Nigerian expert urges prayer for persecuted Christians

A Nigerian Christian woman who works for a U.S.-based Christian humanitarian nonprofit urged Americans to remember the plight of Christians in Nigeria, where tens of thousands have been slaughtered for their faith and millions displaced in the past decade amid escalating persecution.

“I think one [misconception] is people just don’t have a sense about the scale of the violence,” Lanre Williams-Ayedun, who serves as senior vice president of international programs at World Relief, told The Christian Post.

On Monday, the U.S. State Department officially updated its designation for Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern,” which came days after President Donald Trump threatened U.S. military action and an end to U.S. aid in the country over the treatment of Christians there.

‘A toxic cocktail’

Williams-Ayedun, who grew up in neighboring Niger but whose family is from southern Nigeria, said what was once the vibrant, tolerant, multi-faith culture she grew up in during the 1980s has since deteriorated. She said the root causes of the violence roiling the West African country of approximately 230 million people are complex and multi-layered.

“It’s a toxic cocktail of a lot of different things,” she said.

She noted that economic challenges and poverty have driven conflict over diminishing environmental resources, exacerbating the long-simmering ethnic and religious divides of the country, which is carved into majority-Muslim regions in the north and majority-Christian regions in the south.

“There’s this conflict where herders in the north are trying to find pasture land, moving further south, encroaching in what is Christian territory, coming into farmland,” she said. “And that’s causing conflict, trying to find enough water for your agriculture versus for your animals.”

She also pinpointed corruption and financial mismanagement by the government, based in the south, which she said has hampered effective response and economic development in northern Nigeria, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The ability of the government to attend to what’s happening in the north and be able to provide viable sources of livelihood and peace in the north of the country is severely compromised,” she said.

The economic impact of COVID-19 has led to currency devaluation and rising youth disenfranchisement, which she said has helped to foster the surge of violence, banditry and kidnappings.

‘The sheer numbers’

Regarding what outsiders might not understand about the situation in Nigeria, Williams-Ayedun suggested many likely fail to realize the scale of the violence, which is concentrated mostly in the country’s Middle Belt states.

“When you hear about the numbers of people that have been displaced in sub-Saharan Africa because of religious persecution, I don’t think people really understand that,” she said.

“When you talk about persecution of Christians, people think, ‘Oh, it must be these small numbers of people.’ They don’t realize the vast size that we’re talking about.”

A report from the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety), a Nigerian non-governmental organization, indicated that nearly 15 million people have been displaced and forced to abandon their homes due to persecution, with a high number of them being Christians.

Open Doors, a global Christian persecution watchdog, has warned in recent years that more Christians are killed in Nigeria for their faith each year than in all other countries combined. According to the organization’s annual World Watch List research, 3,100 of the 4,476 Christians killed worldwide for their faith last year were in Nigeria alone.

Nigeria also leads the world in Christians abducted for their faith, with 2,830 out of 3,775 worldwide, according to the nonprofit.

Some international observers have claimed Christian communities in the Middle Belt states might meet the standard for religious persecution and genocide, though the Nigerian government has contended that such violence is not inherently religious and emanates from tensions between farmers and herders extending decades.

The government has also pushed back strongly against claims of a genocide, but has also faced allegations that it has not adequately protected its citizens from radicalized groups such as Boko Haram, the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Fulani militants.

Reiterating points she made in an op-ed last week for Fox News, Williams-Ayedun stressed the importance of “understanding the sheer numbers that we’re talking about, understanding that the situation is complicated.”

“People want things that kind of fall into easy lines — you know, it’s religious persecution. Yes, it is, but it’s also economic; it’s also the legacy of colonialism that split the countries up in lots of different ways. There are lots of things that are involved here.”

Regarding what the average person can do, she encouraged raising awareness, like comedian Bill Maher did on his show last month.

“The more that there is attention and eyes and focus, then the more the Nigerian government has to step up with a solution,” she said.

She also emphasized that for many suffering Nigerians, prayer is considered invaluable. She said even for Nigerians of above-average means, life is difficult in the country, and they feel pressed to rely on God every day.

“If you talk with Nigerians in the north of Nigeria, the thing that they ask for is prayer, because the situation is layered. They want to live in peace with their neighbors. That was the way that life had been before, and so this is an unfortunate evolution of the situation, and having prayer cover is important.”

‘Not wrestling against flesh and blood’

Williams-Ayedun said despite the challenges Christians in Nigeria face, she remains optimistic about the future of Christianity there and around the world.

“I’m hopeful for the state of Christianity, period, because God is big,” she said. “I believe that Jesus is the solution for the world, so I’m optimistic about that. I think that we, as Christians in general, need to remember that.”

She went on to exhort Christians in free countries to remember their brothers and sisters who are engaged in a spiritual battle as they face persecution.

“Not to get super spiritual, but we’re not wrestling against flesh and blood,” she said, referencing Ephesians 6:12. “And I think it’s important for us to remember that we’re citizens of a different Kingdom.”

She noted that, having grown up in the region, where “the systems and structures in our countries require divine intervention just to make life work,” she knows that Christians there are holding fast to God.

“There is work for us to do here, and I hope that Christians who live in more peaceful or open societies would contend for the freedom of our brothers and sisters; that we would care about their plight, that we would advocate and stand in the gap for them,” she added.