The Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) recently published the report “Countering the myth of religious indifference in Nigerian terror”, which analyses the over 11,000 violent incidents that took place from October 2019 to September 2023 across the country.

According to the researchers, “Nigeria continues to face a multifaceted security crisis marked by widespread violence, particularly against religious communities”, because “Islamist extremists enjoy relative freedom to carry out atrocities”.

Christian civilians, the most killed and abducted

The study shows that over 55,900 people were killed in 9,970 attacks, while at least 21,600 people were abducted in 2,705 attacks. “This is an average of 8 attacks per day involving killings and/or abductions over a 4-year period”, the ORFA explains.

Most of those killed (30,880) and abducted (21,532) were civilians, who “lived in high levels of insecurity and fear of the unexpected”.

The remaining people killed were members of the security forces (4,953) or of terror groups (20,077).

The data also reveal that “more Nigerian Christians (16,769) were victims of violence than Nigerians holding to other religious affiliations”.

Islamist extremists kill both Muslims and Christians, but 2.7 Christians were killed for every Muslim in the reporting period.

“The ratio of Christians to Muslims killed rises significantly when the religious composition of the states is taken into consideration”, say the researchers.

Christians are also 1.4 times more likely to be abducted than Muslims.

By Fulani in North Nigeria

According to the report, the Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM), killed at least 42% of all civilians in community attacks, while Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) combined killed 10%.

“The most striking point is that the FEM are killing Nigerian civilians unopposed. Mass killings, abductions and the torture of whole families go largely unchallenged as government forces pursue targets hundreds of miles away”, denounces the ORFA.

Furthermore, “misleading euphemisms, such as 'armed herdsmen' are used to describe continual waves of invasion, torture and killing in rural communities”, they warn.

The epicentre of violent attacks was in the North West and North Central, where “security forces left the population in the lurch. They gave the FEM ample opportunity for their violent attacks, with Christians as their main victims”.

Policy recommendations

In the report, the ORFA also gives 16 policy recommendations to the Nigerian government to improve the security in the country.

It mainly calls on the government to respect freedom of religion and belief, adopt policies for support of victims of mass violence, o create a new recruitment and training program for the police and armed forces, among other things.

Much violence goes unreported

The Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) is a “research, training, and advocacy program, with the mission to promote religious freedom on the continent”.

They acknowledge that “however hard one tries, a data-gathering project like this one is never exhaustive since much violence goes unreported. Nevertheless, we are confident that the data supplied gives a balanced indication of the situation in the country”.

You can read the full report here.