The world’s deadliest terrorist group is not in the Middle East, but in Nigeria, where the Islamist insurgency Boko Haram and other forces killed more than 4,000 Christians in 2015, it was reported in February.
That tally was a 62% increase from the previous year, according to Open Doors.
In response, Nigeria's largest confederation of Christian churches is, for the first time, jointly endorsing a commitment to revive the church in the country’s north before it collapses. Many believe that Christians in the northern region have been abandoned to their fate by the Nigerian authorities.
‘Crushed But Not Defeated’, a detailed study of the violence and its impact jointly published by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) with Open Doors, was released on 23 February.
‘This is the first time we’re going public to sign a declaration which gives the true picture of the persecution Christians are going through in this country’, said the Revd Musa Asake, the association’s general secretary.
Casualty figures
From 2006–2014 religion-based violence killed an estimated 11,500 Christians in Nigeria’s north. 13,000 churches were destroyed, abandoned or closed during the period and 1.3million Christians fled to safer regions in the country.
Over the past two years, the situation worsened: violence spilled over into neighbouring countries Chad and Cameroon. In 2014, Boko Haram was the world’s deadliest terror group, ahead of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, according to the Global Terrorism Index.
However, the report says: ‘There is still a large Christian presence in northern Nigeria with potential to unite and stand strong.’
Not only Boko Haram
The region of Africa that today is northern Nigeria has been governed by Muslim sultans and emirs for centuries, through British colonial rule and the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 19th century and into independence in the 1960s. The northern Christian population grew rapidly, to the point where Christians today form the majority in half of the 12 northern states, which are now all under Islamic law, although Christians are in theory exempt from shari’a provision.
Across the ‘middle belt’ that separates Nigeria’s north from its south, nomadic ethnic Fulani herdsmen, mostly Muslim, have clashed for generations with indigenous, largely Christian farmers over grazing land. The conflicts have intensified since 2011, according to the report.
After military rule and civil war yielded to a democratically elected government – headed by a Christian president – in 1999, the ruling Muslim political class in the north moved to consolidate its hold on the region. In 2000 and 2001, the 12 northern states incorporated shari’a into their legal systems.
Radical Islam gained a foothold in the early 1980s, strengthened after the 1999 election, took on the name Boko Haram and blew up into a military insurgency in 2009 under a new leader, Abubakar Shekau.
From 2006–2014, the report estimates Christian deaths represented 41% of all violent deaths in the region during the period, even though Christians represent about 31% of the region's population. The result: churches emptied, businesses were lost and abandoned, Christian-Muslim relations deteriorated and communities segregated along religious lines.
Bright spots
Against this grim backdrop, the report identified several bright spots. The chronic violence has galvanised some Christians into political action, especially in the ‘middle belt’ Kaduna and Plateau states, where the Christian share of the population is relatively high. But Christian political action is almost non-existent in Borno and Yobe states in the heavily Muslim and especially violent northeastern corner.
In churches where membership has declined, those who remain have found a new commitment to their faith and prayer life, while some Christians reported that church membership is actually increasing. Pews are filling up not only with Christians arriving from more violent locales, but also with former Muslims who say they are attracted by a Christian spirit of forgiveness, are driven by their own guilt or are responding to dreams of Jesus.
Plans for action
Strengthening the church, however, will be a long-term project and much of the work to be done involves its own leadership. Pastors need better training and a heart for service above having a job. They need to prepare Christians, especially young people, to endure violence yet respond with forgiveness. Trauma counselling is needed and Christians must abandon a ‘dependency mentality’ on others. Outside the church walls, Christians need to press government for civil-rights protections, and to form relationships with Muslims, the study said.
