Armed herdsmen raze 1,200 churches annually —Intersociety

By Jeff Agbodo

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has raised alarm that armed herdsmen, Boko Haram insurgents, and other jihadist groups destroy an estimated 1,200 churches every year in Nigeria.

The rights group said its investigations showed that about 100 churches are attacked monthly, translating to roughly 19,100 churches razed or sacked in the last 16 years.

Intersociety, in its latest report, stated that Nigeria is home to about 113 million Christians. This includes 32 million sedentary Christians and 8 million pastoral Christians in the North, as well as an estimated 70 million indigenous Christians in the South.

Chairman of the group, Emeka Umeagbalasi, said among the “40 million sedentary or indigenous and non-indigenous Christians” presently in Northern Nigeria are about 3 million traditional worshippers. Many of them, he noted, were originally Christians and still bear Christian names. He also disclosed that within the 70 million indigenous Christians in the South, about 10 million practice traditional religions.

Umeagbalasi added that Nigeria equally has about 100 million Muslims — 76 million in the North and 24 million in the South — with Lagos, Oyo, Osun, and Edo States accounting for significant numbers.

On the scale of attacks, he explained: “Razing or sacking of an estimated 19,100 churches shows that apart from the 13,000 churches attacked, burnt, or violently shut down between July 2009 and December 2014, an additional 6,100 have been lost to Islamic jihadists since mid-2015 in Taraba, Adamawa, Kebbi, Borno, Katsina, Niger, Kogi, Nasarawa, Plateau, Benue, Bauchi, Yobe, Southern Kaduna, and Gombe.”

The group also accused security forces of complicity in religious profiling and attacks in the South East. According to Umeagbalasi, since January 2021, security operations in Orlu, Imo State, have targeted traditional religionists and their sanctuaries under the guise of fighting IPOB, whose leaders, he said, are followers of Judaism.

He warned that persistent attacks on churches have “emptied thousands of parishes and outstations” across the country, particularly in the North, where Christian communities have been uprooted.

“The Archdiocese of Kaduna, covering the Diocese of Sokoto with parishes in Zamfara, Kebbi, and Katsina, now exists with skeletal parishes and near-empty church buildings,” Umeagbalasi said.

He pointed out that Benue State, home to four dioceses — Makurdi, Gboko, Otukpo, and Katsina-Ala — with the largest Catholic and denominational Christian population in Northern Nigeria, has been seriously threatened. Over 20 parishes and hundreds of outstations, he said, have been closed due to jihadist Fulani herdsmen.

In Plateau State, he continued, the Catholic Archdiocese of Jos and its suffragan dioceses of Bauchi, Maiduguri, Jalingo, Pankshin, Shendam, Wukari, and Yola face “serious congregational emptiness and evangelical devastation.”

Similarly, in Niger State, Christian communities in Shiroro, Munya, Rafi, and Paikoro under the dioceses of Minna and Kontagora, have been uprooted and placed under siege by Boko Haram and Fulani bandits.

“The Catholic Diocese of Lokoja under the Archdiocese of Abuja is also facing serious threat, worsened by the recent activities of jihadist groups such as Mahmuda and Lakaruwa Islamic fighters and their patrons,” Intersociety further alleged.

The group maintained that these systematic attacks represent an ongoing campaign of religious cleansing, urging both the government and international community to intervene before Nigeria’s Christian population suffers irreversible devastation.

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