YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A report published on 13 January has given slightly good news for Nigeria’s clergy.
The report shows that 11 priests and religious were kidnapped in the African nation in 2024, down from a total of 25 who were kidnapped in 2023.
Titled “Being a priest today: One of the most dangerous missions in the world,” the report published by Aid to the Church in Need indicates that across the globe, there were a total of 121 cases impacting priests and religious, including 13 murders, 37 kidnappings and 71 held under arrest.
The noticeable improvement in Nigeria however doesn’t mean that the West African nation is a safe place for the clergy.
It notes that Nigeria continues to be one of the least safe countries for clergy and religious globally, rivaled only by Haiti, where a total of 18 priests were kidnapped last year, up from just two in 2023.
Father Stan Chu Ilo – a priest of Nigerian origin and Research Professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago and Coordinating Servant of Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN) – says he is frustrated by the continued persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
“It is sad that we are talking about a slight drop in the number of priests and pastoral agents being kidnapped.” he told Crux.
“No priest or any Nigerian should be kidnapped, period! Every Nigerian should go about their businesses without being afraid of kidnappers, hoodlums, and armed robbers,” he added.
Ilo argued that the drop in the number of priests being kidnapped does not mean the drop in kidnapping in Nigeria in general.
“It simply means that the kidnappers may be targeting other people. We have noticed an increase in the number of sisters being kidnapped. So, this is not good news at all because the crime rate is higher than last year; and the number of people losing their lives to violent deaths in the hands of kidnappers and criminals continues to grow by the day. No one is safe in Nigeria and the situation is worsening by the day,” the priest said.
Ilo identified a number of factors responsible for the continued violence and the kidnappings in Africa’s most populous nation, including bad governance and its corollary, poverty.
“Violence in Nigeria and the high rate of kidnapping are the cumulative effects of a succession of bad and corrupt governments in Nigeria. The increase in violent crime in Nigeria is directly proportional to the increase in poverty, youth unemployment, radical Islamic fundamentalism, ethnic and separatist agitations, and restlessness among Nigerian youth who do not see any hope for the future,” the priest told Crux.
He further argued that the violence in Nigeria is growing “because of the increasing income inequality between the ruling political class, and the masses, and the inter-generational poverty and suffering spreading in Nigeria.”
“Most Nigerians have been turned into beggars in their own country. Nigeria’s huge oil wealth is being siphoned, expropriated by a corrupt government and their oil barons to such an extent that some of the foreign oil companies are leaving Nigeria. So, the ordinary people watch a few thin top layers of the leaders and elites swimming in wealth, the rest of the people are drowning in poverty. This generates a lot of anger and restiveness,” said Ilo.
The third factor that fuels conflict in Nigeria, according to the priest, is its security apparatus which he described as fundamentally corrupt.
“The security apparatus in Nigeria today like the police and the military are also very corrupt and highly compromised,” the priest told Crux.
“Kidnapping has become a very complex business in Nigeria that involves even the very people who are meant to protect the people—the law enforcement agents. This is why Nigeria has become like an archipelago of ungoverned spaces. The Nigerian government has failed the people and has lost any form of legitimacy because it has neither guaranteed the security of life and property nor preserved and promoted the common good,” he said.
Ilo urged the Church in Nigeria to stand up against the continued exploitation and pauperization of the ordinary masses “by a conscienceless and wicked ruling class especially the current government at the center in Nigeria which is perhaps the most corrupt that we have seen in Nigeria.”
“My hope is that the Church in Nigeria and other religious groups who still have some moral authority must come together to prophetically denounce the incessant kidnapping of priests and other citizens in the country, the worsening social condition and suffering of God’s people in Nigeria, and the failure and corruption of the current government,” he said.
“If nothing is done urgently to arrest this situation, I am afraid that the future of Nigeria looks bleak because it seems that with the current government Nigeria is turning its back on that future,” he told Crux.
