Human Rights Expert: In Nigeria there is a strategy to annihilate all Christians and Islamize the country

Attacks against Christian communities, especially in northern Nigeria, are not an isolated phenomenon, but a strategy to “annihilate them all and Islamize the country,” says Emeka Umeagbalasi, criminologist and researcher.

The expert has been dedicated to denouncing human rights violations in his country and is clear that “we are not simply in the case of violence.”

“We have documented the coordinated and systematic murder of an entire people, therefore, we speak clearly of a Christian genocide,” he says in statements to ACI Press.

The also director of the organization International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) He has just published a report with chilling data on the violence that extremists exert every day against those who profess the Christian faith.

They can’t pray out loud, they do it in secret

The NGO estimates that in the north of the country there are about 40 million Christians who “cannot pray aloud” because it is highly dangerous. “They do it in secret, at night. No one dares to openly confess their faith. If you do, you expose yourself to being killed by ‘blasphemy,” he says.

Thus, it alerts against a “systematic strategy to achieve the extermination of Christians”, which, according to denouncing, has in its favor the complicity of the State and the passivity of the international community.

“Today in northern Nigeria it is almost impossible to live as a Christian and, if the trend continues, within half a century we will have ceased to be a country with religious plurality,” says the expert.

One of the most serious points that the organization he directs has documented is precisely the “complicity” of the Nigerian state.

“Complicity is part of an expansive policy of the Nigeria government to Islamize the country,” he denounces. As the expert explains during the Muhammadu Buhari government (2015-2023), Fulani’s ex-military origin, Nigeria lived a significant deterioration in the field of internal security.

Although Buhari came to power with the promise of defeating jihadist groups and restoring stability, the truth is that both Boko Haram and its split, the Islamic State in the province of Western Africa (ISWAP), have consolidated their control in large areas of the country in recent years.

There is a “national Islamization project”

“The jihadists have made political power and since then they have launched a national Islamization project,” he says.

To argue the inaction of the Nigerian state, Umeagbalasi cites the paradigmatic case of mass kidnappings in the state of Kaduna, in the north of the country. In this area it is very frequent that different armed groups linked to radicalized Fulani shepherds attack Christian villages without security forces trying to avoid it. In fact, according to the expert, the Nigeria government usually minimizes this violence that simply describes as “community crime.”

“More than 850 Christians are still captive in several camps in the Rijana area, very close to a military base. That began in December 2024 and, until today, they are still retained by the jihadists. Between December and August of 2025, more than 100 prisoners have been killed there. How is it possible that all this happens to a few kilometers of military facilities without anyone acting?”

Parishes practically empty for fear of attacks

Of according to the Nigeria Episcopal Conferencesince 2015 at least 145 Catholic priests have been kidnapped. However, NGO investigations Intersociety They raise that number to 250 Catholic clergy attacked, to which another 350 ministers of different Christian confessions would be added.

“The Catholic Church and the bishops in Nigeria do what they can, but there are limits in what they dare to say what is publicly,” explains Umeagbalasi.

“They cannot openly recognize, for example, that many parishes in the north of the country are practically empty for fear of attacks. But we can tell the truth and do it to help them,” he explains.

By 2075 there may not be Christianity in Nigeria

Violence has deeply altered religious balance in Nigeria. “The goal of jihadists is to eliminate Christians,” warns the director of Intersociety. “If you don’t act urgently, by 2075 there may not be Christianity in Nigeria,” he laments.

The massive displacements towards internal refugee fields – and beyond the borders, towards Cameroon or Chad – are another test of the magnitude of the problem. “When they destroy your church, they attack your community and threaten your life, you have no choice but to flee,” he summarizes.

The kidnapping business

On the other hand, the security consultant and African strategy SBM Intelligence documented in its annual report Economics of Nigeria’s Kidnap Industry, 2025 Update what 4,722 people were kidnapped between July 2024 and June 2025 by extremist groups. Among the victims were 18 priests.

For the release of these thousands of hostages, they paid about 2,570 million Nairras (1,466,000 million euros), which is equivalent to approximately 10 % of what the kidnappers claimed.

“The priests and religious have families who end up paying bailouts although the Catholic Church, officially, refuses to negotiate. In addition, the kidnappers remain with the luxury cars used by the clergymen that end up selling in the black market. A car stolen from a priest can report up to 10 million Nairras (5,747 euros) in the black market,” explains the activist.