On October 1, Fulani herders attacked a predominantly Christian village in central Nigeria, killing seven people, according to the villagers.
According to a press statement by Philip Ebenyakwu, chairman of the Agatu Local Government Council, the herders raided Egwuma village in Agatu County, Benue State, at approximately five o’clock in the evening.
“They began shooting sporadically at the villagers when they got into the village,” Ebenyakwu said. “They killed seven people, and this is aside from those injured during the attack. We have also contacted security agencies, and they are mobilizing to go after the invaders.”
According to local Edwin Ogbanje, the attackers were militia from the Fulani herders, who left a path of destruction in their wake.
“This incident requires a thorough investigation to identify the perpetrators and hold them accountable,” stated Ogbanje.
“These Fulani herdsmen attacks have been on the rise, with reports indicating that they have become one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world. The Nigerian government must act decisively to safeguard its people and combat this escalating threat.”
Audu Sule, a former legislator in the Benue State House of Assembly, said Egwuma village is less than a kilometer from his home in Ogwule.
“The community leader and six other members of his community are among those who perished,” stated Sule.
Sule said the attack was the fourth in the area in the past month.
He claimed that “the authorities of this country have not put an end to the deadly activities of herdsmen in our area.”
A representative for Agatu in the Nigerian National Assembly, Pastor Ojotu Ojema, expressed disgust over the lack of action taken to stop the ongoing attacks in the area.
He called on the military to put more effort into preventing further attacks and decried “frequent scenarios whereby armed Fulani herdsmen would cross from neighboring Kogi and Nasarawa states to Apa and Agatu communities, carry out their deadly attacks and go scot-free despite the presence of the military.”
Catherine Anene, spokesperson for the Benue State Police Command, confirmed the attack on Egwuma village and said, “Security agents, including the military, are currently in that area to go after the attackers.”
Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many lineages who do not hold extremist views.
However, some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.
“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.
Christian leaders in Nigeria claim that because desertification is affecting their herds, herders are attacking Christian communities in the Middle Belt to seize Christian lands and impose Islam forcibly.
Nigeria remained the deadliest place in the world to follow Christ, with 4,118 people killed for their faith from October 1, 2022, to September 30, 2023, according to Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List (WWL) report. More kidnappings of Christians than in any other country also took place in Nigeria, at 3,300.
Discrimination in the Northwest
In the northwest region, Christian leaders criticized the Nigerian president for submitting only Muslim candidates for the board of a body charged with development projects.
The nominees proposed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a Muslim, on September 28, have all been selected to serve on the board of the Northwest Development Commission.
In a press release on Saturday, October 5, Elder Sunday Oibe, the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN)’s Northwest Nigeria Chapter, emphasized that the commission’s policies should have noticed the impact on Christians.
According to Oibe, “recent appointments did not reflect the diversity of the northwest,” which concerns Christians in the area.
“There’s the need for Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to take note of the fact that there are indigenous Christians in all the states that make up the northwest – Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara.”
He said that people in the northwest should not assume that every person there is Muslim.
“This action disenchants us, and these lopsided appointments are, to put it mildly, unbecoming of the Tinubu administration,” stated Oibe.
He called on Tinubu to review the appointments and make necessary adjustments to ensure balanced representation, “as leaving these appointments unchanged will have negative consequences for the commission’s success and encourages religious divisions in the region and Nigeria as a whole.”
Tinubu nominated Haruna Ginsau (Jigawa) as chairman of the board and Abdullahi Shehu Ma’aji (Kano) as managing director/chief executive officer. Other members appointed were Yahaya Namahe (Sokoto), Aminu Suleiman (Kebbi), Tijani Kaura (Zamfara), Abdulkadir Usman (Kaduna), Muhammad Wudil (Kano), Shamsu Sule (Katsina) and Nasidi Ali (Jigawa).
Nigeria maintained its ranking of No. 6 in the 2024 World Watch List of nations where being a Christian is the most difficult. Nigeria was the third highest country in the number of attacks on churches and other Christian buildings, such as hospitals, schools, and cemeteries, with 750, according to the WWL report.
