Genocide Case<\/strong><\/p>\nChristian leaders in northeast Nigeria recently chronicled anti-Christian violence in the Gwoza area of Borno state in response to a claim by an area Muslim senator that no genocide is being committed against Christians in the state.<\/p>\n
In a statement aired on national Channels TV, the leaders listed a series of targeted attacks and killings by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram as well as government policies that have marginalized Christians in Borno state.<\/p>\n
\u201cGwoza once had a thriving Christian presence. Before the insurgency [began in 2009], there were more than 176 large church buildings across the local government. Today, 148 of those churches were burnt and lie in ruins,\u201d stated the Rev. Filibus Goma, former president of the Church of the Brethren (EYN) and chairman of the Board of Trustees of Gwoza Christian Community Association (GCCA), along with the Rev. Ayuba John Bassa, national coordinator of the association, in a statement entitled, \u201cThe Unspoken Genocide: GCCA Account on Christian Persecution in Gwoza, Borno State.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChristian communities have been denied land for places of worship; mosques are built freely. Before Boko Haram, civil service representation in Gwoza was roughly 5 percent Christian to 95 percent Muslim despite an almost equal population. Muslims have dominated political offices and traditional titles because honest, free elections in Gwoza have effectively never taken place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christian Religious Knowledge is no longer taught in government schools across their local government, they noted.<\/p>\n
The human cost of Islamist attacks is staggering, they reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, about 107,000 Gwoza Christians are scattered in 27 internally displaced persons camps across seven Nigerian states and in the Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon,\u201d they stated. \u201cAnother 50,000 are squatting with relatives in towns and cities across Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many Christians have lived as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or refugees for more than a decade with little or no government assistance and no realistic prospect of returning home, they reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis pattern \u2013 destruction of churches, removal of Christian families, and official silence or inaction \u2013 raise an unavoidable question: Is there a systematic attempt to erase Christians and their heritage from Gwoza?\u201d they stated. \u201cReconstruction has been highly uneven. Hundreds of Muslim homes have been rebuilt and thousands rehabilitated on their original land, while virtually no Christian homes have been restored. Of the thousands of resettlement houses built, we know of only three beneficiaries who are Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n
To those who dismiss or minimize these crimes, they posed the question: \u201cIf Christians are accused of being perpetrators, who are the suspects? Do attackers call on the name of Jesus while killing?\u201d<\/p>\n
In Gwoza, Christians have never waged attacks on Muslims; churches were being destroyed even before the insurgency consolidated, they stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are not isolated incidents but part of a broader, violent pattern that must be acknowledged and investigated,\u201d they stated. \u201cWe plead for truth, accountability and action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nigeria remained among the most dangerous places on earth for Christians, according to Open Doors\u2019 2025 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. Of the 4,476 Christians killed for their faith worldwide during the reporting period, 3,100 (69 percent) were in Nigeria, according to the WWL.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe measure of anti-Christian violence in the country is already at the maximum possible under World Watch List methodology,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n
Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria\u2019s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians\u2019 lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.<\/p>\n
In the country\u2019s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country\u2019s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.<\/p>\n
The violence has spread to southern states, and a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama\u2019a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali.<\/p>\n
Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom\u2019s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,\u201d the APPG report states.<\/p>\n
Nigeria ranked seventh on the 2025 WWL list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.<\/p>\n
This story was culled<\/a> from Christian Daily\/Morning Star News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A pastor in Nigeria is facing death threats for speaking out on Islamic extremist attacks on Christians and calling for protection against \u201cgenocide.\u201d The Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, based in Plateau state as regional chairman of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) in Barkin Ladi, told reporters in Jos on Oct. 24 that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry","category-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2775"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2780,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2775\/revisions\/2780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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