Survivors and family members of the victims of a jihadist attack sit in Babban Gide on September 4, 2024. At least 81 people died and several were missing after an attack by suspected Boko Haram jihadists in Nigeria’s northeastern Yobe State. Around 150 terrorists armed with rifles and RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) attacked Mafa ward on more than 50 motorcycles.
Photo: Audu Marte / AFP
Leah Sharibu, a Nigerian Christian, was abducted alongside more than 100 other schoolgirls in Yobe State by Islamic terrorists seven years ago. She has not been released because she refuses to renounce her Christian faith and convert to Islam. On May 14, 2025, Leah turned 22 years old—the eighth birthday she spent in captivity. The last time her mother, Rebecca, saw her, Leah was only 14.
Thousands of other Christians have since been abducted or massacred by Muslims as the jihadist genocide against Christians proceeds at full tilt in Nigeria.
In April, for instance, around 113 people, including Christians, were reportedly murdered by Fulani jihadists in Plateau State, Nigeria, with thousands more displaced. Human rights organization Open Doors reports:
Since the end of March, Fulani militants attacked at least eight communities in the local government associations of Bokkos and Bassa. Alongside those killed (and the number could be higher), a further six are missing and many others injured. Over 300 homes have been destroyed, leaving more than 3,000 people displaced.
Virtually every week is accompanied by hair-raising reports of jihadi beheadings, massacres, kidnappings, and sexual assaults in Nigeria.
In October 2024, four civilians were beheaded by terrorists believed to be from Boko Haram, along with the requisite video. Open Doors reported:
In the video, an armed terrorist, dressed in fatigues and speaking Hausa, told onlookers how one of the people he would behead was his younger sister.
“She’s part of the infidels we will annihilate today,” he said. He went on to say that he would do the same if it were his mother or his own child—anyone “who goes against our religion.”
Christians are the main targets of the Islamist militants in Nigeria. On September 1st, 2024, Boko Haram terrorists murdered at least 125 people, including children and the elderly, during a raid against a village in Yobe State. On September 16th, jihadists attacked Catholic and ECWA (Evangelical) churches in southern Kaduna, where they abducted at least 30 Christians, including a pastor.
For more than 15 years, after the Boko Haram insurgency escalated in 2009, deadly attacks have all but obliterated the country. More than 150,000 Christians have since been murdered in Nigeria, according to a report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety).
The marauders are Islamic terrorists such as Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Fulani jihadists, among others.
Even though Nigeria is constitutionally a secular state with freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution, Sharia law has been imposed in 12 northern states since 1999.
According to Dr. Godwin N Okeke, a leading representative of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), “the 1999 Constitution mentions ‘Shariah’ 73 times, ‘Grand Khadi’ 54 times, ‘Islam’ 28 times and ‘Muslims’ 10 times but does not mention the words ‘Christ’, ‘Christian’, ‘Christianity’ or ‘church’ even once.”
According to UN 2024 estimates, Nigeria’s population is 229,152,000. There are 106,608,000 Christians in the country (46.5 percent of the entire population.) Although there is a religious fault line between majority-Muslim northern Nigeria and the majority-Christian southern part of the country, many Christians live in the north and many Muslims in the south.
“Nigeria is the most violent place in the world for Christians. Every two hours, a Christian is killed in Nigeria,” Open Doors reported in January.
These violations of rights are not new. Islam was forcefully imposed on Nigeria by jihadists. According to Open Doors,
Nigeria has a history of enforced Islamization. Before the arrival of the British colonial administration in Nigeria, Usman Dan Fodio, a Fulani radical Islamic scholar began an Islamic jihad in Gobir in 1804, and by 1808 had established the Sokoto Caliphate. He had 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 Sharia states in northern Nigeria (starting in 1999). Since then it has gradually developed all over the country, by violent and non-violent means.
In the regions experiencing violence, all Christians are potential targets, says Open Doors. An important motivation for the abduction of Christian girls and forced marriage is the desire to depopulate Christianity and populate Islam. As a result of the violence, Christians are dispossessed of their land and means of livelihood. Many live as IDPs (internally displaced persons) or as refugees in camps.
Bishop Wilfred Anagbe from Makurdi Diocese stated:
There is a clear agenda—to Islamize all of the areas that are currently predominantly Christian in the so-called Middle Belt of Nigeria.”
An investigative report detailing the kidnapping of Christian girls, forced marriages, and forced conversion to Islam in Nigeria posted on the website TruthNigeria in 2024, revealed that jihadists, Muslim politicians, and clerics, are all involved in the abductions and abuses against Christian women and children.
The widespread kidnapping of underage Christian girls by Islamic organizations in Northern Nigeria was also detailed by Rev. David Ayuba Azzaman, a Kaduna-based pastor. “In most cases,” he said, “the organizations responsible for such dastardly acts are agencies or ministries of the states of Nigeria that practice Sharia law.”
In addition to forced “marriages,” violence against girls and women is reportedly used to extort even further abuse during negotiations with the government. Dr. Al Chukwuma Okoli relates,
Boko Haram exploits female vulnerability to promote its anti-western, jihadi agenda. The group victimizes women by subjecting them to rape, armed abduction, forced marriage, and captivity. Boko Haram also objectifies women by using them as instruments and objects of war such as sex slaves, human shields, and suicide bombers.
As Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, notes,
If the jihadis get their way, ultimately, there will be no more Christians to kill, or the remaining Nigerian Christians will submit to the hegemony of Sharia. That is how the ‘Islamic world’ was created, and how it is still being created.
These abuses constitute a silent genocide that should not be silent. Why is there so much indifference? Why have the UN, universities, governments, and self-described “human rights organizations” turned a blind eye to these atrocities for the past 15 years? And when will they realize that this is the same genocide they are importing to Europe through the open borders policy and uncontrolled Islamic migration?
