24 Bokkos Clergy Martyred by Islamist Terrorists Since 2013
By Masara Kim
(Jos) — Pastor Emmanuel Hills and his wife, Scholastica, left their home in Bokkos, Plateau State, at dawn on Friday, August 28, for what was supposed to be a brief medical trip to Jos, the state capital. They expected to return that evening to their five children.
Scholastica made it home shortly before midnight. Her husband did not.
Pastor Hills was abducted alongside his colleague, Pastor Gabriel Joseph Dipak, on the road back to Bokkos and later found dead near the highway, stabbed multiple times in the abdomen. Witnesses told TruthNigeria their vehicle was intercepted by armed men shouting “Allahu Akbar.”
The ambush was staged 35 miles south of Jos, in Northcentral Nigeria. The killing has renewed calls for protection of Christians in Nigeria amid growing international scrutiny of religious freedom violations in Africa’s most populous nation.
TruthNigeria first learned of the abduction at 11:43 p.m. local time, less than two hours after it happened and worked with local law enforcement sources in the search for the hostages. By sunrise, Hills’ body had been recovered near the scene. His colleague, Pastor Dipak, was released by his captors later that same day, minutes before midnight, after a ransom was paid.
A Routine Trip Turns Deadly
The August 28 trip was for medical reasons. Hills, who had been unwell for several days, went to Jos University Teaching Hospital for examination, accompanied by his wife. They spent the day undergoing medical checks.
Pastor Dipak, who serves with Christ Apostolic Church in Bokkos, had also been in Jos — visiting an acquaintance admitted at the same hospital after attending a church leadership meeting. The two pastors did not plan to travel together but met at the bus station around 5 p.m. and boarded the same commercial minivan to Bokkos.
Scholastica said she had a bad feeling about traveling at dusk.
“I told my husband to abort the trip till the following day, but he was not a man to give into fear,” she told TruthNigeria. “Even in the community, everybody knew him to be a courageous man. Where other men of God will be scared to enter and speak, he will enter.”
She said her husband’s favorite Bible verse was Philippians 1:21: “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Less than an hour into the journey, her fears were realized.
“We saw flashlights on the lonely road, and I knew it was not soldiers,” Scholastica recalled. “Before we realized what was happening, we saw a group of armed men who flooded the road, pointing guns and machetes at us, forcing the driver to stop.
“They ordered all of us to get out of the vehicle and lie flat on our faces, as they walked to us, flashing their lights and seizing our phones and other belongings,” she said.
The attackers then let the other passengers go — except for the two pastors.
“They selected the two of us, myself and Pastor Hills, and took us to one side, and then told the other people to go,” Pastor Dipak told TruthNigeria.
“While we were marching toward the surrounding hills, Pastor Hills tried to escape, and right in front of me, they caught him and slaughtered him,” Dipak said. He said the men spoke Fulani and threatened to kill him if he did not comply.
“We trekked for several hours and arrived at their camp in the hills where they tied my hands and told me they were monitoring my movements from Jos and had received orders to kill me,” he said.
News of the kidnapping spread quickly as TruthNigeria coordinated with police to help rescue the hostages, while Scholastica prayed at home for their safe return. By sunrise the next day, Hills’ body was found near the ambush site.
“That was the worst news of my life and to this moment, I have yet to come to terms with it,” Scholastica said. “He was my best friend, my father, my brother and the one who gave me peace.”
As sympathizers gathered at her home to mourn, another crowd gathered about 600 meters away at Pastor Dipak’s home to celebrate his release after his church and family paid ransom.
A Pattern of Targeted Violence
Hills and Dipak are the latest victims in a wave of targeted violence attributed to radical Islamists that has seen 28,551 Christians killed and 34,773 abducted across Nigeria since 2019, according to the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa [ORFA].
In Plateau State alone, officials estimate more than 11,749 people have been killed in related violence since 2001.
Bokkos Local Government Area — often described as Nigeria’s potato headquarters and where both pastors lived and served — remains an epicenter. Bishop Ayuba Matawal, former chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Bokkos and now supervisor of displaced persons camps in the area, said radical Islamist groups from the Fulani tribe are responsible for much of the violence.
While tribal leaders report more than 500 Christians have been killed in Bokkos since 2013, Matawal told TruthNigeria the toll includes at least 24 ministers killed in the same period, with another 35 kidnapped, tortured and released after ransom.
In a text message to TruthNigeria, Matawal said ministers and churches are often the primary targets “due to their influence and roles as the symbol of the Christian faith.”
“Apart from the killings and kidnappings, you also have widespread destruction of churches and pastoriums which are often their first targets when they come to attack a community,” he wrote.
Hills, a former Dunamis Church pastor and founder of the eight-year-old Wonderful Grace of God Evangelical Ministry in Bokkos, was well aware of the risks. Despite losing both parents at a young age and having only one sister, he chose to remain in Bokkos, the community he had known most of his life, while maintaining occasional contact with his hometown of Enugu in southeastern Nigeria.
In addition to his pastoral role, Hills served as treasurer of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria in Bokkos and was known for advocating for Christians and other marginalized groups, TruthNigeria learned.
Masara Kim is a senior editor of TruthNigeria.com.
