The shameful silence over the slaughter of Nigeria’s Christians

Towards the end of September, comedian Bill Maher provoked social-media outrage by asking a simple question: why does the coverage of Gaza get so much mainstream-media attention when the persecution of Christians in Nigeria gets almost none?

‘They are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria’, he said on his talk show, Real Time:

‘They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches… These are the Islamists, Boko Haram. This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza. They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country.’

You wouldn’t think of someone like Maher – a self-described ‘apatheist’ (‘I don’t know what happens when you die, and I don’t care’) – as suddenly becoming the most prominent voice on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. But he’s absolutely right. They are being slaughtered en masse.

So far this year, over 7,000 Christians have been targeted and killed for their faith. Thousands were also killed the year before, and thousands in the year before that. Sometimes hundreds are murdered at once, as in the town of Yelewat in June, or in the village of Zikke in April. Holy days are preferred for big attacks, as in the Christmas massacre of 2023, when pastors were beheaded and churches burned down in Plateau State, or the attack on St Francis Xavier Church, in the town of Owo on Pentecost Sunday 2022.

Attackers can be terrorist groups like Boko Haram and the West African branch of Islamic State, or more amorphous groups like the Fulani herder militants. Christians are also abducted and forced into marriages throughout the country, but especially in Nigeria’s northern states. The intent is to kill or displace Christians in large numbers and take greater control of their ancestral lands.

Of course, this is not to say that all mass violence in Nigeria is religiously motivated. It isn’t. Many Muslims, especially those who resist the Islamists, are also attacked in horrific episodes, like the mosque attack in Katsina State in August.

But the scale of the deliberate attacks on Christians is impossible to deny. The states with the most violence against Christians are within Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt, which borders the Sharia states in Nigeria’s north. Every week brings new and terrible stories of death. But the official line is to deny the existence of any religious persecution.

Such denials fly in the face of reality. Christians are only a minority in northern Nigeria, but they are five-to-eight times more likely to be killed by jihadists than Muslims. Many northern states also have Sharia criminal laws that mandate the death penalty for alleged blasphemy, such as Kano state, where Sufi musician Yahaya Sharif-Aminu has been facing death row since 2020. Sharif-Aminu is only still alive because he has been able to appeal this medieval decision, but others, like university student Deborah Yakubu, have been less fortunate. In May 2022, Yakubu was stoned to death in Sokoto state because she was overheard thanking Jesus after an exam. Mob attacks against so-called blasphemers usually go unpunished.

More media outlets are noticing how outrageous it is that the mainstream press seems to either ignore all this, or blame the violence on fanciful causes like ‘climate change’. Maher’s straight talking should be commended and encourage more news organisations to report what is really happening.

There are signs the world is beginning to take notice. In the US, there are multiple pieces of legislation in Congress that would put pressure on the Nigerian government. Trump can designate Nigeria as among the worst countries for religious freedom immediately, as he did back in 2020. The UK’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, David Smith, this year identified Nigeria as a priority country. It’s time for all of this pressure globally to be concentrated and sustained, with the recognition that Christians are specifically being targeted.

The worst thing that can happen is for the persecution of Christians in Nigeria to fade into obscurity, much like the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Sudan for the past two years has done. What is happening in Nigeria is not a blip. It is what Christians in these vulnerable parts of Nigeria are facing every day of their lives. They have suffered in silence for far too long.

Sean Nelson is an international human-rights lawyer serving as senior counsel for global religious freedom with ADF International.