Nigeria Is the “Global Epicenter of Violent Christian Persecution”

Jihadist violence continues to escalate in Nigeria. Christians in the country face systematic, targeted violence, primarily from Islamic terror groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), alongside radical Muslim Fulani factions. These groups explicitly target Christians through killings, kidnappings, sexual violence, and destruction of villages. The Nigerian government’s failure to protect Christians and punish perpetrators has only strengthened the Islamic militants’ influence.

The violence against Christians in Nigeria has escalated sharply since at least 2011, with documented killings and attacks increasing steadily. Data from Open Doors show over 41,000 Christian deaths between October 2011 and September 2024, highlighting a prolonged and intensifying crisis. 

The steady influx over recent years of Fulani Muslims and Shuwa Arabs from neighboring countries adds to the threat of violence. Women and girls are abducted, raped, sexually enslaved, and killed by terrorists. In addition to being forcibly ‘married’ to Muslims against their will, girls abducted by terrorists have reportedly been used as human shields or leverage in negotiations. 

Kidnapping for ransom is also used regularly, with the deliberate intention of destabilizing Christian families and the church. Abduction has become an industry, leading to intergenerational bankruptcy, in which a huge ransom is demanded from the family to return the victim. This is also the case for Christian parishes or congregations, whose priests or pastors are abducted, and the community is forced to impoverish itself to raise the ransom. 

Amid the genocidal violence against Nigerian Christians, U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that the U.S. government is ready to protect Nigerian Christians through military action against terrorists if the Nigerian government continues to fail to protect its Christian citizens.

Yet, many Western mainstream media outlets, such as AFP, DW, and the CBC, have attempted to disprove the Christian persecutions in Nigeria, even implying the violence against Christians in the country is exaggerated.

Those mainstream media outlets are misleading their readers.  Douglas Burton, an award-winning journalist and managing editor of the news website Truth Nigeria that covers Nigeria regularly, told europeanconservative.com:

These media outlets would not make these claims if they had reporters in the killing zones of Nigeria’s Middle Belt, standing alongside TruthNigeria reporters. The nation is traversed by conflicts, many of which have ethnic or economic facets. There are two much-publicized ISIS-linked insurgencies: Boko Haram (from 2002) and Islamic State of West Africa (from 2016), both armed with armored cars, trucks, and RPG’s and heavy machine guns.  These insurgencies are chiefly made up of Kanuri tribesmen in the Lake Chad area of the country. What the U.S. government and Western media don’t get yet, although they probably will figure out soon, is that most of the Christians murdered in Nigeria every year are not killed in the northeastern part of the country (Borno State), which is 66% Muslim.

The Middle Belt is about 11 states, and it is majority Christian. In the Middle Belt States of Kaduna, Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Kwara, and Kogi, there are many violent events, and many are not even reported. In the Middle Belt, most of the Christian casualties are done by mercenaries paid by unnamed financiers in the Fulani-tribe cattle-herding oligarchy. The Nigerian government has never admitted this, but it is widely believed across Nigeria. It is documented by the Observatory for Freedom of Religion (ORFA).

AFP and other Western media don’t have a client base that pays them to go into the danger zones of Nigeria. TruthNigeria pays for this with the generous giving of small churches in the United States, and that redounds to their credit.

Burton explained how Christians are persecuted by Muslims in Nigeria:

1) Chiefly by mass attacks that take place at night on sleeping villages. More than 400 villages and towns in the Middle Belt have been wiped out by these attacks, which began in number on Sept. 11, 2001. Same day as the attack on New York’s Twin Towers. 

2) By kidnapping for ransom. This is a scourge that the government tries to cover up, but it is all over northern Nigeria and grows in ferocity every year. Since late 2024 the Fulani ethnic gangs in the Northwestern States have started to specialize in kidnapping small groups of unarmed farm folk and marching them into hidden camps where they are tortured until their relatives ransom them out. The time they stay can be months. Their relatives often must sell all their property, including plots, savings, and vehicles. So, when the victims finally get back to their families, they are sick, traumatized, and bankrupt. The Fulani criminal gangs can then easily force them to move on so they can take over their lands.

3) Forced marriages: In the northern states, it is common for Muslim clerics to kidnap teenage girls in villages and marry them to Muslim men three times their age.

4) Yearly mob killings of Christians. A key illustration is the mob killing of Deborah Emmanuel at Shegu Shegari Teachers’ College in Sokoto on May 12, 2022.

 The killings in Plateau State started on September 11, 2001, Burton added.  

There were deadly religious riots in Jos at the same time period. Lara Logan’s Fox News documentary covered this in 2021. The chief human catastrophe affecting Christians is that by the government’s own estimate there are 6.7 million internally displaced persons in Nigeria. Likely this is an undercount. The Nigerian government plays a shell game on all statistics to protect its image.  We believe the bulk of these people are displaced Christians. The Roman Catholic Church in Benue tells us there are 2 million displaced persons in that state alone. The urgent need for the IDP camps is food, and for most, there is no sturdy shelter. Last year the organization, Equipping the Persecuted, provided wood frame shelters for 800 IDPs [Internally Displaced Persons;  people fleeing persecution or natural disasters within their own country] sheltering under flimsy mosquito nets near Makurdi.

The numbers of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria are almost even. There are around 106 million Christians (46.5% of the whole population) and 105 million Muslims (46%). 

Southern Nigeria is predominantly Christian, while northern Nigeria is predominantly Muslim. The religious divide partly coincides with the ethnic divide. The Hausa and Fulani in the north are predominantly Muslim, and the Igbo in the southeast are mainly Christian, while the Yoruba in the southwest have both significant Muslim and Christian populations. 

Although, according to its constitution, Nigeria is a secular state, for decades, the northern ruling elite has discriminated against Christians in favor of Muslims. Since 1999, sharia law has been adopted by 12 northern states.

Ryan Brown, the CEO of Open Doors US, told europeanconservative.com:

Credible, evidence-based research from organizations like Open Doors, grounded in extensive presence and verification within Nigeria, confirms that the country is a global epicenter of violent Christian persecution. Between October 2023 and September 2024 alone, over 3,100 Christians were killed for their faith, representing the majority of Christian deaths worldwide in that period. Christians in Nigeria are disproportionately targeted—being 6.5 times more likely to be killed and 5.1 times more likely to be abducted for their faith compared to Muslims. This is not exaggeration, but a serious humanitarian crisis recognized by international experts and institutions.

The count of 3,100 Christian deaths is based on rigorous data collection combining primary sources, local verification, and cross-checking with ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data). While some reports show more Muslim fatalities, those often include combatants and militants, whereas civilian death data indicate Christians suffer more. Adjusting for population proportions, Christians face vastly higher risks in affected regions, underscoring the reality and severity of targeted persecution.​ 

Survivors recount militants issuing threats such as “We will destroy all Christians” during attacks. Besides militants, armed bandits associated with Islamist groups exploit the insecurity to kidnap Christians and religious leaders for ransom based on their faith identity. Every year, this violence results in thousands of deaths and displacements, with many living as internally displaced persons under extremely difficult conditions.​

Key urgent needs raised by contacts within Nigeria include effective protection from militant violence, legal justice through prosecution of perpetrators, and support for trauma recovery and community restoration. Humanitarian aid is critical for millions displaced and living in fragile conditions.  The Nigerian government and the international community must urgently take strong, coordinated action to address these critical security and humanitarian challenges.”

Nigeria has a history of enforced Islamization. Usman Dan Fodio, a Fulani radical Islamic scholar, embarked on an Islamic jihad in Gobir in 1804 and by 1808 had established the Sokoto Caliphate. He vowed to enforce Islam through the power of the sword, from the Sahara Desert in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south. This enforced Islamization gained momentum with the declaration of Islamic sharia states in northern Nigeria, starting in 1999. Since then, it has gradually spread all over the country by violent and non-violent means.

According to a report issued in August by the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety), an African nongovernmental group that documents human rights violations, an average of 30 Christians are murdered in Nigeria every day. The report indicates that as many as 7,000 Christians were massacred across Nigeria in the first 220 days of 2025. 

Muslims who are not allied with a terrorist group attacking communities are also vulnerable, especially in northwestern and north-central states. Many Muslims have been killed and/or abducted by the same groups that killed and/or abducted Christians, and also had to flee their villages.

Numbers vary and are difficult to verify, but the Intersociety report said at least 185,000 Nigerians—including around 125,000 Christians and 60,000 moderate Muslims—have been massacred in Nigeria since 2009, when Boko Haram terrorists began their murderous campaign to set up a caliphate across the Sahel. 

According to the Intersociety, during those attacks, 19,100 churches were razed, and more than 1,100 Christian communities were sacked. Their 20,000 square miles of land were usurped, and more than 600 Christian clerics, including pastors and priests, were abducted. 

Emeka Umeagbalasi, director of Intersociety, told OSV News that what is happening now in Nigeria is similar to what happened elsewhere in the world that was once defined by Christianity but has since been emptied of it.

Umeagbalasi added: “If the trend continues, Christianity could be wiped out from Nigeria by 2075.”