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In 2019, Alheri Magaji spoke about her Adara community in Kaduna State of Nigeria during an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. She told the audience about how her ethnic group suffered vicious attacks carried out from mid-February through April of that year that left about 400 dead and displaced thousands in her community.
“I spoke to a woman whose limbs were cut off. She had four kids and was nine months pregnant,” said Magaji. “Fulani herdsmen came to a Kajuru town in February, about 400 of them with AK-47s. They came at around 6:30 a.m. They spoke Adara. They came in with war songs. They were singing songs that translate into, ‘The owners of the land have come. It’s time for settlers to leave.’”
“We are here today to beg the U.S. government and for the world to hear our story,” she continued.
On my shelf is a book I bought at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, titled “The World Must Know.” Atrocities cry out to be known like Abel’s blood crying out to God from the ground (Gen. 4:10). I’ve always felt a responsibility to know when atrocities are occurring around the world. On this topic, you can find books on North Korea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You can find an avalanche of articles on Gaza and Ukraine, but Nigeria? Not so much. This is shameful. Not only are atrocities occurring in Nigeria, but they are happening to brothers and sisters in Christ. I feel a burden to spread the word about Nigeria.
What’s Going On
Sadly, many could not even identify Nigeria on a map. In West Africa, the sixth most populated country in the world, Nigeria is ground zero for violence against Christians.
When Open Doors USA released its 2024 World Watch List this past January, they reported 4,998 Christians were killed around the world in 2023. About 9 out of 10 of those Christians killed were in Nigeria. This is a conservative count. The Nigerian-based International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) reports that at least 8,222 Christians were killed across Nigeria from January 2023 to January 2024. That is an increase from the 5,068 Christians in Nigeria killed in 2022, not to mention the wounded, the abducted, or the displaced.
Nigeria is roughly half Christian and half Muslim, with Christians mostly in the south and Muslims mostly in the north. According to Open Doors, the main culprits of Christian persecution are Boko Haram and its offshoot, Islamic State in West African Province, but also Fulani militants and armed bandits. The attacks are mostly concentrated in the Muslim-majority north but are spreading into the predominantly Christian south. Twelve of the northern states in Nigeria are governed by Sharia Law, and “there is a widespread culture of impunity where the fundamental rights of non-Muslims are not upheld and violations against Christians go largely unnoticed,” according to Open Doors.
Magaji asks for the world to hear the stories.
That’s her request. Just to hear their stories.
Downplaying the Situation
It seems like the world is conspiring to squelch their stories. Mainstream news reports describe the violence as clashes between herders and farmers while people on the ground are describing “pure genocide” against Christians that is widely overlooked.
Reporting on violence against Christians in Nigeria is slim. Christianity Today has covered some attacks. The BBC did a story in 2022. Newsweek recently published an opinion piece. It is difficult to find reports or stories of persecution in Nigeria. Christians are being killed in Nigeria, and few people are even noticing.
The United States government is turning a blind eye. Of the 15 years that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended Nigeria be designated a Country of Particular Concern, the U.S. State Department has only accepted its recommendation once, in 2020. Nigeria was removed in 2021 and has not been listed since.
No wonder the call is to hear the stories.
“The Nigerian government and media repeatedly try to downplay the situation by calling the butchering of hundreds of babies, young girls and boys, unarmed men and women, the burning down of homes, churches, livelihoods, infrastructure a mere ‘clash’ between farmers and herders,” writes Calvin University graduate Becky Emmanuel. “The government’s failure to investigate and prosecute enables the continued violence and banditry that overflows from the collapse of Nigeria’s security.”
Only Getting Worse
The government of Nigeria also is turning a blind eye and even supporting attacks, according to Intersociety.
“Through the deceitful and camouflaged ‘internal military operations,’ the Fulani Jihadists were militarily protected to invade southern and middle belt farmlands, bushes, and forests,” said Intersociety as reported by the Christian Post. “This is to the extent that, today, the highest concentration of the Fulani Herdsmen’s jihadist terror activities in the South and the Middle-Belt and other Christian-held areas in the North are found near military or other security formations.”
Already in 2020, Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, visited Nigeria and met with victims from five different Nigerian provinces for three days.
“After our journey there, we want the world to know that you haven’t heard half of it,” said the faith leaders in a joint statement. “The terrorists’ aim is to ethnically cleanse northern Nigeria of its Christians and to kill every Muslim who stands in their way.”
The violence has only increased since 2020. Attacks keep coming with no end in sight.
What You Can Do
Magaji called for the world to hear the stories. We have a responsibility to hear the stories and know what is going on. What else can we do? Of all the voices from Nigeria, I’ve only heard calls to pray and pray and pray. We can pray for their protection and safety. We can pray for the government of Nigeria to move to protect its people. We can pray for their faith to stay strong and their persecutors to repent.
To hear the stories and learn more about persecution in Nigeria, see the following links: