34 Christians kidnapped, one butchered, and entire farming communities forced to pay “harvest taxes” as Fulani extremist militias tighten their siege.
By Mike Odeh James
RIDO, Kaduna State, Nigeria — As U.S. President Donald Trump stood before the 81st United Nations General Assembly Tuesday and declared that “Christians are being persecuted all over the world,” Fulani ethnic militia delivered a brutal illustration of his claim in the hard-scrabble Savannah in Nigeria’s Southern Kaduna State.
At UNGA 81, Trump accused the UN Human Rights Council of remaining silent while Christians are slaughtered in Nigeria, Iraq, Iran, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The President was returning to his policy track outlined last October.
A year prior to Trump’s UNGA address, he had warned bluntly on his TruthSocial page on Oct 31, 2025: “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.” He added that of 4,476 Christians killed worldwide for their faith, 3,100 were killed in Nigeria alone, and said “something must be done.”
In Southern Kaduna, something is being done – unfortunately, by the killers.
In a coordinated wave of terror between September 13 and September 21, 2026, at least 34 Christians were abducted, one man was murdered, and entire farming communities were deserted, TruthNigeria has learned. The attacks expose the existential threat to Christianity in Nigeria that President Trump warned the world about last October.
The latest horror unfolded on Sunday, September 21, in Maruba, a Christian hamlet in Mararaban Rido, Chikun County (Local Government Area). Armed Fulani militia stormed the village at dusk. According to residents who spoke to TruthNigeria, the attackers matcheted to death a farmer identified only as Mr. Vinas. They then dragged his wife away into the thick Rijana forest, along with two other residents.
Elijah Bala, a resident of Maruba, confirmed the killing to TruthNigeria. “They butchered Vinas before his wife’s eyes and then seized his wife and took her away,” he said.
The seized spouse was an 18-year-old nursing mother. Militia fighters tore her from her home and marched her into the forest, leaving her 11-month-old infant behind.
The distraught grandfather of the abandoned child told TruthNigeria he is helpless as the baby cries endlessly for a mother who may never return. The infant, now in the care of extended family, has not stopped wailing.
Maruba is not an isolated case. It is the third point in a triangle of terror that has paralyzed Kajuru and Chikun counties in the last nine days.
Luka Baba, Chairman of the Records Committee in Janhurya, told TruthNigeria that Christian farming communities are under total and brutal siege. He provided a documented breakdown of the abductions:
On September 13, five residents were abducted in Ungwan Sule, Chikun County.
On September 20, in the single largest assault, 26 residents were seized in a mass kidnapping inside Janhurya Forest, Kajuru County. Janhurya sits deep in the remote forest belt of Southern Kaduna, long a killing field for militia.
On September 21, three residents were abducted in Maruba, Mararaban Rido.
Total: 34 persons officially documented as kidnapped
Baba warned that 34 is a conservative figure. Many outlying hamlets remain cut off, inaccessible, and too terrified to report. The real number, he said, could be higher.
“For more than eight months, Fulani militia have laid siege to this area,” Bala said. “We have reported repeatedly to the Nigerian Army and to the government. No action has been taken.”
That siege has now mutated into a system of economic strangulation.
Beyond kidnapping for ransom, the terrorists have imposed what residents call “harvest taxes” – a regime of terror levies. Christian farmers are being ordered to pay between N1 million ($700) and N2 million per village before they are allowed to enter their own farms to harvest maize, ginger, and soybeans – the staple cash crops of Southern Kaduna.
Those who cannot pay are barred at gunpoint. Those who try to defy the order are killed or abducted.
“The people can no longer go to farm. The communities are under siege,” Baba said. “They have abandoned their farmlands completely. We are facing starvation.”
The result is a ghost belt. Residents of the towns of Maruba, Government Day, Ungwan Sule, Janhurya and surrounding communities are fleeing en masse. Farms that should be bustling with harvest are silent. Churches are empty. Schools are closed.
The pattern aligns precisely with what President Trump described at the UN as persecution ignored by the world body. Nigerian Christian leaders, in response, compared Trump to Roman Emperor Constantine, saying his words mirrored courage and spoke for voiceless millions whose despair is ignored in the hallowed chambers of the United Nations.
On the ground in Mararaban Rido, that despair has a face – an 11-month-old boy who does not understand why his mother is gone, and a grandfather who does not know how to tell him.
Local sources say the abducted women are being held in Rijana forest, a known enclave for militia camps that straddles the Kaduna-Abuja highway. No ransom demand has been made public. Security forces have not launched a rescue operation.
Skewed Coverage of Kidnapping Crisis In Southern Kaduna
Major Kaduna newspapers have largely ignored or refused to publish stories about Fulani Ethnic Militia activities in Southern Kaduna, according to TruthNigeria’s reporting.
A journalist at a Lagos-based news organization said kidnapping stories require vetting by the Police Public Relations Officer before publication. Other reporters cited house-style restrictions against using terms such as “Fulani Ethnic Militia” or “terrorists,” requiring use of the term, “bandits,” instead. Several cited fear of arrest or targeting by both militants and government officials as reasons for self-censorship. All news sources requested anonymity.
For the Christian communities of Southern Kaduna, Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern last year is not abstract diplomacy. It is daily life under a tax of blood, where a farmer must pay to reap what he sowed, where a nursing mother is commodity, and where a baby’s cry echoes through an empty village that the Nigerian state has chosen not to hear.
Mike Odeh James is a conflict reporter for TruthNigeria.
