ACTIVISTS REACT TO REPORT ON KILLING OF 7,087 CHRISTIANS IN NIGERIA
Friday 12 September, 2025
A recent report published by a civil society organization, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) that 7,087 Christians were killed in Nigeria between 1st January to 10 August 2025 could be an understatement, Eastern news has learned.
Speaking during an interview with Eastern news, a Religious Rights Activist, Dr. Dr. Tony Nwaezeigwe, said the number of casualties stated by Intersociety in their report could be below the actual figures.
” Those figures could be conservative because there are many unrecorded deaths in the remote parts and the press is colluding with the government to suppress the reports of the ongoing genocide in Nigeria,” Nwaezeigwe said to Eastern news
A senior journalist working for TruthNigeria, Mr. Mike Odeh, corroborated the claims made by Nwaezeigwe
.
“ The report that 7,087 Nigerian Christians have been massacred since January 2025 is accurate if not understating the fact”, Odeh said during an interview with CBN’s Raj Nair on 24 August, 2025.
“The killings and abductions translated to an average of 30 Christian deaths per day and more than one per hour while an estimated 35 Christians have been abducted daily in the past 220 days of 2025,” Intersociety stated in the report.
The report added that “between 2009 and 2025, more than 19,100 churches were razed and 1,100 Christian communities were sacked while 600 Christian clerics were abducted, including 250 Catholic priests and 350 pastors”.
Jihad not peculiar to Nigeria
” In the Republic of Congo, innocent Christians are being slaughtered and in Ghana, Togo and Benin, these Fulani Moslem jihadists operating under different umbrellas, have been perpetrating mayhem on Christians in those countries”, said Nwaezeigwe to Eastern news.
” Their objective is to conquer Nigeria and Islamize it the way they did to North Africa and that is why as they are killing Christians in the Middle Belt, they are bringing in their people across west and central Africa to settle”, he added.
In July, 2025, no fewer than than 31 Christians were massacred while praying inside a church in the Democratic Republic Of Congo and afterwards, a transnational Salafi jihadist militant organization , the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), claimed responsibility for the attack.
In the same vein, pastors are being killed and Christians persecuted in Togo, according to a report by Worthy News published on 16 April.2025.
*A precarious situation*
“In Nigeria, we are at the mercy of Muslims because the president and his vice are Muslims”, Nwaezeigwe said to Eastern news
“What the government does is to send a hilux load of about 10 soldiers to go and confront the jihadists who are armed with sophisticated weapons and even before they get there, their colleagues in the army who are working in tandem with the Jihadists will inform the them that the Nigerian soldiers are coming to attack them”, he said.
Speaking during an interview on News Central’s Breakfast programme on earlier on 22 May, 2025, Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum, had alleged that some politicians and members of the armed forces act as informants and collaborators for Boko Haram insurgents, adding that the Nigerian Army lacks requisite equipment to fight terrorists.
Jihadists use government funds to buy weapons
Fulani Jihadists operating in Nigeria are reportedly coordinated by a government -sponsored group, Myetti Allah, and are being paid huge amounts of money by some state governments in northern Nigeria.
“During the Buhari regime, Governor El Eufai gave them so much money claiming that the purpose is to bribe them to stop killing people but that money was used by the Jihadists to procure arms and continue with the killings”, said Dr. Nwaezeigwe to Eastern news, referencing a report published in vanguard on 3 December, 2016.
“Many northern governors are giving them money claiming that the purpose is to buy their freedom from attacks by the Jihadists but they are systematically funding them for arms procurement,” he continued.
“And the reason why the government is sponsoring the terrorists is so that the Nigerian army who would have planned coup to overthrow them will be busy fighting the terrorists”, he added
Jihadist groups increased from 1 in 2009 to 22 in 2025
Since 2009 when the Jihadist rebel group, Boko Haram started terrorizing the residents of North Eastern Nigeria, the number of Islamic jihadist groups in the country have risen to 22 in August 2025, stated Intersociety in its recent report.
The terrorist groups were originally operating under one leadership but over the years, some members pulled away and formed separate groups, according to Religious Rights activist, Dr. Nwaezeigwe.
“There is mutation of these groups whereby one group pulls away and forms a cell and gives it another name”, Nwaezeigwe said to Eastern news .
“Now we have 2 cells operating in Kebbi state and we have many cells operating in the Middle Belt and southern Nigeria and within their cells, they have different commanders”, he continued.
“Because of the funding, we now have a mutation of these groups, including Fulani militia, ISIS, and the rest of them and what they are after is the natural resources of the country and of course they have been using it to sponsor the Jihad not only in Nigeria but in other African countries”, he added.
On 7 May 2025, the Guardian newspaper reported that a breakaway faction of Boko Haram, Ansaru, are tightening their grip on Kogi State, with eight cells already established.
Advocacy groups raise concern
Findings by a religious advocacy group, Open Doors U.S in its 2025 World Watch List covering the reporting period from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024, reveal that Nigeria was the country with the most Christians killed and kidnapped in 2024.
The report which was released on January 15 found that 3,100 Christians were killed and 2,830 Christians were kidnapped in Nigeria in 2024, far more than other countries in the same year.
Last August, a Netherlands-based research group, the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, released a four-year data project documenting 55,910 fatalities from 9,970 attacks across Nigeria wherein it stated that more Nigerian Christians were victims of violence than Nigerians holding to other religious affiliations.
The group stated that “amongst the 30,880 civilians killed in the 4-year reporting period, the number of Christians killed was 16,769, while the number of Muslims killed was 6,235 with Fulani radicals being responsible for more than half of the Christian deaths”.
Posted by Easter News online at 16:33 https://easternnewsnewspapers.blogspot.com/2025/09/activists-react-to-report-on-killing-of.html