Conflicting reports of recent kidnappings in Nigeria raise alarm for Christian advocates

(OSV News) — After reports spread that dozens of Christians in Nigeria have allegedly again fallen prey to kidnappers in yet another sign of persecution against Christ’s followers in Africa’s most populous nation, some police said the kidnapping did not happen.

The information chaos adds to rising insecurity of Christian communities that fear bandits — from Boko Haram to the Islamic State group to Fulani herders — who go mostly unpunished, Christian advocates say.

At least 160 Christians allegedly taken

According to the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Northern Region, at least 160 Christians were allegedly forcefully taken during morning church services on Jan. 18.

The Rev. John Hayab said the “attackers came in numbers and blocked the entrance of the churches and forced the worshippers out into the bush.”

“The actual number they took was 172 but nine escaped, so 163 are with them,” he said.

According to Reuters, a police spokesperson said Jan. 19 that the attackers came “with sophisticated weapons” and attacked two churches in Kurmin Wali.

Forest community difficult to access

The police said the area is a forest community that is difficult to access due to bad roads, explaining however that police have been deployed to the area to try and track down the perpetrators and rescue the victims.

But another unit — the Kaduna state police — has since contradicted that statement. Police Commissioner Muhammad Rabiu described reports of a mass kidnapping of Christians as false, saying the police were unable to identify any of the people allegedly kidnapped.

Dauda Madaki, chairman of the Kajuru local government area, also dismissed the reports as false, with “no evidence of the attack. I asked the village head, Mai Dan Zaria, and he said that there was no such attack,” Madaki explained to the BBC.

Kaduna’s police commissioner additionally challenged “anyone to list the names of the kidnapped victims and other particulars.”

Woman says her relatives were kidnapped

However, Afiniki Moses, whose relatives were allegedly kidnapped, confirmed to Reuters that the armed gang seized more than 170 people during a church service from two churches, including her husband and two children.

“They kidnapped a large number of people in the community and my husband happened to be among them. As you can see me now, I am not feeling fine,” she told Reuters.

“They are all partners in crime,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, director of the Catholic-inspired nongovernmental agency Intersociety, accusing the Nigerian government of various levels of complicity in the attacks on Christians.

“The government of Nigeria is strongly behind what is happening to Christians in Nigeria. It is a grand project, and we have said it over and over again,” he told OSV News.

Christians are killed ‘every day’

“Christians are being kidnapped every day, killed every day in this country,” Umeagbalasi said.

OSV News was not able to independently verify whether the report of the kidnapping in Kaduna state is true or not, but nevertheless the pattern of terror against Christian communities is long and dramatic. In November, the world watched closely the kidnapping of over 300 schoolchildren and their teachers from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri.

Right after the kidnapping, at least 50 of the children escaped from their captors. On Dec. 14, captors released a group of 100, including 14 secondary school students, one staff member, 80 primary school pupils and five nursery school children. The remaining captives were released on Dec. 21.

The U.S. carried out a deadly strike in northwestern Nigeria Dec. 25, with President Donald Trump stating the attack targeted Islamic State group terrorists who persecuted Christians in that nation, sparking mixed reactions from Nigerian Church leaders.

U.S. bombing has changed ‘nothing’

“Nothing has changed since the U.S. bombed those Islamic State (group) targets,” Umeagbalasi told OSV News.

Kidnapping in Nigeria has evolved into a highly organized criminal industry generating vast sums, according to a report from security consulting firm SBM Intelligence.

In the “Economics of Nigeria’s Kidnap Industry” report, the organization said that between July 2023 and June 2024, at least 7,568 people were abducted in over 1,130 incidents.

Advocacy group Intersociety, said that since 2009, when Boko Haram began its murderous campaign to establish a caliphate across the Sahel, at least 185,000 Nigerian civilians have been killed, including 125,000 Christians and 60,000 moderate Muslims.

Numbers given in reports by Intersociety were questioned by the BBC fact-checking desk however, saying the methodology of reports is unclear and sometimes repetitive numbers appear in them.

Ngala Killian Chimtom writes for OSV News from Yaounde, Cameroon.

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