What King Would Go To War…
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the
USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very
well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely
wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing
these horrible atrocities.”
President Donald Trump
“Truth Social” post, November 1, 2025
“Mr. Trump’s rhetoric (suggesting a mass slaughter of Christians)
not only misinforms the international community
but also risks fueling extremist propaganda
and undermining local efforts to build peace.”
Bulama Bukarti, Nigerian human rights advocate
“What king would go to war against another king
without first sitting down with his counselors
to discuss whether his army of 10,000
could defeat the 20,000 soldiers
marching against him?”
Jesus – Luke 14:31
We open with an apology.
Despite the president’s promise to “go into [Nigeria], ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamist Terrorists (sic),” it’s just not that simple. Blaming Nigeria’s leaders for failing to tackle the problem and labeling it a “country of particular concern” (CPC) because of religious violence compels the president to consult with the designated government, draft a foreign policy action plan, and consult with Congress about implementation — within 90 days. Trump has also threatened to cut off aid and assistance to Nigeria barring meaningful action.
Our – Father Roger’s and Father Skip’s - commitment is to try our best to clarify as many elements of religious persecution in Nigeria as possible. Because it is so complicated, we’re going to do it through a few posts over time.
FACTS ARE CRITICAL:
With a population of approximately 232 million (compared to the U.S. population of more than 342 million), Nigeria occupies roughly twelve percent of the landmass of the lower forty-eight states. Any attempt to go in “guns-a-blazing” would mean an all-out and all-hands-on-deck war. Moreover, experts and data from a wide range of international and nonpartisan sources, including the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACL&EDP) and the Council on Foreign Relations, show Christians are targets in a small percentage of overall attacks that appear to be motivated by religion, in some northern states. But the numbers and analysts also indicate that across the north, most victims of overall violence are Muslims.
The most populous nation in Africa, Nigeria is to the largest Muslim population in Africa and the fifth largest in the world, after Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. It also claims the sixth largest Christian population.
While some argue that Islam reached today’s Nigeria through Muslim traders during one of the earliest post-Muhammed caliphates – mid-600s CE, by the fourteenth century (1300s) the religion had penetrated the region of today’s northern Nigeria and southern Niger. Nomadic North African Berbers effectively introduced the religion to the “Borno tribe” – the predominant ethnic group of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. Ultimately, moving with various trading groups across the sands of North Africa, Sunni Islam penetrated and established itself in much of Nigeria and the surrounding ethnic western African communities. In 2025, Muslims constitute a majority of the populations in the 19 states that make up the three northern geo-political zones of the country; there is a significant Christian minority and a generous sprinkling of followers of African Traditional Religions in the area. At the same time, there are significant variations in the distribution of Muslims among these states.
The Islamic doctrinal landscape is further fragmented into a myriad of competing sects and groups, including Sufis, Salafists, jihadists, Shi’ites, Islamic women’s organizations, ethnic Yoruba Muslim organizations, and a host of idiosyncratic sects, some oriented towards violent politics. This fragmentation of Muslim identities has resulted in the individualization of religious affiliation and heightened competition for followership. The states in the northwestern zone have the highest percentage of Muslims in their total population, followed by the states in the northeast and the north-central zones in that descending order.
Just as Islam was introduced to West Africa by Muslim merchants, the catchphrase “follow the money” from the 1976 docudrama All the President’s Men serves as a guide for the history of Christianity in the same area.
The twists and turns are mind-boggling.
Despite the arrival of the first Christian missioners in the mid-1500s – just shy of a thousand years after the earliest Muslims, Christians represent approximately 45% of the population in modern day Nigeria - the country with the largest Christian population in Africa. The World Christian Encyclopedia (2020) and the World Christian Database estimate those who identify as Christians at 46.3% and Muslims at 46.2% of the population, while ethnic/indigenous religions account for 7.2% of the population. Other sources differ slightly in their estimates and there has not been an official census in Nigeria that included religious affiliations in decades. Anglican/Church of England affiliated churches include twenty-two million adherents, followed by Roman Catholics with twenty-one million.
Portuguese explorer Lançarote de Freitas sailed down the Niger River in 1472, marking the beginning of Portuguese trading, exploration and nominal Christianity in the region.
The earliest Roman Catholic priests – Augustinians (the religious community of Pope Leo XIV) and Capuchin Franciscans – accompanied Portugues merchant-adventurers through the 16th centuries. One European community of priests was expelled in the mid-1600s when they attempted to interrupt a traditional festival that included human sacrifice. Capuchin priests established St. Anthony’s Monastery between 1690 and 1693, but malaria forced the European missioners to abandon the effort. French priests from the Society of African Missioners arrived in Lagos in 1862 and by the following year had established a sustained presence in this area. Catholicism became a permanent presence in Nigeria with the arrival of Joseph Emile Lutz and three other Holy Ghost Fathers in 1885.
The history of Protestant Christianity in Nigeria is far more complicated.
Almost from the beginning, slave trade – the “living tool” – accompanied European Christianity in Africa. The 1807 British “Slave Trade Abolition Act,” followed by the antislavery movement of Evangelical Christians including the Methodists and Quakers in the United States and Denmark, paved the way for Protestant missionary efforts in Nigeria and much of the western coast of Africa.
Despite the fact that the entire passenger manifest of the first batch of freed slaves to leave British soil (April 8, 1787) was wiped-out by malaria and an attack by indigenous tribes, a new contingent of 1190 former slaves (freed in Nova Scotia) was planted in Sierra Leone, complete with their own preachers. Sierra Leone became the home of the first black church in modern Africa and the Christian Missionary Society quickly spread across western Africa and included another group from Nova Scotia and fifty emigrants from Jamaica. Emancipation also meant that former slaves were considered a social menace by England’s white society and re-settlement was seen as a solution.
The life of Samuel Ajayi Crowther is the stuff of a you-won’t-believe-this novel. Born in what is now Nigeria’s Oyo State in 1809, he and his family were captured by Fulani slave traders when he was twelve years old, resold to Portuguese slave traders, freed by the British Royal Navy West African Squad, in Sierra Leone converted to Christianity, and was ordained an Anglican priest and, ultimately, a bishop of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. He translated the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and the Bible into Yoruba, one of the major languages of West Africa – the first time Christian prayers were available to West African people in their native language.
The Methodist Church was established in Nigeria in 1842 by British Wesleyan missioners, responding to requests from freed slaves returning from Sierra Leon. It gained autonomy from the British Methodist Church in 1969 and adopted constitutional episcopacy in 1976.
Over time, more Nigerian evangelical and Pentecostal churches have broken away from these European exports, some blending traditional indigenous practices predating the first Europeans in the area with more normalized Christian expressions of faith.
On April 29, Al Jazerra (“Why some Nigerians are leaving Christianity for African spiritual beliefs,” Chibuike Nwachukwu) noted:
“…a growing number of young people have been moving away from monotheistic faiths towards Indigenous African beliefs, according to religious leaders and observers Al Jazeera spoke to.
“There is a dearth of data and research on the issue, observers said, but they started noticing the trend in the early 2000s. Many attribute it to growing apathy towards Christianity, but some say pastors focusing on material wealth over spiritual wellbeing – something contrary to the Bible’s teachings – leads people to consider alternative religious options….”
It is critical, before going into Nigeria “guns-a-blazin’” to recognize the roles of some of the violent actors. The Fula People (generally referred to in media coverage as “Fulani”) are the largest nomadic pastoral/herding community in the world and are found in a wide east-to-west belt across the entire African continent, including 15,300,000 in Nigeria. Ethnic Fulani, who are typically herdsmen, are mostly Christians. On June 25, 2018, The New York Times (“Nigeria’s Farmers and Herders Fight a Deadly Battle for Scarce Resources,” Emmanuel Akinwotu) reported:
“Clashes between armed herdsmen and farmers in Nigeria are escalating to increasingly violent episodes as a battle for scarce resources stirs long-held tensions over religion and ethnicity.”
With climate change and other challenges, those tensions and disputes over land use have continued to intensify.
Another element in the larger picture of “religion-based” murders in Nigeria is kidnapping and murder for profit. On March 12, 2021, The New York Times (“Nigeria’s Boarding Schools Have Become a Hunting Ground for Kidnappers,” Ruth Maclean) reported:
“But since last December, mass kidnappings of girls and boys at boarding schools in northwest Nigeria have been happening more and more frequently - at least one every three weeks. Just last Friday, more than 300 girls were taken from their school in Zamfara state. They were released this week… The week before, more than 40 children and adults were abducted from a boarding school in Niger state. They were freed on Saturday.
“With Nigeria’s economy in crisis, kidnapping has become a growth industry, according to interviews with security analysts and a recent report on the economics of abductions. The victims are now not just the rich, powerful or famous, but also the poor — and increasingly, school children who are rounded up en masse….”
More Recently, on August 26, 2025 Business Today (“Kidnap-for-ransom industry costs Nigeria N2.56bn in one year – report,” Taifeek Oyedokun) reported:
“Nigeria’s kidnap crisis has deepened into a multibillion-naira industry, with at least 4,722 people abducted and B2.56 billion paid in ransom between July 2024 and June 2025, according to a new report by SBM Intelligence.
“…kidnapping has become a highly organised and pervasive criminal industry rather than an isolated security problem….”
The kidnapping perpetrators are often gangs of bandits taking advantage of a dearth of effective policing and the easy availability of guns.
Finally (but not for this post), there’s the issue of the rogue Islamic groups Boku Haram and ISIS. We’ll return to them in the future.
Nonetheless, the next time you hear about American “guns-a-blazing” in Nigeria, remember Commodore Oliver Hazaard Perry. At dawn on September 10, 1813, a United States Navy lookout spotted six British vessels approaching Lake Eire’s Put-in-Bay. Perry prepared for battle. The American flotilla consisted of three brigs, five schooners and one sloop with a total of 54 guns, nine fewer than the British with mostly long guns that could throw a cannonball accurately to about 900 yards. (The American guns had an average range of 340 yards.)
Sailor Samuel Hambleton’s diary recalled
“About 11 o’clock Capt. Perry produced the flag & having unfurled it, mounted a gun slide & said ‘My Brave Lads, this Flag contains the last words of the brave Capt. Lawrence. Shall I hoist it?’ – ‘Aye, Aye’ they said from all quarters. Lawrence’s last words [had been inscribed on the flag]: “Don’t Give Up The Ship!”
By sundown, Perry was able to scrawl his famous message to William Henry Harrison on the back of an old envelope:
"Dear General: We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop. Yours with great respect and esteem, O.H. Perry".
Going into Nigeria “guns-a-blazin” would give new meaning to a 2014 Jim Morin cartoon following the murder of three Fort Hood (Texas) American soldiers by another soldier. In the cartoon, one solder tells another “We have met the enemy and once again he is us….”