AIT Live News / Youtube screenshot
Protesters blocked the busy Jattu junction in Auchi demanding an end to attacks on Christians.
‘We are not afraid. We are not going to walk away from our land. We will stay here. They cannot terrify us into abandoning our land.’
Thousands joined a protest in Edo State against the killing of Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and the government’s failure to act against the perpetrators.
The Diocese of Auchi broadcast footage of the demonstration at the city’s Jattu junction on social media, showing protesters brandishing placards reading “We want to go to church without attacks”, “Stop attacking the Catholic Church – Stop killing our priests” and “No to ransom payment”.
“We can no longer go to our farms because of insecurity,” said a speaker, addressing the crowd. “The killing of our priests and our reverend Sisters must stop.” A woman shouted in response: “We are crying to the world to help us.”
The protest on 27 March blocking the busy city junction followed an online protest two days earlier and a day of mourning for “our fallen heroes” on 26 March, commemorating Christian farmers, market women and clergy killed in the region in recent years. These included Fr Christopher Odia, a priest of the diocese kidnapped and murdered in June 2022.
The day of mourning also saw the burial of Peter Andrew, a seminarian killed on 3 March, where the Bishop of Auchi Gabriel Ghieakhomo Dunia insisted the Church would continue to grow despite the attacks.
“We are not afraid. We are not going to walk away from our land. We will stay here,” he said. “This place will be more secure in times to come. They cannot terrify us into abandoning our land.”
In its most recent statistics, the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria reported that 145 priests were kidnapped across the country over the past ten years, and 11 of them murdered.
The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), a Catholic-inspired NGO, published a report in 2023 on “Martyred Christians in Nigeria” which said 52,250 had been killed since 2009. During the same period, 18,000 churches and 2,200 schools were destroyed.
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A report from Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) found that in the first months of 2025, more than 80 per cent of global documented cases of murder, kidnapping or unjust arrest of Catholic priests and Religious were in Nigeria. Speaking to UK parliamentarians at an ACN event last week, Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi said the Church in Nigeria faced “Islamist extermination”.
“When we call for help to the police and the army, they do not come,” he said. “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. But they did not come, and the Christmas massacres, almost customary, took place killing hundreds in Plateau and Benue, with the worst massacre claiming 47 lives.”
In its 2025 report, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) again recommended that the US government categorise Nigeria a “country of particular concern” (CPC) because of the persistent violation of religious freedom.
“Federal and state governments continued to tolerate attacks or fail to respond to violent actions by non-state actors who justify their violence on religious grounds,” the report said, citing widespread attacks by a variety of Islamist groups. It also criticised the enforcement of blasphemy laws by some state governments and attacks on indigenous religious practices – including the call from the governor and Catholic bishops in Anambra state “to eliminate and banish neo-paganism”.
Besides the CPC designation, the report said the US government should provide more support to civil society groups and redirect its aid to the Nigerian government to “address conflict resolution and security sector reform”.
Speaking to The Tablet in a personal capacity, the chair of the USCIRF Stephen Schneck said he hoped that by detailing such policies the commission could “spur government to go beyond ‘naming and shaming’ to put real pressure on CPC countries”.
He said Nigeria was an example of “failed and failing states” which were not “giving the protection of freedom of religion or belief the attention needed”.
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