Nigeria’s Government Responding Better To Terrorism, But Killings And Abductions Up
ABUJA, Nigeria — The Nigerian government has improved its response to terrorism, Open Doors U.S. said Sept. 3 in a report on the African nation, noting concurrent increases in killings and abductions compromise the government’s effectiveness.
Civilian deaths increased 51 percent and abductions rose 153 percent between October and December 2025, compared to the same period a year before, researchers said. Months later, beginning in April, the government began arresting and convicting Boko Haram terrorists and others of related crimes.
Among prosecutions, courts sentenced a terrorist to death, two Boko Haram terrorists to life imprisonment, and several others to jail terms of 20 years or more. Other arrests are ongoing, researchers said.
It’s too early to tell whether the government will be successful in stemming the violence, Open Doors U.S. CEO Ryan Brown told Baptist Press.
“While still limited in comparison to the increasing scale of the problem, the recent arrests and judgments are an encouraging sign,” Brown said. “To truly ensure that historic patterns of impunity are brought to a close, we need to continue seeing more arrests and convictions. This increase needs to be both in number and sustained over time.”
Specifically, 1,735 civilians including Christians were killed October through December 2025, compared to 1,148 killed in the same period in 2024. Abductions rose more, from 1,352 to 3,415, Open Doors said, citing several sources in the report, including the tracking and advocacy groups Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data and others, as well as news reports and government releases.
The violence is shifting the landscape of the Church in Nigeria as Christians are killed or internally displaced. An estimated 3.8 million individuals were internally displaced as of April, in addition to more than 405,000 who have fled to Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
“The displacement has led to a net loss of Christian presence from many rural and semi-rural areas in the north and north-central states like Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Benue, Plateau, southern Kaduna and Nasarawa,” researchers found. “The flight to urban areas means that the Christian presence has grown in cities such as Maiduguri, Yola, Jos, Makurdi and Abuja.”
The report also spans violence from 2019-2025, reporting most victims were Christians, although Muslims and adherents of unspecified religious groups were also among victims.
“Recent data on violence presents a mixed but concerning picture. After a period of relative stabilization, killings and abductions appear to be rising again, with sharp increases recorded in late 2025,” researchers noted. “While Christians continue to be affected profoundly, the violence is increasingly impacting Muslim communities as well, reflecting a shifting and complex pattern of conflict driven by ethno-religious, economic and environmental factors.”
Fulani militants are especially active alongside Boko Haram and Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP).
The Church in Nigeria continues to be targeted, both in northern Nigeria and the Middle Belt.
“For the church in northern Nigeria, these dynamics are reshaping its very presence. Entire communities have been uprooted, churches destroyed or abandoned, and congregations displaced into urban centers,” the report notes. “While the resilience of the church is evident, the long-term impact includes demographic shifts, financial strain, and the increasing fragility of rural Christian life.”
While more than 25,000 Christians have been killed since 2019, including an estimated 3,200 this year, counts of churches destroyed and damaged are less concrete because there is no national database. One estimate cites more than 19,000 churches destroyed in Nigeria in the past 16 years – more than 3 daily – researchers said, citing The Catholic World Report.
“Whether that is an over-estimate or not, it is clear that churches in the northern part of Nigeria are being heavily impacted,” researchers wrote, “with the rural areas worse hit, heightening displacement and disrupting activities in these churches.”
Church leaders continue to be abducted at high rates, with kidnappers demanding higher ransoms for clergy.
“However, the payment of these large ransom sums does not guarantee safe release because captives are sometimes killed after receipt of ransom money,” researchers wrote. “Ransoms bleed the church’s financial resources, and the loss of church leaders weakens the faith of many Christians, particularly the youth.”
Read the report here.
This article was originally published by Baptist Press.