Christians abandoned to jihadists by ‘complicit’ Nigerian military

Intersociety claimed that Islamist terror groups are seeking to wipe out an estimated 112 million Christians and 13 million traditional religionists across the country by the year 2075.

A report found that more than 7,000 Christians were killed across Nigeria in the first 220 days of 2025, at an average of 32 killings per day.

The International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, known as Intersociety, a Catholic-inspired advocacy organisation, published the report on 10 August, recording 7,087 killings and 7,899 abductions of people targeted because of their Christian faith.

Benue State was the worst hit with more than 1,100 deaths, including the Yelewata massacre of 13-14 June that led to deaths of around 280 Christians. Benue also suffered the Sankera massacre in April, during which more than 72 Christians were killed.

“As if these were not enough, 20,000 square miles of lands belonging to Nigeria’s indigenous Northern Christians have been taken over and over 600 Christian clerics abducted including abduction of 250 Catholic priests and 350 pastors and killing of dozens,” the report says.

“Nigeria’s Islamic jihadists have in the past 16 years, or since the July 2009 Boko Haram jihadist uprising, forced [an] estimated 12-14 million Christians out of their homes to become [internally displaced persons], during which millions of others were threatened and forced to flee to avoid being hacked to death.”

According to Emeka Umeagbalasi, head of Intersociety, these killings and abductions are being driven by approximately 22 Islamic terror groups in Africa, linked or potentially linked to the Islamic State, “seeking to obliterate Christianity and indigenous cultural heritages of the indigenous Peoples of Nigeria, a genocidal purpose intended to be achieved using world jihad fund and global jihadist cells”.

Intersociety said the terror groups, which use Nigeria as a haven, are seeking to wipe out an estimated 112 million Christians and 13 million traditional religionists across the country, particularly in the South-East and South-South regions, by the year 2075.

It also accused the Nigerian military of killing 410 Christians within the same period.

Umeagbalasi told The Tablet the Nigerian military has been “complicit” in the killing of Christians. He traced this attitude to the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, accusing the late former president of filling the military with his fellow Fulani tribesmen who he claimed act as sentinels for jihadist Fulani herdsmen.

“What we have in Nigeria isn’t a military that protects people. What we have is a jihadist military that is working hard to advance the aim of Islamic jihadists, namely the annihilation of Christianity,” Umeagbalasi said.

Since 2009, when Boko Haram launched its campaign to establish a caliphate in Nigeria and across much of the Sahel, approximately 189,000 civilians have been killed in the country, according to the Intersociety report. Of these victims, 125,000 were Christians and 60,000 were liberal Muslims.

During the same period, Intersociety recorded the destruction of 19,100 churches and more than 1,100 Christian communities.

As recently as 12 August, Fulani herdsmen attacked St Paul’s Parish in Aye-Twar, in Benue State, destroying the church and forcing the community to flee.

The Nigerian Catholic Diocesan Priests’ Association (NCDPA) of the Diocese of Katsina-Ala described the assault as a “genocidal attack” on both the Church and the community.

According to Fr Samuel Fila, chairman of NCDPA, “the armed group completely shut down the parish, destroying the church, burning the rectory to ashes, vandalising the parish secretariat, and demolishing pastoral vehicles, household items, and other valuables”.

The Intersociety report urges the Trump administration to exert further pressure on Nigeria by re-designating it as a Country of Particular Concern for violations of religious freedom. The first Trump presidency did so in 2020, but in 2021, the Biden administration removed Nigeria from the list on the grounds it had made “progress” towards religious freedom.

Dr Gregory Stanton, founding president of Genocide Watch and chairman of the Alliance against Genocide, has condemned the Nigerian military for its complicity in attacks on Christians in Nigeria.

“The army’s complicity is clear – either cattle-owning generals are being paid off, or they are too corrupt and cowardly to act,” Stanton told the ACI Africa outlet in April. He said Nigerian Christians needed to defend themselves, as advocated by the Archbishop of Abuja Ignatius Kaigama.

“Self-defence is natural justice,” Stanton said. “How you defend yourself is important. You can’t just sit there, and somebody comes to kill your family, and you say they are not protecting you. You must rise up and protect yourself and your communities against these bloodthirsty criminals.”

However, security forces claimed a success in Benue State in recent weeks when they averted an attack on a minor seminary in the Diocese of Gboko.

Sources close to the military around Gboko told The Tablet that close monitoring of local bandits facilitated the prompt response to the attempted attack on the St James Minor Seminary in Yandev.

“Security has been beefed up around these vulnerable institutions and we are keeping close watch on them, and this greatly assisted us in repelling them when they attempted the attack,” reported one member of personnel, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We do not want to make it a serious issue so as not to create fear in the minds of both the students and their handlers but we are doing our work quietly and getting result.”

Bishop William Avenya of Gboko urged seminarians not to be deterred by threats of violence intended “to scare you from being an agent of good tidings”. His diocese is among the worst affected by attacks.

Speaking last month at a seminar organised for Nigerian seminary rectors, the rector of St James Minor Seminary Fr Dominic Asor warned that fear of persecution undermined the future of the Church. He said no place was safe in Nigeria, so seminarians and formators should not leave their institutions to escape attacks, and nor would parents removing their sons from minor seminary shield them from these dangers.

“We must not flee from our vocation because of trials, insecurity, or the lure of worldly comfort,” he said. “God who called us will sustain us, but we must remain faithful and focused. The seminary has not become an endangered species. Apart from the seminaries, where else can you have complete safety? There is no place.”

He continued: “The fact that something has happened in a particular place does not mean we should stop worshipping God. Seminary is a place to worship God. So, allow your children to be in the seminary.”

Fr Aso urged formators to model a life of prayer, discipline and commitment, emphasising that “we are forming priests not for a utopia, but for the real world marked by hardship and hostility”.

“In Benue State, we have insecurities, and all the Dioceses are affected. The mother of my classmate, Fr Tsegba Martin, was burned in the Yelewata  attack, and four of his sisters were equally burned in the same room,” he recounted.

He urged seminarians not to abandon their vocations out of fear.

“If they give up the vocation, who else will go into it?” he asked. “We are people of hope. Nothing lasts forever. We hope that this will come to an end as well.

“God has His mysterious ways of doing things. If we are killed in the Church, I have the trust that we shall go to heaven because we have been killed because of our faith. So, nobody should run away. Because if you run away from the seminary because of insecurity, where will you go?”

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