Donald Trump didn’t mince his words when on November 1 he wrote on “Truth” that he was ready to launch a “fast, vicious, and sweet” armed attack in Nigeria to “completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists” who are persecuting “our cherished Christians,” if the Nigerian government continues to do nothing to defend them.
It is hard to predict what follow-up this threat will have. The fact is that in Nigeria, and not only there, it has stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy in the Catholic Church.
“The glory goes to God, who has used President Trump as the Moses who from nowhere appeared at the palace of Pharaoh to set his people free,” Moses Iorapuu, parish priest and director of the Catholic Star newspaper of the diocese of Makurdi, told the American Catholic website "Crux."
And thank goodness he is there, he added, because “many Nigerians had given up hope of anything spectacular happening on the international scene in favor of the persecuted Church, following the imbroglio that ensued in Rome.”
“The imbroglio” to which Iorapuu alludes is given by two commentaries that accompanied the presentation in Rome, on October 21, of the 2025 Report on religious freedom in the world, nation by nation, published by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need.
Cardinal secretary of state Pietro Parolin, questioned by journalists on that occasion, said that in Nigeria “the conflict is not religious but more of a social nature, for example between herders and farmers,” with many Muslims also “victims of this intolerance,” at the hands of “extremist groups that make no distinction for the sake of advancing their goals, their objectives, and use violence against all those they consider opponents.”
And interviewed by the Vatican agency Fides, Nigerian bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the diocese of Sokoto, traced the current “resentment” of Muslims against Christians back to the misdeeds of British colonialism, which destroyed the Islamic caliphate that had been established in the region in the early nineteenth century, with its capital in Sokoto.
“With the British came the Christian faith,” the bishop added. And this means that even today, “sections of the Muslim population [vent] their anger and frustration on the Christian minority during turbulent events, for example, by setting fire to a church,” with the Islamic guerrillas of Boko Haram exploiting this situation to recruit fighters.
The current narrative, Kukah added, is that Christians are the persecuted, but “jihadist violence has claimed more lives among Muslims than among Christians. The statistics tell us this..” And then “since 2023, a noticeable change has taken place with the new President, Bola Tinubu, a Muslim married to a pastor of a Pentecostal church, as he appears much more determined to preserve democracy and to protect the human rights of all Nigerians.”
It is not surprising that the assertions of Cardinal Parolin and Nigerian bishop Kukah have raised lively objections. But it must be said that the same report from Aid to the Church in Need is the first not to share them and to provide a different and more detailed description of the situation of Christians in Nigeria.
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To begin with, according to the report, the advent of Tinubu’s presidency in May of 2023 did not at all coincide with a reduction in attacks on Christians, but on the contrary with “an escalation of religiously motivated violence, particularly in the North and the Middle Belt. Armed groups like Boko Haram, ISWAP, and various militias have carried out large-scale attacks against churches, villages, and religious leaders.”
In the month following the inauguration of the new president alone, the report states, over a thousand Christians were killed in the states of Plateau and Benue. The following Christmas, another three hundred victims. Not to mention the terrible massacre (see photo) in June of 2025 in the village of Yelwata, also in the state of Benue, with more than two hundred men, women, children, whole Christian families killed after having already lost everything and fled there in search of shelter.
The kidnappings number many hundreds, with only a small number released after a ransom payment. In covering the kidnapping of two priests last September, the website Vatican News gave as 140 the number of Nigerian priests kidnapped in the last ten years, and as 10 the number of priests killed.
And all this done by whom, and why ?
Accompanying the Report, on page 22 of the “Summary,” Aid to the Church in Need has published an in-depth note dedicated specifically to “Fulani and jihadism in Africa : between historical legacies and manipulations,” with the byline of Maria Lozano.
The Fulani, it states, are the ethnic group from which jihadism recruits the majority of its militants. They populate not only northern Nigeria but also other countries in the Sahel. Traditionally they are nomadic herders, although many have settled in agro-pastoral or urban settings. “Their identity is deeply influenced by Sunni Islam and they are historically linked to the Islamization of the region, but it is important to reiterate that they do not represent a homogeneous group, neither from the social, political, or ideological point of view.”
They are divided into castes – including nobles, clerics, artisans, and lower-caste nomadic herders – and this internal division plays a significant role in the jihadist recruitment process. "The upper castes, including the religious or noble aristocracy linked to the ancient emirates and caliphates, control the land and dominate politics, and in most cases oppose jihadism. While the lower castes, made up of young landless herders, often descendants of serfs or slaves, have no access to education or basic services. This is the most vulnerable segment and the most exposed to recruitment.
“This social divide helps explain why so many radicalized young Fulani belonging to lower castes act not only against other communities, but also against their own traditional elites, perceived as part of an unjust political system. In such cases, jihadism functions as a means of symbolic social advancement and as an instrument of intra-ethnic vengeance.”
There are also at least four external factors that contribute to radicalizing Islamism among the Fulani : “systemic social exclusion and marginalization due to the nomadic lifestyle ; the reduction of traditional pastoral routes on account of population growth and climate change ; agrarian conflicts with sedentary populations over access to land and water ; ethnic stigmatization and violence on the part of state forces or local militias.”
The worst is happening in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, particularly in the state of Benue, known as “Nigeria's breadbasket,” where “conflicts between Muslim Fulani herders and Christian Berom, Tiv, and Idoma farmers have turned into systematic violence that goes beyond traditional rural disputes over land and water.”
Historical precedents are important. The jihad fought by the Sokoto Caliphate, founded in the early nineteenth century by Usman dan Fodio, to conquer the central and southern regions of Nigeria for Islam failed but left deep scars. “In the state of Benue, Tiv Christians hand down the memory of their victory over the Fulani near the Ushongo hills, which became a symbol of resistance to the expansion of Islam.”
But this same historical precedent is used by current jihadist groups like Boko Haram, the Islamic State of the Sahara Province (ISWAP), and the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (JNIM) to strengthen their desire for revenge.
According to the most attentive local and international observers, “the acts of violence in the Middle Belt are by now part of a true campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing. Most of the victims of the conflicts with the Fulani in this region are Christians, and the affected areas largely coincide with those that in the past resisted Islamic expansion.”
All this without an adequate response from the authorities. “Although the federal government has acknowledged the gravity of the crisis, the response has been slow, reactive, and devoid of real legal consequences for those responsible. The massacres continue, and tens of thousands of displaced people continue to live in extremely precarious conditions.”
This is how the in-depth note published by Aid to the Church in Need concludes :
“The crisis in the Sahel and the Middle Belt cannot be interpreted as a simple local conflict between herders and farmers. It is a never-ending war for land, religious identity, and economic and political power. The collective trauma of historical jihads, aggravated by state inaction and manipulation on the part of extremist groups, fuels a cycle of violence that risks spreading to the whole region. Christian communities – particularly in Nigeria – are subjected to systematic persecution, but many Fulani too are the victims of structural violence and ideological exploitation. Building a lasting peace in the Sahel requires truth, justice, and a deep analysis capable of going beyond the polarized discussions.”
As for Pope Leo, it is worth recording the verbatim words he said at the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square the day after the Yelwata massacre :
“During the night between 13 and 14 June, a terrible massacre took place in the city of Yelwata, located in the local administrative area of Gouman, in the state of Benue, Nigeria. Around two hundred people were killed with extreme cruelty. The majority of those killed were internally displaced people who were being housed at a local Catholic mission. I pray that security, justice and peace prevail in Nigeria, a beloved country that has suffered various forms of violence. I pray in particular for the rural Christian communities in the state of Benue, who have unceasingly been victims of violence.”
(Translated by Matthew Sherry : traduttore@hotmail.com)
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Sandro Magister is past “vaticanista” of the Italian weekly L’Espresso.
The latest articles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archive of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is accessible.
As is the complete index of the blog www.chiesa, which preceded it.