•Reels out statistics of forcefully uprooted, kidnapped or killed Christians, destroyed churches, etc

By UZOMA ODUIGWE, Editorial Consultant

Christianity, Jewish and numerous traditional religions indigenous across the world may go into extinction in the next 50 years, frontline rights group, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), has warned.

The research-based organisation said it reached the conclusion after painstakingly studying “patterns and trends of persecution of Christians in Nigeria or any part thereof, including State persecution against other religious minorities such as Shiite Muslims and Members of the Organization of the African Instituted Churches (OAICs) in Nigeria or any part thereof have steadily monitored open or covert acts of persecution of Christians, or by Christians and their leaders against members of the African Traditional Religion since 2010. Based on its observations, Intersociety expressed the fear that, “the Jewish and Traditional ways of worshipping may vanish or be vanquished in the coming 50 Years or by Year 2075

(due to the onslaught against them across nations of the world), and radically and violently replaced by Islamic Sultanates / Caliphates.”

The rights group sounded the alarm via a statement issued on Monday in Onitsha, Southeast Nigeria, signed by Board Chairman Emeka Umeagbalasi, and Head of Democracy and Governance, Chinwe Umeche Esq. According to Intersociety in the statement, “The real concern of every true Christian in Nigeria and Igbo Land in particular should no longer be targeted at just the dry quests for mercantilism by Christian Clergies and their incurable quests for the realization of the vested or selfish interests of members of the Laity Class, or Christian Congregants who deceitfully and cunningly use the Sacred name of Jesus Christ and Christendom as a cover or pretext and done at grave expense of the growth, development, expansion, security and safety of the Christian Faith.

“The true concern and task before every true Christian in Nigeria generally and Igbo Land in particular, starting from yesterday, Monday, April 21, 2025, should be to do everything within his or her lawful physical, material, creative and spiritual powers to preserve, protect, uphold and expand the Christian Faith divinely founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ around AD 35, two years after his divine death and resurrection.”

Intersociety, therefore, stressed “the need to begin from this year's Monday, April 21, 2025 to look beyond the yearly ritualistic annual Easter observances and the ceremonies and fanfares that go with it have become more expedient now when the stark reality before us as Christians in Nigeria and Igbo Land is that Christianity / Christian Faith is steadily facing systematic, well-coordinated, heavily funded, untamed and uncontrollable threats of extinction in Nigeria and Igbo Land.”

Intersociety said it found out that,” an estimated 40 million indigenous Northern Christians have as at July 2009 been forcefully uprooted from their native lands and homes as a result of the Boko Haram and the killing activities by various other radical elements and other inter-ethnic uprisings in Northern Nigeria, within the Muslim Fulani population and their Muslim Hausa subordinates since the middle of 2015 till date.”

That is not all, as an estimated 40 million indigenous residents have been uprooted with a vast majority of Northern Christians been forced to flee their ancestral homes and sacred places of worship or learning, so as to avoid being hacked to death or killed by suspected Nigerian Government-protected Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and regionally assembled allied others since 2017.

“The estimated 40 million uprooted indigenous Northern Christians included those raped or hacked to death or abducted and converted to radical Islamism or abducted and permanently disappeared,” the rights group said.

It noted that even as it was writing the statement, “thousands of indigenous communities, villages belonging to locals have been sacked by these Islamic groups, forcefully renamed Islamically, with hundreds of thousands of acres of their farming and dwelling lands taken over, violently possessed and flooded with herds of Muslim cattle and trailers majority carrying illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons and Ammunitions.”

Intersociety said that majority of the “conquered” communities have since been converted to Jihadist Fulani settlements and administered under Jihadist cum Islamic laws, following the forceful ousting of the local and indigenous populations from their homes, along with their native, agelong religions and practices.

It identified Middle-Belt states like Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kogi and Niger as being among the worst hit; followed by the North-West states of Kebbi and Kaduna, then the North-East states of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Gombe and Bauchi; inclusive of the South-West states of Ondo, Ekiti, Ogun, Osun and Oyo with Lagos.

The above-mentioned states, according to Intersociety, “will be followed catastrophically by the entire eleven states of the south-south and the south-east inhabited by over 95% Christian population and homes to the largest number of Christian churches and schools in Nigeria.”

Intersociety pointed to its track record of “following patterns and trends of persecution of Christians in Nigeria or any part thereof including State persecution against other religious minorities such as Shiite Muslims and Members of the Organization of the African Instituted Churches (OAICs) in Nigeria or any part thereof.” Based on its “steadily monitored persecutions by Christians and their leaders against members of the African Traditional Religion since 2010”, the rights group declared that, “approximate 19,000 Churches and over 3,000 Christian schools and other sacred places of worship and learning belonging to Christians in Nigeria have been either sacked, wantonly destroyed or burnt down beyond recognition.”

It added: “In the outgoing first four months of this 2025 or since January to April, between 1,500 and 2,000 defenseless Christians have been hacked to death by Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen and Jihadist Fulani Bandits in the three Old Middle-Belt States of Benue, Plateau and Southern Kaduna and other neighboring states, during which 800-1,000 or more are most likely to have been abducted and seized and held in bondage in Jihadists' camps.

“The above is in addition to over 1,000 dwelling houses belonging to them torched or destroyed or burnt down and hundreds of their Communities and villages sacked and taken over by Jihadists with the country's grossly biased security forces turning blind eyes and refusing to act other than deceitfully resorting to medicine after death and discriminatory law enforcements and law enforcement operations.

“In the South-East Region of Nigeria, estimated 20,300 defenseless citizens are among those hacked to death or killed on the grounds of their ethnicity and religion by Jihadists and federally deployed grossly biased security forces since the middle of 2015.”