the persecution of Christians in Nigeria and the wanton destruction of their properties, including sacred places of worship, sanctuaries, houses, and farmlands.”
Emeka noted that military involvement in Christian massacres reached their height during the Buhari years in power, because the President was using the military to drive “an Islamization agenda.”
He doesn’t believe the administration of Bola Tinubu has changed anything, but Father Lorapuu thinks the current administration has been taking steps to give Christians a window of freedom.
“We acknowledge that the current administration has been more proactive and the insurgents are put on the back foot, but decades of persecution cannot be reversed overnight,”Lorapuu told CWR.
“We are aware of the enemy trying to fight back, using geopolitical, economic, and even tribal sentiments. However, we expect the international community to leverage the efforts of the government of President Tinubu and degrade the capacity of the insurgents to attack Christians,” Lorapuu said.
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When will the Vatican forcefully and decisively denounce this horrendous massacre in Nigeria perpetrated by Islamic warriors? Isn’t this a form of genocide based on faith? And when will so called “moderate” world Muslim leaders denounce this butchering being done in the name of their religion?
Islamic leaders Bindiana are of two groups: the patient, and the impatient.
Their objective is what they have in common.
Seldom does a cleric speak so bluntly about the reality of the religion of Islam. To be a faithful Muslim means to feel entitled to kill all kuffar or non-Muslims. Too often we bend over backwards to not offend the dark side of Islam. It is a falsity to talk about this in terms of “radicalization”. There is no such thing; however, there is such a thing as being a faithful Muslim.
I lived for nearly ten years in the GCC nations. I found wonderful friends and there are beautiful things to admire about their religion and their culture. Yet, one must never forget or ignore the reality of Islam.
We must be very careful. Other religions may give license to hate, but ours does not. We must treat each person as an individual not as part of a group. It is imperative that we are willing to work together with all people of good will who are willing to work towards peace and harmony.
Fair enough. But Nigerian Christians are dealing with multiple Islamic groups that are murdering thousands of Christians. And Pope Francis stays silent. It’s an outrage and a scandal.
Yes. The Church’s posture toward persecuted Christians is disheartening. This includes not only the hierarchy but also the people in the pew. The Faithful may have an excuse as many simply are not aware of the extent of the persecution. The media doesn’t cover the persecution and our priests and bishops don’t speak about it. You’re absolutely correct that Pope Francis should be speaking frequently and boldly about the suffering of Christians at the hands of adherents of Islam. Every parish should include prayers for our persecuted brothers and sisters in the Prayers of the Faithful. All of us should intercede for them in our daily prayers. Lastly, we need to write Secretary of State Marco Rubio and ask him to put Nigeria back on the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) in order to protect the religious liberty of Christians being persecuted there. Secretary Blinken had taken Nigeria off the list in 2021. I wrote my local congressman three times asking him to advocate that Nigeria be put back on the list. He ignored me all three times.
Other religions may give license to hate, but ours does not. True. But we do not have to hate our enemies in order to justify putting them to death. If justice demands that Muslims forfeit their lives for their crimes of murder, or false religion, or blasphemy, then there is no sin in giving them their due.
I totally agree.
Without pushback these savages are emboldened & we become complicit in the persecution because we allow it by our inactivity.