ORFA data reveals the scale of abductions and the targeting of Christian communities

Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa data reveals the scale of abductions and the targeting of Christian communities

Some days I cannot bear to look at Nigeria.

June, just one month ago, was such a time.  Pain poured from my phone each time I checked it. 

Pastor Paul Musa, of the Church of Christ in Nigeria, was filmed in terror videos in Cameroon, where his ISWAP captors have taken him and his poor wife.

Kneeling exhausted next to the black flag of terror, Pastor Musa pleads for his life as a gunman towers above him.  He has seven days to live, he says.  His ransom is 40 thousand dollars.

His congregation have made frantic efforts to raise cash.  His captors have refused what they offer.  

Yet another kidnapped Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Mikah Suleiman, was filmed in a humiliated state by his kidnappers in the Zamfara forests.  ‘I’m the only one here,’ he says. ‘They’ll kill me if a ransom isn’t paid.  Don’t abandon me to these monsters…’

They are just the latest victims of what is dubbed the ‘clergy abduction spree’.

The two are clerics.  And more:  their churches provide the social services of their neighbourhoods, offering education, infant daycare, assistance for the needy and community representation.

The assault on them reverberates through generations, attacking the futures of hundreds, possibly thousands, at a stroke.

ORFA data

This week, a major study by The Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa – which I was involved with – records the scale of the attack on Christian communities.

55,910 people were killed in the context of terror groups over the four years. 

It maps a frenzy of kidnapping, with abductions spiralling :  2020 (1,665 abductions) 2021 (5,907 abductions)  2022 (7,705 abductions) and 2023 (6,225 abductions). 

Overall, a Christian is 1.4 times more likely to be abducted than a Muslim.   

But as a proportion of the population of individual states, Christian abductions are extraordinary.  Abduction of Christians as a proportion of their minority populations is very high.  In terms of local population, around 5.1 Christians are abducted for every Muslim.

It is little wonder that Christian populations are on the move.

‘Attack the shepherd – you scatter the flock.’

The fleeing of Christians in the aftermath of a priest murder, or priest abduction, happens almost immediately.

At the Annunciation Benedictine Monastery in Kwara State, last October, we heard the sickening details of elderly monks dragged from their beds by gunmen and terrorised.

Three priests-in-training were taken away.  One – Brother Godwin Eze – was murdered and his friends forced to carry his body and throw him into the river.   His murderers, who rang the monastery to inflict days of religious insult and abuse upon the monks, promised to return.

Almost overnight, the decision was made:  the monastery was abandoned.

“By attacking a monastery, also a centre of economic life, the violence has the same effect as a terrorist attack,” said Marcela Szymanski, of Aid to the Church in Need. “The population runs for safety, abandoning land and property to the Islamist terrorists … they become destitute overnight.”

I believe it is this scattering of the flock that is the purpose of attacking clergy.

As I write this piece, I am flooded with memory.

Two of my friends, good shepherds I knew well, were murdered in the most barbaric manner.

Fr. Vitus Borogo was murdered in June 2022.  He was followed and shot with precision and timing as he travelled to visit a farm.

A wonderful talker, Fr. Borogo was treasured for his strength and warmth in consoling victims of violence in Southern Kaduna.  He was the first to every bereaved family, a source of  wisdom and comfort.

Then, perhaps two weeks after Fr. Borogo was savagely murdered, a second blow fell: my dear friend, my sparring partner and supporter, Fr. John Mark Cheitnum, vanished.  

Fr. John was snatched from his own rectory in Southern Kaduna, at Yadin Garu, along with Fr. Denatus Cleopas.  I am a Protestant, but Father Mark had no interest in distinctions like this, and when I needed someone to support my scholarship application, he sat and wrote a wonderful testimony for me. 

We exchanged WhatsApps and debated politics.

In my last talk with him, he urged a group of us young men on WhatsApp to ‘cast a moral vote’ in the election.  We feared violence;  Fr. Mark hated violence.  I can still hear his voice.

Others known, or also linked to my community, have also been taken:

Rev. Fr. Basil GBuzuo’s fate is still unknown after he was whisked away by gunmen on May 15, 2024 along the Eke Nkpor-Obosi bypass in Onitsha Anambra state.  My namesake, seminarian, Stephen Naaman was burnt to death when armed Fulani herdsmen invaded the St. Raphael Parish in Kafanchan Diocese in Southern Kaduna in September of 2023.

And the supporters of this evil even speak about their fantasies.

Just earlier this year, the Muslim cleric, Idris Tenshi, called for the killing of our own First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, in a sermon – simply because she is a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

“Tinubu’s wife is an unbeliever, and even among the unbelievers, she is a leader… she is among those that Allah has instructed us to kill, because she is among the leaders of the unbelievers,” the cleric brazenly proclaimed, later offering a weasel-worded apology to try to wriggle away from censure.

Extraordinary bravery

I cannot place myself in the shoes of a church leader in Nigeria today.  Courage does not even begin to cover it.

Church leaders are our pillars of hope, education and social cohesion.  When they are killed, they leave open wounds.  

We need them.  We need leaders who can conduct an interfaith dialogue, who can lead communities in peace, and protect the diverse tapestry that is Nigeria’s strength.   They are our light in a dark world. 

As long as our shepherds are hunted, we are hunted, too:  every freedom, every right, and every social provision they offer is under attack. Their struggle is not the plight of one faith, but for the universal rights of human dignity and  the right to live in peace.