Yet another priest has been kidnapped in Nigeria, the latest in an unfortunately long line of abducted clergy, with international Catholic Charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) adding its voice to those of Nigeria’s Church leaders who have demanded that the Government put an end to the “plague of insecurity” in the African nation.
Nigeria is the most engaged Catholic nation in the world, with an astonishing 94% of Catholics there saying that they attend Mass at least weekly according to a 2023 compilation of data by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) in the United States.
That level of attendance is striking given the high level of danger involved in proclaiming Catholicism, as evidenced by Fr Basil Gbuzuo’s recent kidnapping – the fourth of the year. It’s not just kidnappings, however: Terrorist incidents inside Catholic churches are not infrequent; the most notable in recent years occurring in June 2022 when gunmen believed to be Islamic extremists opened fire on Catholic worshippers attending Pentecost Mass at St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in southwestern Nigeria, killing over 50 people.
There have been others since, but the above garnered the most significant media coverage to date.
Meanwhile, a report titled ‘Martyred Christians in Nigeria’ released last year by Nigeria’s International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) claimed that over 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria in the past 14 years. It found that at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been murdered by Islamist militants, and that over the same period, approximately 18,000 Christian churches and 2,200 Christian schools were set alight.
The report also claimed that around 34,000 moderate Muslims were killed in the ongoing attacks.
The latest incident however saw Fr Gbuzuo taken by armed criminals while driving mid-May, with no contact between the kidnappers and Church authorities by the time the diocese issued a statement.
Spokesman for ACN Ireland Michael Kelly told Gript that kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria has become an “industry”, with Nigeria in 2023 leading the list of countries with cases of abducted priests and religious, with 28 cases, including three religious sisters.
In terms of religious freedom, “Nigeria really matters,” Mr Kelly said.
Fr Basil Gbuzuo. Credit: Michael Kelly/X
“With over 200 million inhabitants, it is Africa’s biggest country in demographic as well as economic terms and plays a key role in the geopolitics of sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.
“Christianity is the majoritarian religion (46.2%) based principally in the south whereas Islam (45.8%) is found mainly in the north, though this does not mean that there are no Christians in the north and vice-versa,” Mr Kelly explained.
Despite the near identical number of Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, Mr Kelly said that many websites insist that Islam is the majority religion, an impression reinforced by Nigeria’s participation in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, an alliance formed by 57 Muslim-majority countries. On top of this, despite the near-equal number of Christians and Muslims, Muslims hold almost 95% of the political and military power at a federal level.
Sharia law is implemented in 12 of Nigeria’s northern states, which is a source of concern for the country’s population of nearly 100 million Christians.
“The most significant concerns for Christians regarding the lack of religious freedom – and democratic principles – in northern Nigeria (particularly where Sharia is applied) include: that the Constitution recognises the (Sharia) Penal Code in the north whereas the Criminal Code is applied in the south; that Christian girls and women suffer abduction, rape and forced marriages with little to no legal recourse; that while Muslim men may marry Christian women, Christian men may not marry Muslim women; that traditional Muslim moral standards – Hisbah – are often imposed by force, including on non-Muslims (i.e. segregation by sex on public transport and enforcing dress codes in educational institutions); that Christians suffer political exclusion as well as a lack of equity in recruitment for the armed forces (police, military etc.); that Christian Churches are neither allowed to buy land nor given space to build chapels or places of worship in tertiary institutions; that while Christian religious education is not allowed in public schools, Islamic teachers are employed in all public schools; that Christians have fewer job opportunities, a lack of promotion opportunities in public positions, and a lack of access to social welfare; and that many Christian students opt to change their names to gain admission to professional courses,” Mr Kelly explained.
Militant Islamist groups Boko Haram and ISWAP, as well as Fulani militias, often visit violence on Christian communities, such as the June 2022 Pentecost massacre described above. They are driven by a mix of “toxic motivations,” Mr Kelly said, such as “territorial gain, criminality, ethnicity and Islamist jihadism bordering, in certain states, on violence with genocidal elements”.
“What is terrible is the silence and passivity of the political powers, which neither condemn nor persecute the systematic attacks, particularly by the Fulani militias, that have led to the massive internal displacement of Christians leaving entire regions depopulated. A recent report from the Makurdi diocese in Benue State denounced the fact that in one diocese in one year (2022) alone, Fulani herders attacked 93 villages and killed 325 farmers. At present, of the almost six million inhabitants, two million are internally displaced, most of them Christian farmers,” Mr Kelly said.
Jihadist violence is not limited to Nigeria, with Niger, Chad, Mali and Burkina Faso grappling with this particular extremism too. Nigeria, Mr Kelly noted however, is unique and of vital importance for when it comes to the development of the African continent.
“As indicated, Nigeria is an economic and demographic powerhouse with the population expected to double to 400 million in two decades. The events, and governance, in the coming years will not only have an enormous influence in the country but throughout the region.
“If the Nigerian authorities do not address the conflicts concerning land, ethnicity, criminality, and religious extremism, as well as the breakdown in democratic values and the equal rights of its citizens including religious freedom, the cancer of Islamist jihadism and political disintegration evident in the northern half of Africa will spread. The socio-political pressure and unabated atrocities will provoke an exodus of young Christians seeing neither hope nor future in the land of their forefathers,” he said.
ACN Ireland is attempting to play its part in bettering the circumstances the Church in Nigeria labours under, with a focus on supporting the country’s beleaguered priests. “Nigeria’s priests are the first and immediate caregivers for the suffering population,” Mr Kelly said.
“ACN is supporting numerous projects across Nigeria, offering help to the suffering faithful. ACN’s projects across Nigeria include: Emergency aid for widows and orphans in Maiduguri; Supporting victims of religiously motivated violence in Southern Kaduna; Interfaith dialogue workshops for priests in Osogbo Diocese; Annual retreats for priests; Help for displaced Catholic families from Gwoza, Borno State and pastoral help for Nigerian Christians in a refugee camp in Minawawo, Cameroon,” he said.
While the Christian community in Nigeria faces a difficult landscape, almost every numerical metric (vocations, baptisms, faith engagement) seems to pay tribute to that saying of the early Church father, Tertullian: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”.
