The statistics are chilling. In just 180 days this year, one report says at least 2,550 Christians were killed in Nigeria. The 2026 mid-year report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, Intersociety, published July 2, also documents 2,800 cases of abductions, the destruction of 300 churches, and the forced conversion of 800 Christians to Islam.
The Director of Intersociety and Nigeria’s top tracker of Christian persecution, Emeka Umeagbalasi, agrees with an earlier study by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, which finds that while the international community’s gaze remains fixed on Boko Haram, the primary engine of religious violence in Nigeria is actually a highly coordinated network of Fulani militias.
Speaking to Crux Now, Umeagbalasi argues that the killing of Christians is not a mere failure of security, but a state-sponsored enterprise of mala in se crimes—acts universally recognized as inherently evil. He says these are facilitated by a radicalized military and covered up by compromised political and religious leaders.
Warning that Africa’s 750 million Christians face an existential, generational threat, he issues a stark warning to the perpetrators: The evidence is archived, and the international courts are waiting.
Following are excerpts of that interview…
Crux Now: Before we dive into the specific statistics of your latest report, what is the overarching thesis of your findings regarding who is actually driving this violence, and how does it differ from general insecurity in Nigeria?
Umeagbalasi: Our report intentionally excludes general insecurity—such as road accidents or financially motivated kidnappings. Instead, it focuses strictly on religious-oriented violence perpetrated by both state and non-state actors.
We anchored our findings in international criminal law, identifying 22 specific heinous crimes being committed by jihadists and their backers. These acts fall under mala in se—crimes universally recognized as inherently evil, regardless of local laws. Ultimately, the report highlights why these atrocities continue unabated: The direct involvement of state actors. The violence is escalating because the political establishment is deeply complicit, working through affiliated groups like the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, which controls the Fulani herdsmen and bandits under the umbrella of the Sultan of Sokoto. The government uses borrowed state funds to bribe anyone willing to suppress the narrative of Christian genocide.
Your report points to structural violence against Nigeria’s Christian population. Can you speak further to that?
While Muslims and traditionalists are also affected, Christians are disproportionately impacted. An estimated 19,700 churches have been destroyed. Christians constitute the majority of abducted religious leaders and make up 95 percent of kidnapped schoolchildren.
Furthermore, Christian women and children are routinely abducted and forcibly converted. You rarely hear of imams being abducted or mosques burned down.
There is a clear, segregated state policy regarding victims. In Borno State, Muslim IDPs uprooted by Boko Haram have been safely resettled with two-bedroom apartments and substantial financial compensation. Contrast this with Christian-held areas like Chibok, which used to have 176 churches but now has fewer than 20. The state government lured roughly 12,000 out of 120,000 Christian refugees back from Cameroon with cash promises, only for them to be met with renewed Boko Haram attacks for returning to “liberated” infidel lands. Over 300 were killed and 500 abducted in March attacks alone.
The situation is similarly dire in Taraba State, where 217 churches were destroyed in just eight months. Over 100,000 Christians were displaced following the attacks. Overall, we discovered that not less than 1,800 Christian women and children have been abducted by jihadists across Southern Borno, Taraba, and Southern Kaduna.
Your report comes shortly after a major study by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA), which challenged the narrative that Boko Haram and ISWAP are the primary killers, pointing instead to Fulani militant groups. Do you agree?
We totally agree with ORFA. Fulani ethnic militias are the primary drivers of religious killings in Nigeria. Unlike Boko Haram or ISWAP, which are largely restricted to the Northeast, Fulani militias are forest-based and have spread across the entire country.
Originating in Zamfara in 2011 as local bandits, they became radicalized by 2013. Today, they operate as a nationwide network, sometimes collaborating with Boko Haram for “hit-and-run” operations. We have tracked about 22 distinct Islamic terror groups operating in Nigeria—all operating under the overarching coordination of Fulani ethnic militias.
How do you gather and verify your figures in such a dangerous environment?
We rely on a strong ground network built over years. We work directly with community leaders in affected areas and have been in communication with the Christian Association of Nigeria’s (CAN) national leadership since 2017.
Your report highlights the abduction and forced conversion of Christian women and children. Can you speak to the psychological toll of this tactic?
Jihadists give captives a stark ultimatum: Convert to Islam and be released unharmed or be killed. Under extreme duress, young women and children are indoctrinated and forced into hijabs, as seen with the 416 women and children released in Ngoshe.
Late last year, jihadists began issuing formal threats to Christian communities: Convert, pay an Islamic tax, or die. Starting in Adamawa and spreading to Taraba, Kwara, Kogi, Niger, and Southern Kaduna, our report captures nine specific conditions for Islamic conversion imposed on Christians. The severe trauma victims endure under these conditions is unimaginable.
You’ve stated that Nigeria’s crisis is part of a larger global agenda. What is the long-term trajectory for African Christianity if this is left unchecked?
This is a systematic, global anti-Christian crusade. Look at the DRC—Africa’s largest Catholic-populated country—where jihadists killed over 1,000 Christians this year alone. In Sudan, the state itself has destroyed over 160 churches and repatriated remaining Christians. The same Fulani jihadists drove sectarian conflicts in the Central African Republic.
From Kenya and Uganda to Mozambique and Ghana, almost no nation is untouched. Nigeria has already lost roughly 20,000 churches in 17 years. If not stopped, our prediction is that children born to Christian families today may have their lineage so suppressed that their own future children will no longer bear Christian names. When that happens, you lose your Christian identity, your cultural heritage, and your ethnic identity. Approximately 50 million Christians in Africa are currently facing severe psychological, physical, and structural threats.
There is a growing accusation that the Nigerian state is actively complicit in this violence. What hard evidence supports this?
This was carefully planned by the Buhari regime and continues under the current administration, which uses Christian appointees as camouflage. The evidence of security force complicity is everywhere. When a Fulani leader is killed, it makes global news; when thousands of Christians are massacred, it is suppressed.
The security forces have been effectively radicalized. They rarely prevent attacks, only arriving afterward to evacuate corpses. In the Southeast, despite Fulani herdsmen killing over 8,000 Christians since 2016, not a single herdsman has been arrested. Across multiple states, community leaders tell the exact same story of security forces fueling crises rather than managing them. We document this using circumstantial evidence—answering concrete questions of who, what, where, when, and why—which provides chronologically documented facts that no court can easily quash.
Are Nigeria’s Christian religious leaders doing enough to advocate for their persecuted flock?
Quite frankly, no. While a few are vocal, the majority are controlled by a cabal. The Vatican Secretary of State and the mainstream Catholic Bishops’ Conference have joined the government in promoting the false narrative that the violence isn’t religious, blaming climate change or herder-farmer clashes. Yet, these same bishops visit the Pope to complain that Christians are finished. It is a monumental, self-indicting contradiction.
Our investigations show that 24 out of 60 Catholic dioceses in Nigeria are dying. Soon, bishops will be begging for alms, with thriving southern dioceses forced to subsidize the decimated North. In a few years, we will have bishops without dioceses, all while they engage in double-speak about the root cause of the violence.
If the government is compromised and international justice is delayed by decades, what is the endgame for holding perpetrators accountable?
The international justice system faces severe obstacles. Superpowers like the US, Russia, and China refuse to join the ICC, and the UK has failed to robustly support it, emboldening killers.
However, mechanisms remain. The UN Security Council can refer a non-member state to the ICC for genocide. Furthermore, individual countries can invoke Universal Criminal Jurisdiction, just as the UK used it to arrest [Agnes Reeves Taylor, the ex-wife of] Liberia’s former president, Charles Taylor, in 2017. European nations like the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Denmark can similarly arrest Nigerian leaders when they step on their soil.
All hope is not lost. Historical examples like Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic prove justice can arrive decades later. The most important step is documenting and archiving these crimes now. The government’s refusal to invite the ICC prosecutor is itself hard evidence of their complicity. The documentation is already complete; it is too late for these perpetrators to hide. The world is watching.
*This interview has been edited after publication to correct some statistical and other errors, which were the result of mistakes in transcription and copy-editing. Crux Now regrets the errors, which have been corrected.
