A Nigerian bishop has described to the UK parliament the mass killings of Christians by Islamist extremists and militant Fulani herdsmen in his home region, while setting the attacks within a wider context that threatens the Church’s entire presence in the effected areas and potentially even in the entire country.
Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi – who is visiting the UK as a guest of Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) – told Westminster parliamentarians on 25 March that militants had torched his people’s homes and forced them to flee to internal displacement persons’ (IDP) camps in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
The bishop said that Islamist extremists and Fulani herdsmen had targeted Christians in Makurdi and elsewhere in Benue State, with farmers driven from their land, churches burned and priests, religious and lay members killed.
Speaking at an event chaired by Lord Alton of Liverpool, Bishop Anagbe said: “The militant Fulani herdsmen bear [down] on defenceless villagers without consequence.
“They follow orders to conquer, kill and occupy. They attack even those who have managed to escape into our IDP camps.”
He added that for his people, their experience today “can be summed up as that of a Church under Islamist extermination”.
Bishop Anagbe also condemned the lack of action by the Nigerian government to tackle this violence and insecurity.
“When we call for help to the police and the army, they do not come. At the end of 2024, several villages were warned by the attackers of the upcoming violence, and the leaders called the police for defence, ahead of time,” he said.
“But they did not come, and the Christmas massacres, [having become] almost customary, took place, killing hundreds in Plateau and Benue, with the worst massacre claiming 47 lives.”
The bishop called on the UK government and parliamentarians to work with the Nigerian government to bring relief to the suffering of those who have fled the violence and are now in IDP camps.
“I ask you to condition the diplomatic and economic relations of the UK with Nigeria on the return of the IDPs to their ancestral homes and help for them to rebuild their lives,” the prelate said.
“I implore this august body to insist on the return and rehabilitation of all IDPs to their ancestral lands, and not to relocate them to other constructed camps elsewhere.”
Bishop Anagbe also called on the UK to help ensure justice is enacted: “Justice for the IDPs should also include seeking punishment for the perpetrators, a restitution of the dignity of the victims.”
It should also include, he said: “Payment of full compensation to all victims of religious persecution and insecurity. Ensuring that victims of religious persecution get justice.”
Speaking after the event, ACN (UK)’s national director, Dr Caroline Hull, said: “The powerful statement by Bishop Anagbe here today in Parliament brings home the horror and misery facing the Christian population of Benue State.
“This violence and insecurity must be addressed by the Nigerian government, so they can ensure the right to freedom from religious persecution for the Christians in Nigeria in accordance with international law.”
The bishop’s remarks echo those he made two weeks ago in the US Congress where he spoke to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The bishop has called for Nigeria to be reinstated on the list of Countries of Particular Concern, issued each year by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom under the Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The USCIRF has recommended that Nigeria be given a Country of Particular Concern designation every year since 2009. The first Trump administration gave Nigeria the designation in 2020. However, a year later, the Biden administration’s Secretary of State Anthony Blinken removed it, and it hasn’t been restored since.
In a recent report, USCIRF recommends that the Trump administration take prompt actions that include filling a number of roles relevant to US international religious freedom policy, including a special envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin, among other areas.
The report also calls on the Trump administration to “swiftly” determine and announce designations, deepen the nation’s leadership on the international level, and resettle refugees who have fled countries with the most egregious forms of religious persecution.
“Now more than ever, US support for the right to freedom of religion or belief must remain a priority as both a strategic national interest and a reflection of our national identity,” the report states.
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Photo: A girl selling plastic bags of water walks past a shop that makes Catholic religious statues, Onitsha, Nigeria, 28 February 2023. Some statues can take up to a month to finish. Roman Catholicism was first introduced in South East Nigeria by missionaries in the 1880s, until becoming the country’s main religion today. (Photo by PATRICK MEINHARDT/AFP via Getty Images.)
