A Nigerian woman whose husband was killed by Boko Haram in 2014 has asked for prayers for persecuted Christians and the terrorist group, “so that they may be saved, so that Jesus may reveal himself to their hearts, so that they may repent.”
“I prayed for those who had murdered my husband and told them: ‘I have forgiven them from my heart. No problem’. They don’t know what they are doing. They are disbelievers,” Afordia, who asked to be identified only by her first name, told CNA — EWTN News’ English-language agency — during an interview in Rome last week.
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Afordia traveled from her hometown of Mubi in northeastern Nigeria — where extremism is concentrated — to share her testimony at a Jan. 15 presentation on Christian persecution around the world by the religious freedom advocacy group Open Doors. .
The World Persecution List 2025 identified Nigeria, which has been grappling with Muslim extremist violence since 2009, as one of the worst countries in the world for Christian persecution. The report concluded that 3,100 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2024.
Afordia, whose husband was shot in front of her after coming out as a Christian, said that despite what it has cost her, she will never give up her faith in Jesus Christ.
“What God is doing is the truth. Christianity is the truth. “Christ is the only one who saves,” he told CNA. “Even if they kill me today, they pierce my body, one, one, one, one, like that, I will not stop following Christ because he is the Savior of this body and the Savior of this life.”
The history of Afordia
Boko Haram, a Muslim extremist sect classified as a terrorist group by the United States Department of State, attacked Mubi, Nigeria, on October 29, 2014.
Afordia described the confusion that unfolded in Mubi that day, as the sound of guns and bombs disrupted mid-morning activities and the town’s residents rushed home from work and school.
Afordia, who helped support her family as a community health worker and poultry farmer, and her husband, a pastor at Triumph of Faith Pentecostal Church, got into their car to look for their five children, who had disappeared in the chaos of the attack. .
It was then that the couple unknowingly fell into an ambush.
“They stopped me and my husband and asked us both to get out of the car, which we did, and the Boko Haram members started asking him questions: ‘Are you a Muslim or an infidel?’ He said: ‘I am not a Muslim. I’m not unfaithful. I am a Christian.’ And that’s how they asked him to turn to the right of the road, which he did,” Afordia recalled.
“He immediately knelt down and started praying,” he said. The extremists shot her husband five times in the head as she watched.
After killing her husband, the men turned to Afordia and asked her the same questions. “I closed my eyes. “I was very afraid, afraid of seeing how they would kill me,” he said. “I raised both my hands to the sky. I prayed in my heart: ‘Lord, receive my soul today because I will come to see you.’ So in that position I heard a cry from the other side, from Boko Haram themselves: ‘Enough! Who asked you to kill this woman? Leave her alone.’”
Surprisingly, the attackers let Afordia drive away in her car. He soon found his youngest son, who was a teenager at the time, and they both abandoned the car and fled into the mountains.
With help, they were eventually evacuated to the state capital, where Afordia was finally reunited with her four other young adult children. He returned to Mubi about a month later, after the government liberated the city. He explained that many of Mubi’s residents never returned after the attack.
She recovered her husband’s body, which had dried in the sun, and gave him a proper burial, but he was suffering from trauma. “It was so scattered,” she described. “Sleepless nights. I wasn’t myself. She walked like a crazy woman. For me, life no longer means anything.”
The Open Doors group helped Afordia receive mental health treatment in Brazil. They also provided him with financial assistance as he had lost his livelihood after the attack.
“That’s how I was able to recover,” he said. “And at that moment, thoughts came to my heart to remember what Jesus taught about forgiveness. And I was able to remember and pray for those who had murdered my husband.”
Today, Afordia is a retired grandmother of five who continues to grow her own produce and help out at her Presbyterian church, where she teaches the faith.
Asking for prayers, she said it would be better to be killed than to be subjected to the brutal torture that some Christians in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan countries have experienced.
“There are a lot of cruel things happening. “I want Christians in places where there is less persecution to pray for Christians (in Africa) so that God will deliver them, so that God will see them and rescue them.”
“What gives me value?” he said. “First of all, Christ is the one who gives life. There is no salvation anywhere other than Christ.”
“When God was creating his world, darkness covered it. And when darkness covered him in Genesis chapter 1, God did not care about that darkness. He went on to say let there be light, let there be this, let there be this. So this gives me courage to continue as a Christian, even though the devil is seriously attacking what God has started. “It will not stop me from following Christ because I know that is the truth,” he said.
“Any other religion… that emerges will do nothing but oppose what God has planned for man,” Afordia added. “He planned his things in such a way that man would be saved.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.
Hannah Brockhaus
Hannah Brockhaus is Rome correspondent for Catholic News Agency. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a bachelor’s degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.