His captors vowed to “exterminate Christians.” Four years later, coordinated attacks across Plateau, Benue, and Kaduna show the threat was never contained.
By Mary Kiara
LAGOS, Nigeria — Four years after Catholic priest Father Stephen Ojapah survived a jihadist execution attempt and heard his captors declare a mission to “exterminate Christians,” Nigeria’s church leaders say the violence he witnessed in 2022 has now erupted into one of the deadliest waves of anti‑Christian attacks in the country’s recent history — even as the federal government continues to deny any religious‑motivated genocide.
The rectory of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Gidan Maikambo, Kafur County, Katsina State was stormed by terrorists on May 25, 2022. Father Ojapah was forced on a two-day, 45-mile march through the bush without food or water before being dragged into a terrorist camp near the Kwiambana Game Reserve.
“The leader told us their group was Ansaru, a jihadist split from Boko Haram,” Fr. Ojapah recalled his time in captivity.
“The terrorists told us that they see the extermination of Christians as their religious mission. They said after a village has been burned and raided three times, the residents don’t return, and they see that as a blessing upon their crimes.”
When his captors demanded a prisoner be executed as a warning to the public, Ojapah stepped forward.
“Because I knew they came for me, I said to them, ‘I would go,’” Ojapah said. “I stood up, looked at the others, told them goodbye, and blessed them.”
At the edge of the killing site, his captors argued among themselves and abruptly recalled him.
Ojapah survived and eventually fled into UK exile, but the jihadist vision revealed to him in that camp, the methodical, religious strategy to eradicate Christian presence across northern and central Nigeria is now unfolding with unprecedented lethality.
The Islamization Mission Continues
During a single week in late September 2026, terrorist attacks across Plateau, Benue, and Kaduna states left at least 41 Christians dead and over 100 abducted, according to field data compiled by TruthNigeria.
An ordained pastor and a church worker were ambushed and shot dead near Dorowa Babuje while traveling to lead a Sunday morning worship service.
That same weekend, armed militants raided five predominantly Christian villages in Plateau State, killing at least 13 people. On September 25, three vigilantes were ambushed in Kassa community; more than 20 hectares of ready-to-harvest farmland were destroyed across Jol, Riyom, and Gashish.
Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, a cleric buried nine of his members in a single weekend. He had praised Trump’s United Nations address days earlier, according to TruthNigeria’s reporting.
The attacks were not random. Churches and Christian villages were singled out.
“The attackers carried automatic weapons and machetes and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ while attacking residents,” Manasseh Umishi, Security Secretary of Tombo Precinct and an eyewitness to a September 10 attack that killed seven Christians and four police officers in Benue State, told TruthNigeria.
“I heard the attackers speaking Fulani language and chanting Allahu Akbar while shooting and macheting our people,” Umishi said.
“The continued attacks are causing endless pain and fear among residents,” Bulus Dabit, National President of the Mwaghavul Development Association, told TruthNigeria. “It cannot be allowed to continue while officials promise relief that never arrives.”
A Worsening Campaign of Clergy Targeting
Four years after Ojapah’s survival, government assertions that security is improving are directly contradicted by the systematic targeting of Christian clergy across northern states.
Data compiled by the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria and Aid to the Church in Need reveals that between 2015 and 2025, over 145 Catholic priests were abducted and 11 killed.
Kaduna State remains the deadliest zone, accounting for 24 priest kidnappings. As of September 2026, three Catholic priests remain missing in action without proof of life.
A communications director for one Nigerian diocese told the Catholic News Agency that ransom keeps the kidnappings going.
“It’s easier to kidnap priests, and give him little torture, and money will come out of it,” he said. Virtually no priest escapes without cash changing hands.
“Incidences like clergy attacks and abductions have made it difficult for Christians in northern Nigeria to stand firm and speak their minds,” Rev. Joseph Hayab, Chairman of the Northern Christian Association of Nigeria, told TruthNigeria.
“Even those of us who come out to speak up against the ills Christians face sometimes do not find it easy,” Hayab said. “A larger group has been intimidated into silence, into weakness and giving in.”
The Government’s Denial
While Abuja continues to categorize the ongoing massacres as “communal clashes, climate change and economic disputes,” frontline church leadership insists the violence aligns with the exact religious mandate Fr. Ojapah heard in captivity.
“This is a calculated strategy of Islamization aimed at breaking local Christian resilience and taking over ancestral farmlands,” Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Catholic Diocese of Makurdi told TruthNigeria.
The data supports the bishop – Open Doors’ World Watch List found Nigeria accounted for 72 percent of Christians killed for their faith worldwide in the year ending September 2025, the highest of any country in both killings and kidnappings.
In 2022, Ojapah’s captors told him exactly what they intended. The attacks and killings show they meant it, but the Nigerian government has spent four years calling it something else.
Mary Kiara reports on terrorism and Religious Freedom Policy for TruthNigeria.
