Nigeria (MNN) — As persecution of Christians rises in new places today, remember one country that has been in a firestorm for years: Nigeria. According to data gathered by Open Doors for their 2024 World Watch List, 82% of the Christians killed in the previous year were in Nigeria (data gathered October 2022-September 2023).
Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says the West is missing something about the Islamic militant activity in Nigeria.
“We think, ‘Well, that’s just kind of the way it is over there.’ What we don’t realize is their aggressive pursuit. They’re trying to annihilate Christianity from the entirety of northern Nigeria,” he says.
Boko Haram rampages in northern Nigeria, while Fulani militants are pressing southward. These Fulani herdsmen murder and seize land from Christian farmers to use for their livestock. Kelley calls it “literally a land grab.” The Fulani are an influential people group, he explains, with people in political authority from their number. These leaders tend to look the other way on the violence.
These disciples of Christ are passionately sharing God’s Word in North Eastern Nigeria.
(Photo, caption courtesy of Unknown Nations)
“People in Nigeria, Christians and moderate Muslims, are done with that. They’re just disgusted with the lack of intervention from the government,” Kelley says. (More on that here.)
On top of the killings, Christians are experiencing displacement, incredible loss, and the threat of kidnapping. Nigeria is also the country where the most Christians are kidnapped. One local Christian leader, Kelley says, has lost one of the missionaries in his network every month for the past six years to kidnapping.
“You have over 3 million people that are in these internally displaced [people] camps. There’s over 300 [IDP] camps all around Nigeria. Every minute, people — entire families, every single minute of every single day — are being displaced all throughout Nigeria, and they’re ending up in these camps. They lose everything,” Kelley says.
Pray for endurance for these brothers and sisters, but also pray over a missions gap within the Nigerian church. Kelley says local believers they partner with are pressing north with the gospel. But in the majority Christian south, there’s not always that same missionary drive.
“A lot of the Christians in the southern part of Nigeria, unfortunately, they just don’t have a heart for reaching the north. They’re focused on making more Christians in the south. That’s just the reality of it,” Kelley says.
“We need to pray that God would raise up a remnant, a group of Nigerian Christians that would have a passion for people groups like the Fulani, the Hausa, the Kanuri — who are the three majority Muslim people groups in the northern part — and send local missionaries in there. That is the only way the gospel will be spread throughout Nigeria.”
Learn more about how Unknown Nations supports local Christians leaders at their website.
Header photo of 2020 protests in Abeokuta, Nigeria courtesy of Tope. A Asokere via Unsplash.
