A civil rights group, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Intersociety, has raised the alarm over alleged continuous attacks on churches in Nigeria.
It claimed that at least 19,100 churches have been sacked in the country by jihadists.
In a report released by the organisation on Sunday, it claimed that at least 100 churches have been sacked on a daily basis for the past 16 years.
It spans the period between July 2009 and 2025.
The report was signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Head, Intersociety, Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Human Rights Lawyer/Head, Dept. of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, and Chidinma Udegbunam, Human Rights Lawyer/Head, Dept. of Campaign and Publicity.
Intersociety said an estimated 1200 Christian churches had been razed or sacked on yearly basis, “during which 19, 100 churches in all were lost, 100 sacked every month and more than three every day”.
It disclosed that “razing or sacking of an estimated 19,100 Christian churches followed widespread armed religious conflicts.”
The group said apart from estimated 13,000 churches attacked, burnt down or destroyed or violently shut down between July 2009 and December 2014, additional 6,100 others are likely to have been lost to the country’s Islamic Jihadists and Jihad enablers since midyear of 2015 in severely affected States of Taraba, Adamawa, Kebbi, Borno, Kastina, Niger, Kogi, Nasarawa, Plateau, Benue, Bauchi, Yobe, Southern Kaduna and Gombe.
“It is also statistically found that more than 1000 churches (white clothing churches) belonging to members of Organization of the African Instituted Churches, a branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and allied others have also been attacked, burnt down or sacked.
“Church facilities belonging to such white clothing churches have also been falsely labeled as ‘training camps for IPOB/ESN/Biafra Agitators’, leading to their attack and destruction by security forces, during which members of the traditional religion, especially their herbalist-priests were indiscriminately targeted for instant death or abduction and disappearance by security forces.
“Attacks on Christian churches and threatening and uprooting of their congregational members across Nigeria have severely uprooted and emptied thousands of their parishes and outstations and affected many, if not most parts of the 16 Dioceses of the Catholic Mission in Nigeria, to the extent that Archdiocese of Kaduna, covering Diocese of Sokoto-with Parishes of Zamafara, Kebbi and Katsina presently exists with skeletal parishes and outstations, forced them into in a state of near-empty church buildings.
Benue State’s four Dioceses of Makurdi, Gboko, Okukpo and Katsina-Ala; home to largest Catholics and denominational Christians in Northern Nigeria, followed by Plateau State, have been threatened and almost uprooted, with more than twenty of their parishes and hundreds of outstations threatened and closed by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen.
“In Plateau State, Catholic Archdiocese of Jos (Ecclesiastical Province of Jos), comprising Dioceses of Bauchi, Maiduguri, Jalingo (Taraba State), Pankshin (Plateau State), Shendam (Plateau State), Wukari (Taraba State) and Yola (Adamawa State) are facing serious congregational emptiness and evangelical devastation.
“Same goes to Catholic Dioceses of Minna and Kontagora in Niger State where dominant Christian communities in Shiroro, Munya, Rafi, Paikoro, etc., have been uprooted and placed under siege by combined forces of the Islamic Jihadists led by Jihadist Boko Haram and Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen/Bandits.
“The Catholic Diocese of Lokoja under Archdiocese of Abuja is also facing serious threat, worsened by recent Jihadist activities of “Mahmuda and Lakaruwa Islamic Jihadists and their patrons”, Intersociety further alleged.
