The record, not the slogan
Open Doors’ World Watch List 2026 ranked Nigeria 7th globally for persecution of Christians, with a score of 89 — the highest the country has recorded under the current methodology. Of 4,849 Christians killed worldwide in that reporting period because of their faith, 3,490 were in Nigeria.
Intersociety, a Nigerian civil-liberties monitor, estimates that more than 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since the Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009 — at least 52,250 through April 2023 in its report Martyred Christians in Nigeria. That long-run figure is Intersociety’s estimate, not a CSA² audit. Intersociety later counted 3,083 Christians killed and 3,193 abducted from January through August 2026, with 400 churches attacked and 25 priests or pastors killed or taken. Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi has called what is underway in Benue “a genocide at the hands of jihadists.”
On 13–14 June 2025, militants attacked the Christian farming community of Yelwata in Benue State for four hours. Open Doors documented 258 people killed, most of them women and children, with little military intervention. That is one night. 2026 has added Kawel, Ayilamo, Riyom, Ungwan Magaji, and a string of Palm Sunday and Easter church raids.
About 3.4 million Nigerians remain internally displaced by violence. Churches have been burned; clergy abducted; whole villages emptied. Traditional relief cannot hold ground that hostile groups contest. The headlines below are from independent newsrooms and monitors — not from CSA².