What’s Behind the Killing of Christians in Nigeria

 

“You can be less than a hundred meters away from a military checkpoint and still be killed by Islamists because the army does not protect you,” said Paul, a local journalist in Nigeria. He repeated, “The army does not protect you because it is systematically controlled. Orders are given, and that is the end of it.”

Paul is a Christian living close to communities being attacked by Islamic extremists and is deeply concerned about getting the word out to the international community that Nigerian Christians desperately need help. He asked that his full name not be used because, as he said, “People get threatened. They get picked up and disappear.”

The population of Nigeria is fairly evenly split between Christians and Muslims, with the bulk of Muslims living in the north. Paul’s region, which has been the center of Islamist attacks on Christians, is in the Middle Belt, where Christians are on the front lines, standing between the Muslim north and the Christian south.

The current violence has its roots in centuries of conflict. Islam spread into northern Nigeria primarily through the jihad led by Usman dan Fodio beginning in 1804. Dan Fodio, a Fulani Islamic scholar, launched a holy war against the Hausa rulers who mixed traditional practices with Islam. By 1808, his forces had conquered the major Hausa kingdoms including Gobir, Kano, and Katsina, establishing the Sokoto Caliphate with emirates governed under Islamic law. The jihad attempted to expand into the Middle Belt region but met resistance from indigenous tribes in areas including Plateau and Benue States, which halted the southward advance.

When the British colonized Nigeria and amalgamated diverse regions into a single country in 1914, they preserved the emirate system in the north through indirect rule. The Sultan of Sokoto, residing in the caliphate’s capital, retained authority over Muslims in northern Nigeria. This colonial arrangement created tensions by joining together previously independent kingdoms and ethnic groups, many with histories of conflict, into one nation-state under structures that favored the Islamic north’s existing power hierarchy.

In Paul’s estimation, there is a connection between the northern Muslim power structure and the violence against Christians that enables these attacks to continue. “Based on what people on the ground tell us, including those with privileged information, the situation appears clear to them,” he said. “They report that key positions of command are held by individuals who don’t act to protect Christian communities. Even when soldiers are deployed, victims say they are often told there are orders not to engage while villages are being burned and people are being killed.”

Community members in states like Taraba and Benue have made similar allegations to journalists, claiming soldiers cite lack of fuel or arrive too late to intervene. These accusations of military complicity or deliberate inaction are widespread among Christian leaders and victims in the Middle Belt, though the Nigerian government denies these claims and attributes security failures to resource constraints and the challenges of combating multiple insurgent groups across a vast territory.

Paul, however, does not believe the attacks are random or spontaneous; they are clearly targeted against Christians. Furthermore, the scale is massive. “They are highly coordinated and sophisticated. You are always overwhelmed.” Generally, attacks happen at night, with a large number of terrorists arriving in trucks and motorcycles. They park far enough away that villagers will not hear the engines. “But sometimes they drive right into the middle of the village,” Paul said.

He said the organized nature of the attacks suggests the attackers have military support. “They come in large numbers, and the logistics involved are extensive.”

“There are those who come in first with guns. If you manage to escape the gunfire, those behind them come with machetes.”

In other parts of the world, like Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, persecuted Christians formed militias and protection units. But Paul said this has not happened in Nigeria, largely because citizens are not permitted to own weapons. The Muslim militias have weapons, however, and in many cases those weapons have been traced to the military.

Despite these strict gun control laws, or perhaps because of them, Nigeria has become awash in illegal weapons. The country reportedly accounts for 70 percent of the estimated 500 million illegal weapons circulating in West Africa. The Nigerian Police Force cannot account for 178,459 firearms, including 88,078 AK-47 rifles that have gone missing from official stockpiles.

The Muslim militias and terrorist groups attacking Christian communities are heavily armed, however, and the sources of their weapons have become a matter of intense scrutiny and controversy. Weapons used in attacks come primarily from three documented sources: artisanal manufacturing within Nigeria (which accounted for 73 percent of weapons seized in southern Nigeria between 2014 and 2017), cross-border smuggling from neighboring Sahel countries including Mali, Niger, and Chad, and weapons stolen or diverted from Nigerian security forces’ stockpiles.

Research has documented the problem regionally. According to UK-based Conflict Armament Research, which has studied jihadist weapons sources for a decade, raids on military bases have provided jihadists in the Sahel countries with at least 20 percent of their weapons. Security analysts report that in Nigeria, some security officials “donate” or sell weapons from national stockpiles to local armed groups with whom they sympathize, with religious and ethnic motivations sometimes playing a role in determining which groups receive weapons.

“Our ancestors had no formal education and lived what many would call a primitive way of life,” said Paul, with a hint of irony. “Yet, they understood the concept of freedom. They resisted Islamic conquest even though they were not Christians. They were traditional or idol worshippers, but they resisted because they understood what it meant to live freely, without having another man’s will imposed on them.”

“Now we, their descendants, are helpless. We cannot defend ourselves. Why? Because we now live in a structured country with a government that is controlled by the very people who have a long-standing plan to eliminate you.”

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