YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A new report says over 20,300 Christians have been massacred in South East Nigeria since 2015.

According to the Catholic-inspired NGO International Society for Civil Liberty and the Rule of Law Intersociety, the killings were carried out by a plethora of jihadist organizations, including the Jihadist Fulani herdsmen, the Niger Delta jihadist militants, and the Jihadist Fulani bandits, the Fulani Muslim vigilantes as well as the Nigerian military deployed to the region.

The report, signed by Intersociety Board Chair Emeka Umeagbalasi, states that jihadist groups which infiltrated Nigeria—particularly the South-East—during the administration of Muhammadu Buhari, have been responsible for approximately 9,800 jihad-related deaths since June 2015.

Additionally, approximately 10,500 unarmed citizens were killed by officers and personnel of the Nigerian Armed Forces, allegedly targeted based on their ethnicity and religion, according to the report.

Besides the killings, “members of the South-East civilian population have been singled out for false labeling, mass criminalization and trump-up charges on the grounds of their ethnicity and religion,” the report states.

The Intersociety report also claims that over 40 traditional worshippers in Anambra State have been held under custody for over three months in an illegal detention facility, far exceeding  the 60-day period of detention prescribed by law. Worse, no valid case has been brought against them, and therefore the government has lost the legal and moral grounds “to continue to detain without investigation, the 40 traditional worshippers held in an illegal detention facility (State Militias’ Lion House at Awka) for more than 60 days.”

Governors blamed

As the killing of Christians in Igbo land get even worse, Intersociety has in its report accused the governors of the four eastern states of Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi and Imo of a complicit silence – a “silence of the graveyard.”

The four governors have been widely accused of collaborating with the Nigerian government and external entities to compromise the current and future security of their states, citizens, and properties. This alleged conspiracy is marked by their “graveyard silence” or inaction in response to the escalating and unchecked attacks by jihadist Fulani herdsmen across various communities in their states.

These attacks, which have intensified since 2015/16 and saw a significant surge from 2020/21, have reportedly saturated many of the 78 Local Government Areas in their states. The regions are believed to be under threat or experiencing both covert and overt assaults, primarily targeting defenseless Trado-Judeo-Christian populations in the hinterlands.

They have also faced accusations of carrying out severe attacks and suppressing the fundamental human rights of citizens to practice African Traditional Medicines, which are considered the precursors to modern medicine, as well as African Traditional Religions, regarded as the ancestral roots of Christianity in Igbo Land.

“The totality of the above has endangered lives and properties and threatened their defenseless peoples’ fundamental human rights to ethnic and religious identities, including rights to be born, develop and live in a secured and protected environment,” the report states.

“It must also be pointed out that many jihadist activities of Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and allied others in Igbo Land States of Anambra, Enugu, Imo and Ebonyi under their gubernatorial watch are either rarely reported or covered and suppressed or censored under the watch,” it continues.

“Several reports also abound exposing indiscriminate third-party land purchases for the Jihadists across the South-East by delegated persons or State/Federal Government remotely linked middle persons, including top Government officials or appointees or others close to their governments,” the report says.

Intersociety notes that the indictment of the four governors also extends to both past and current Homeland Security Commissioners, Special Advisers on Security, and officials responsible for Community Security, Vigilante operations, and Border Conflict Resolution, all of whom were appointed during the tenure of the indicted governors.

Travel bans requested for the indicted governors

Intersociety has pledged to launch an international campaign to prevent the four governors — Peter Mbah (Enugu), Charles Soludo (Anambra), Francis Nwaifuru (Ebonyi), and Hope Uzodinma (Imo) — from traveling to democratic countries that uphold religious freedom and the rights of citizens. These countries include the United Kingdom, the United States, nations within the European Union, and Canada.

“We also make bold to say that those who aid, abet, promote, fund and perpetrate international religious freedom abuses and violations in Nigeria or any part thereof must no longer be allowed any breathing space no matter their pretenses and camouflages,” the report states.

Time to Add Nigeria and Fulani Jihadists into “CPC” And “Terror” Lists in the United States

Given the continued persecution of Christians in Nigeria and the killing power of the Fulani jihadist herdsmen, Intersociety is not only urging the US government to re-designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, “for egregious abuse and violation of ‘International Religious Freedom,” but also to designate the Fulani Jihadist herdsmen as “an Entity of Particular Concern.”