Armed assailants attacked two churches in Nigeria’s Kogi State in recent weeks and abducted worshippers, a United Kingdom-based human rights organization focused on international religious freedom reported.
Attackers opened fire as they entered Aiyetoro Kiri in the Kabba-Banu Local Government Area on Dec. 14, disrupting worship at First Evangelical Church Winning All. They subsequently abducted at least 13 worshippers, Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported.
The Dec. 14 abductions marked the second attack on a church in Kogi State within two weeks. On Nov. 30, militia disrupted services at the Cherubim and Seraphim Church in Ejiba, abducting the pastor, his wife, a visiting preacher and several church members.
Speaking on Channels Television’s “Morning Brief” program, Kingsley Fanwo, the commissioner for information and communication in Kogi State, said local hunters engaged in a fierce gunfight with the assailants in the Dec. 14 attack.
“Our local hunters, who serve as the first line of defense, resisted them strongly,” Fanwo said. “In the exchange of fire, four bandits were neutralized, while several others escaped with gunshot wounds.”
Fanwo reported the Kogi State governor mobilized a joint security task force including local hunters and the police, as well as the Nigerian Army’s 12th Brigade, the Department of State Services, and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps.
The joint task force is searching the Ejiba forest, seeking to locate the abducted individuals, he added.
Daily Trust reported Nigeria’s House of Representatives called on Kayode Egbetokun, the inspector general of police, to deploy security personnel to identified “hotspots” along high-risk routes—particularly on the highway between the federal capital of Abuja and the Koji State capital of Lokoja—during the Christmas season to ensure the safety of travelers.
‘Increased attacks as Christmas approaches’
Scot Bower, chief executive officer of CSW, lamented the Nigerian government’s failure to “provide swift intervention and protection to its citizens”—particularly the nation’s Christian population.
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“While CSW welcomes and echoes the call of the National Assembly for the deployment of security to vulnerable roads, we urge the Nigerian authorities to go further still by ensuring the safety of churches in areas experiencing increased attacks as Christmas approaches,” Bower said.
“Government at both the state and federal level must work together to ensure Christians and their communities are protected, particularly in longstanding hotspots such as Benue, Plateau, Taraba and southern Kaduna, and in emerging ones, such as Kogi and Kwara States.”
On Nov. 26, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared a national security emergency in light of a surge in violence and abductions. Tinubu ordered the police to recruit 20,000 officers, in addition to 30,000 he had authorized earlier, and to use National Youth Service Corps camps as training depots.
‘Stop the denial and blame game’
However, while Nigerian government officials acknowledge the problem of violence, they continue to deny Christians are targeted.
In an October interview with the Baptist Standard, Mohammed Idris Malagi, minister of information and national orientation for Nigeria, insisted: “It is sad that this has been characterized as a religious conflict. We don’t believe that it is. It never has been a religious conflict. It actually is an extremist conflict.”
Joseph John Hayab, a Baptist pastor and chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in the northern states and Federal Capital territory, called that denial “a contributing factor to the lack of good success in the fight against terrorists.”
Hayab pointed to “overwhelming evidence” of the killing and persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
“Nigeria’s government should simply stop the denial and blame game and face this evil with all their might,” Hayab wrote in an email to the Baptist Standard. “The sponsors of the terrorists are not spirits and can be arrested if the government is serious.”
In late October, President Donald Trump declared Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern—a designation reserved for nations that engage in or tolerate systemic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom.
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