Terror against Christians in Nigeria
Guest post on the "World Persecution Index" 2024
Christians are persecuted for their faith in many countries. Every year, the "World Persecution Index" lists the 50 countries in which Christians are most at risk. The Index also describes what persecution and discrimination actually look like and how they affect people. Nigeria is once again in the top places this year.
By Volker Seitz*
Unfortunately, I have had to write about the persecution of Christians from time to time. As with every Christian festival, there were terrorist attacks in 26 Christian communities in Nigeria over the Christmas holidays last year. How did Germany react? Politicians, the church and the media responded - if at all - with well-oiled expressions of consternation and very measured assessments of the murderous crime. In a country where bishops sometimes take down the cross and politicize the state in sermons, sympathy quickly ebbs away and there is again a shamefaced silence when it comes to the plight of Christians in Nigeria.
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto appealed to President Bola Tinubu to better protect Christians in Nigeria. In the state of Sokoto (in north-western Nigeria), 198 Christians were murdered at Christmas 2023 and over 300 injured, mostly women, children and elderly people who were unable to flee. In addition, 200 Christian homes were destroyed.
Maria Lozano, spokesperson for the aid organization “Church in Need" (see also below) counted the latest attacks among the most violent in the history of ethnic and religious disputes between Christian farmers and the nomadic Fulani herdsmen. There are indications that Fulani groups are in contact with the terrorist militia "Boko Haram", which aims to completely Islamize Nigeria. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and around two million displaced by terror in Nigeria in recent years.
Of Nigeria's approximately 220 million inhabitants, around 100 million are Christians. The southern part of the country is around 71 percent Christian, while the north - with around 25 percent Christians - is predominantly Muslim. Sharia law was introduced in twelve of the northern states in 1999. This has not prevented the brutal Islamic oppression of Christians. Murders, rapes, kidnappings, destruction of churches and private property are not punished by the judiciary.
The failure of the Nigerian government to provide protection and bring those responsible to justice is contributing to further escalation, according to Amnesty International reports. The investigations showed that the attacks were well planned and coordinated. Despite this, little was done by the authorities in terms of prevention, arrest and prosecution, even when information about the alleged perpetrators was available," says Osai Ojigho, Amnesty International's Director in Nigeria since 2017.
The "World Persecution Index" 2024 of January 17, 2024 lists 50 countries in which Christians face the worst persecution and discrimination because of their faith. Nigeria is in 6th place (after North Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea and Libya). The latest annual report of the papal foundation "Church in Need", which is dedicated to caring for Christians around the world, states that more than 7,600 Nigerian Christians were killed between January 2021 and June 2022.
There are also bloody conflicts between farmers and herders elsewhere in Africa (see Achgut.com from 8/2/2018 "Deadly conflicts between farmers and herders") but in Nigeria they are religiously charged.
This text was first published in German by Die Achse des Guten and translated into English by Rebecca Hillauer.
The author, Volker Seitz, was ambassador to Africa for 17 years and wrote the bestseller "Afrika wird armregiert" (Africa is being governed into poverty), dtv 2021.
In 2018, I accompanied the former pastor and development aid worker Renate Ellmenreich to a "widow's village" she founded in Nigeria and to the city of Maiduguri in the north, Boko Haram territory. Read Ellmenreich's life story here.