• PLUS: How Islamic Jihadists razed or sacked estimated 1,200 churches yearly, 100 monthly, three daily and 19,100 in 16 years or since July 2009 Boko Haram uprising

Nigeria’s military personnel and police crack squads or their joint taskforces have been accused of destroying over 1,000 churches in eastern Nigeria in the past five years in the guise of fighting Biafran separatists.

Frontline rights group, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) made the allegation in a statement issued in Enugu, Eastern Nigeria, on Sunday, September 14, 2025.

According to Intersociety in the statement condensed from a report entitled, “How Islamic Jihadists razed or sacked estimated 1,200 churches yearly, 100 monthly, three daily and 19,100 in 16 years or since July 2009 Boko Haram uprising”, “It is also statistically found that more than 1,000 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, burned down or sacked; with most of their attackers identified as military personnel and police crack squads or their joint taskforces including personnel of the country’s spy police, perpetrated using “IPOB/ESN/Unknown Gunmen/Biafra counterinsurgency operations in the East” as a pretext. The ethno-religious profiling and cleansing operations in the East are found to have started since January 2021 in Orlu part of Imo State in South-East Nigeria, during the country’s security forces and their commanders targeted traditional religionists and their sacred sanctuaries using false labeling and mass criminalization premised on false narrative that “since IPOB and its leaders are followers of Jewish religion in the East, “white clothing Christian religionists” anywhere in the East are IPOB/ESN/Biafra agitators deserving to be abducted or shot dead at sight”.

Intersociety further alleged that, “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”.

The greater part of the statement signed Intersociety Head Emeka Umeagbalasi; Head, Dept. of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esquire; and Head, Dept. of Campaign and Publicity, Chidinma Udegbunam, Esquire, however focused on the devastation which Boko Haram insurgents have brought to Christendom in Nigeria.

Going by Intersociety’s statistics “gathered from multiple sources in the past years,” “Nigeria’s Islamic Jihadists and Jihad enablers cutting across security, defense and political establishments have in the past sixteen years or since July 2009 Boko Haram Uprising caused estimated 1200 Christian churches to be 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.”

Nigeria, according to the statement, “is home to ‘estimated 113m Christians including estimated “32m sedentary Christians” and “8m pastoral Christians” in the North and “estimated 70m indigenous Christians” in the South. Among the “40m sedentary or indigenous and non-indigenous Christians” presently in Northern Nigeria are 3m traditional worshippers, many, if not most of whom are Christianity-affiliated, having been baptized in Christianity and bearing Christian names. Among the estimated 70m indigenous Christians in the South are 10m traditional worshippers, greater number of whom are Christianity-affiliated. Nigeria is also home to estimated 100m Muslims including estimated 76m in the North and 24m in the South-with Lagos, Oyo, Osun and Edo having greater number.

Razing or sacking of estimated 19,100 Christian churches followed widespread armed religious conflicts showing that apart from estimated 13,000 churches attacked, burned 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.”

In the words of Intersociety, “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”.”

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