YAOUNDÈ, Cameroon – Christians are living “under bondage” in northern Nigeria, according to Archbishop Matthew Man-oso Ndagoso of Kaduna, located in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, where the predominantly Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

Kaduna State has imposed limited Sharia law in areas with a Muslim majority.

Ndagoso said it is increasingly difficult to build Churches or other Christian infrastructure in northern states like Kano, Sokoto, Katsina, and Zamfara during a March 8 webinar sponsored by Aid to the Church in Need.

“For over 60 years, no single certificate of occupancy has been given officially to any Christian community to build a Church, except in the early 90s when one governor who was a Catholic – a military governor – gave a certificate of occupancy. So, in this part of our country, Christians aren’t free to practice their faith as the Constitution demands, because if I am not free to build a church, if I am not free to get land, you cannot tell me that I am free,” the archbishop said.

“The Christian community in the area has been living under bondage especially in regard to their capacity to practice their faith,” he added.

“Christian children cannot be taught their religion. You won’t even be allowed to employ and pay Christian religious leaders, but in the same schools, the government doesn’t only allow for the teaching of Islam, the government uses public funds to employ teachers to teach the Islamic faith. So, there is a clear case of discrimination designed to dampen the morale of the Christian community,” Ndagoso continued.

“So, the Christian community in this part of the country is under persecution.”

The archbishop said attacks on Christians have resulted in several deaths, and the displacement of communities.

“People are being kidnapped, many people are displaced, and they cannot go back to their communities, we now have to deal with people who have been displaced from their ancestral homes and are now refugees in their own country and within their own state.  Kaduna has been at the very center of these killings,” he said.

Bishop-elect Mark Nzukwein of Wukari blamed the high unemployment rate in northern Nigeria for the escalating violence.

“The high unemployment ratio amongst the youths, particularly the Muslim youth of this area over the years has made them more susceptible to the whims and caprices of the politicians who may like to exploit their vulnerability in order to promote their selfish political interests through violence,” he said.

The webinar was also featured two seminarians who survived Boko Haram captivity.

On January 8, 2020, four Nigerian seminarians were kidnapped by men in military fatigues from the Good Shepherd Major Seminary in Nigeria’s Catholic Archdiocese of Kaduna.

Seminarian Pius Tabat recounted the horrible treatment they received.

“These people kept flogging us every day without pity. In the evening, they would tell us to moo like cows, or bleat like goats just for their amusement,” he said.

“They served us with rice in a very dirty container that they used to fill fuel in their motorbikes,” the seminarian recalled.

“Sometimes we ate once in a day and very few times twice,” he said.

“Bathing was not there; the clothes we went with are the same cloth we came back still wearing,” Tabat continued.

“Every week before our release, we started a collective kind of novena prayer, where every person would lead for three days, one Our Father, one Hail Mary, and one Glory be to the Father, and then followed by some encouragement,” he said.

One of the seminarians, 18-year-old Michael Nnadi, was killed for constantly asking his abductors to repent and turn away from their evil ways.

Tabat said that after Nnadi’s killing, the rest of them were told that they too would be killed.

“That night was one of the longest nights in my life. When morning came, they gave us phones to call our parents and bid them goodbye before they kill us. We did and went back to the tent living our lives in the hands of God,” he said.

“We were not killed that day; three days later, after they had killed our brother, they told us that we are going to be released. It sounded too good to be true, after spending 24 days in captivity.”

Tabat said that Nnadi paid the supreme sacrifice for them to be free.

“I feel it was not a coincidence that after he was killed, four days later we were released; it was like he paid the price for our freedom.”

Nzukwein said despite the attacks on Christians, the Church of Nigeria still has hope.

“We have never, ever given up hope. It is our hope in Christ that things will eventually get better. Our faith has been kept alive because of the hope we have in Christ,” the bishop-elect said.

Ndagoso added he hopes new Nigerian President Bola Tinubu would be able to steer the country out of the web of terrorism, given his background as a Yuruba, where Muslims are known to be moderate.

“In the same family in Yuruba land, you find Catholics, Muslims, Protestants – they are indeed a model. Tinubu’s wife is a Christian and she still practices her Christian faith in her husband’s house. So coming from that background, we are hopeful,” the archbishop said.