Christian genocide in Nigeria? The state fails its duty to protect

Last week, on December 25, 2025, Christians all over the world celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Saviour. Christianity is the world’s largest religion, with around 2.4 billion Christians, spread across 120 countries and territories, according to the Pew Research Centre. Islam, the second largest religion, has around 2 billion adherents and spans 53 countries and territories worldwide. But as the world marks Christmas this year, allow me to make a plea for Christianity: Spare a thought for Christians, the most persecuted people of faith worldwide!

According to Open Doors, an international NGO, which produces the annual World Watch List of religious persecutions, around 365 million Christians faced “high levels of persecution and discrimination” in 2024; over 4,998 Christians were killed, and 14,766 churches and Christian properties were destroyed. In countries like North Korea, China and many Arab and African countries like Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Iran and Yemen, it is hard to be an openly practising Christian.

But what about Nigeria? Well, it’s the outlier. In March this year, the UK House of Commons discussed the findings of the 2024 Open Doors Survey. One startling finding stood out: Nigeria is “the most dangerous country in the world for Christians”, with “more Christians killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world.” The survey states: out of the 4,998 Christians killed worldwide for their faith in 2024, “90 per cent were in Nigeria.”

That’s puzzling. Isn’t Nigeria, according to the Pew Research Centre, the second most prayerful nation in the world, with about 95 per cent of its population engaging in daily prayer? So, how could that same country also be “the most dangerous country in the world for Christians”?

Well, here’s the missing piece of the puzzle: Nigeria may be the world’s second most prayerful nation, but there are fundamentalist groups that want the prayer said in their own way. In northern Nigeria, Islamist groups routinely unleash brutal violence on Christian communities. Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), radicalised Fulani militias and ransom-extracting bandits and kidnappers have long targeted Christians in the North and sometimes outside the North, such as the killing of 40 Christian worshippers at a Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State, in June 2022.

“Yet, any hope that the persecution of Christians would subside with the end of the Buhari government and the emergence of the Tinubu administration in 2023 was soon dashed as brutal attacks on Christian communities in the North continued unabated.”

For years, Western groups urged their governments to prevail on the Nigerian government to stop the brutal and murderous anti-Christian persecution. In 2022, the House of Commons passed a resolution urging the UK government to call on the Buhari government to “take effective action against the Jihadist ideology destroying lives in Nigeria.” In America, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has, since 2009, asked the US government to place Nigeria on its watch list. In 2020, during his first term, President Trump bowed to pressure from his base and designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern (CPC)”. However, in 2021, his successor, President Biden, removed Nigeria from the CPC watch list.

Yet, any hope that the persecution of Christians would subside with the end of the Buhari government and the emergence of the Tinubu administration in 2023 was soon dashed as brutal attacks on Christian communities in the North continued unabated. This was the context in which President Trump redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern this year. But unlike in 2020 when he merely cited “alarming persecution of Christians”, this time he alleged “Christian genocide”, and threatened to send US military into Nigeria, “guns-a-blazing”. Indeed, the US struck terrorist targets in Nigeria last week!

But while the government denied the existence of Christian genocide in Nigeria, Christian leaders disagreed. In an interview on Arise TV, Revd Joseph Hayab, Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, in the 19 Northern states and the FCT said: “Can I consider what has been happening as genocide against Christians? My straightforward answer is YES – Y.E.S – Yes!” Bishop Wale Oke, President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, said: “There is Christian genocide going on in Nigeria,” adding: “If we call it by any other name, it will bring Nigeria down.” In a barnstorming press conference, laced with graphic details, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo, the founder of Kingsway International Christian Centre, KICC, described “the systematic burning of churches and targeted massacres” of Christians in the North as “systemic genocide”, saying there was no other name for it.

But beyond the disputations, how is “genocide” defined in international law? The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, known as the Genocide Convention of 1948, defines genocide as the deliberate acts of killing of members of an ethnic or religious group, with the intent to eliminate the group. Thus, the two key elements of genocide are: act and intent.

Well, the act is easier to prove. Everyone can see dead bodies of massacred people, and their mass burials. But intent, which lawyers call “mens rea”, is harder. Yet there’s hardly any doubt about the intent of Boko Haram, ISWAP or other Islamist militants, namely, to impose a radical Islamist ideology across the North and implement a form of religious cleansing. The brutal and widespread impunity of their violence show that the issue goes beyond inter-communal or resource conflicts: it’s a radical Jihadist agenda. In truth, moderate Muslims are sometimes attacked, such as the terrorist bombing of a mosque in Maiduguri last week. However, the militants’ main targets are Christians.

But here’s the nub of the matter. The 1948 Genocide Convention obligates states to prevent and punish genocide. Decades later in 2005, the UN General Assembly recognised the “Responsibility to Protect” in genocidal cases. But in all the years that Boko Haram, ISWAP and the radical Fulani militias have wreaked havoc across the Christian communities in the North, the state has failed to protect Christian communities, prevent genocidal attacks and punish their perpetrators. In 2019, General Theophilus Danjuma led a group of Christian leaders to the UK House of Lords, alleging Christian genocide and accusing President Buhari of pursuing an “Islamisation” agenda. Of course, Buhari’s successor, Bola Tinubu, rode to power with an exclusionist Muslim-Muslim ticket. Truth is, there’s a deliberate, self-interested mismanagement of religious diversity in Nigeria.

Take the Sharia and blasphemy laws, which are major drivers of Christian persecution in northern Nigeria. According to Alliance Defending Freedom International, Nigeria has one of the most draconian blasphemy laws in the world. Christians are frequently hauled before Sharia courts or subjected to mob violence on allegations of blasphemy, such as “insulting” Islam. But there’s no blasphemy law for Christianity, which is frequently insulted. For instance, a popular Nollywood actor called her new film “A Very Dirty Christmas”. Imagine a sacred Muslim festival being so described. Yet, Sharia and blasphemy laws are state laws, which makes the state complicit in the persecution of Christians. The Nigerian state must actively promote religious freedom; it must prevent and punish religious persecution. Only then can it change the narrative about Christian genocide in Nigeria!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Political Economy

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