In Nigeria, Christians living in the country’s Middle Belt region are under constant threat of attack from Fulani militants and Islamic terrorist groups. Unfortunately, the risk of attack only increases around major Christian holidays, as militants time their attacks to inflict maximum terror and make known their message that Christians are not welcome in the region.
Two years ago, at least 140 Christians were massacred by Fulani militants wielding guns on Christmas Eve in Nigeria’s Plateau state. Timothy Nuwan, the vice president of Church of Christ in Nations, told AFP, “Many people were killed, slaughtered like animals in cold blood.” The militants torched people’s homes and burnt down eight churches, again demonstrating the religious motive behind the attack. (RELATED: Defending Nigeria’s Christians from Islamist Genocide)
“I ask myself, why is it always during Christian festive periods that these killings take place?”
And this year, 72 people were killed during the Easter Triduum in Benue state. Following the attack, Father Moses Aondoanenge Igba, a Catholic priest in the area, noted to Catholic New Agency’s Africa division the reason why the attack was timed to the most sacred period of the Christian liturgical year.
“I ask myself, why is it always during Christian festive periods that these killings take place?” Igba said. “Either Christmas or Easter, they come to disrupt our celebrations. It points to a conquest ideology. It is more than just terrorism; it is about land occupation and Islamization.”
For Nigerian Christians in the Middle Belt region, the upcoming Christmas holiday is putting them on high alert. According to Judd Saul, the founder of Equipping the Persecuted, an organization that aids Christians facing persecution, Fulani terrorists are preparing to attack a number of villages on Christmas Day.
“We got very reliable information that they are weaponizing for a Christmas Day massacre,” Judd said at a meeting convened by the International Committee on Nigeria and the African Jewish Alliance last week. “I am imploring the Nigerian government and President Donald Trump to do something so we don’t have a bunch of dead Christians in Nigeria.” (RELATED: What Is America’s Role in Africa?)
Judd went into specifics on what he says is being planned by Fulani militants.
“We have intelligence right now, as of today, before this meeting, I’ve talked to my contacts,” Judd said at the Emergency Summit on Crimes Against Christians last week on Capitol Hill, also last week. “The Fulani are gathering on the border of Nasarawa and Plateau. They’re gathering up on the border of Nasarawa and Benue. They’re gathering up on the border of Nasarawa and Kaduna. They plan on hitting these villages. They plan on hitting Bokkos in Plateau. They plan on hitting Barkin Ladi. They plan on hitting Riyom in Plateau. They plan on hitting the community of Agatu in Benue, and they plan on hitting Kafanchan in Kaduna, all on Christmas.”
Judd founded a media organization, Truth Nigeria, which maintains a staff of journalists who report on violence against Christians in the country. (RELATED: Media Denies Christian Genocide in Response to Trump’s Threat of Military Action in Nigeria)
Reporters on the ground for Truth Nigeria have documented movements by Fulani terrorists as well as a buildup of weapons that suggest a preparation for violence over the Christmas season. Judd says that the organization has an 89 percent accuracy rate for its terrorist alerts.
The Nigerian government has dismissed Judd’s predictions. A special assistant to Nigeria’s president told a Nigerian news outlet, “We should be very careful how we digest and process some of these doubtful reports by external organizations who are setting a stage for internal crisis in our country. We should not be providing oxygen for reports that heighten a sense of insecurity in our country.”
The assistant added, “What is the motive and agenda of this organization in raising this kind of alarm about a likely terror attack in the three states and on Christmas Day?”
This member of Nigeria’s government is far removed from the reality on the ground. Over 7,000 Christians have already been targeted and killed this year in Nigeria alone, according to Franc Utu, a researcher at the University of Central Oklahoma. And over 100,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria over the past decade, according to Stephen Enada, who leads the International Committee of Nigeria. (RELATED: Ted Cruz and the Specter of ‘Roland, the Headless Thompson Gunner’)
Judd’s warnings, therefore, are hardly heightening “a sense of insecurity” in Nigeria, not when Christians are being systematically killed by the thousands. “[A] culture of denial persists to this very moment,” said New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith at the International Committee on Nigeria last week.
Despite the death toll, Nigeria’s media still largely maintains that there is no persecution of Christians in the country. Instead, the narrative is that there is merely a conflict between farmers and herdsmen that is exacerbated by climate change.
But there are some signs that this widespread attitude of denial, particularly among Nigeria’s media and government classes, has begun to abate following President Donald Trump’s threat of an American military response in reaction to the crisis.
According to Truth Nigeria, a senior editor at a major Nigerian newspaper recently said, “We used words to soften reality: ‘bandits,’ ‘unknown gunmen,’ ‘farmer-herder clashes.’ But after Congress called it ‘religious cleansing,’ we cannot unsee the data.” The Nov. 21 mass kidnapping of 253 children from St. Mary’s Catholic School, which made major national headlines, has forced some Nigerians to see the persecution of Christians that is so endemic in the country.
In Kogi state, authorities have already ordered an early curfew as a response to the Christmas threat. And Christians in the area are already wavering on whether they will attend Christmas church services, fearing that they will lose their lives by doing so.
Pressure on the U.S. to do something is increasing, and certainly will all the more so if even some of what Judd is predicting befalls Nigeria’s Christians.
Stephen Enada said last week, in a meeting that gathered several U.S. congressmen: “If the United States does nothing — God forbid — millions will be killed by jihadists.”
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