Today marks two years since Boko Haram militants stormed a girls’ school in Northern Nigeria and kidnapped more than 100 girls, among them Christian teenager Leah Sharibu. Five of the abducted girls died and the others were released through back-channel efforts, but Leah remains in captivity, held by a terrorist group that oscillates between threatening to kill her and vowing to keep her as a “slave for life.” It’s the price she pays for refusing to renounce her Christian faith.
U.S. officials have advocated for Leah’s safe return. In April 2018, President Trump raised the issue with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in the Oval Office. Congressional leaders, human rights advocates, and others have joined Leah’s family and the international community in calling on Buhari to use the full extent of his power to secure her release.
Yet Leah remains in captivity and it’s unclear what – if anything – is being done to bring her home. Although unconfirmed, some reports say that the devout Christian has been forced to accept Islam, marry a Boko Haram commander, and even allegedly give birth to a baby boy earlier this year. Her treatment is the very definition of deplorable.
In addition to the atrocities Leah is facing, more than 100 Chibok girls are still held captive. These girls may be forgotten by the Nigerian government, but they are not forgotten by people of conscience. Those who continue to pursue justice know that the Chibok girls also need to be brought home.
The Nigerian government’s failure to secure the release of Leah and so many other captives is a symptom of a longstanding and growing problem: a silent slaughter of Christians at the hands of groups like Boko Haram, the Islamic State West African Providence, and Fulani militants that must be stopped.
Studies by domestic international organizations have found that Christians are the most widely persecuted religious group in the world. According to a report by Open Doors USA, more than 260 million Christians live in places where they experience high levels of persecution, just for following Jesus. That’s one in eight believers worldwide. Some parts of the world are worse than others, and Nigeria nears the top of the list.
According to 2020 reports, Nigerian Christians have repeatedly been the target of attacks and victims of religious and systematic persecution, with attacks becoming even more aggressive and daring under the current administration. Pew Research Center says that Nigeria is among the countries with the largest reported increase in religious violence by organized groups since 2007. This trend has earned Nigeria a spot as the 12th worst in the world in terms of Christian persecution. In fact, Nigeria was placed on the State ’s “special watch list” of countries that tolerate or engage in "severe violations of religious freedom" for the first time in December.
While some try to argue that the violence isn’t motivated by religion, the of State’s 2018 International Religious Freedom Report states that Boko Haram has targeted 900 churches since the insurgency began. The US Department of State also reports instances of Christian worshipers and priests being slaughtered, even during church services. Just last month, Reverend Lawan Andimi was beheaded by Boko Haram after refusing to deny Christ; Pastor Denis Baguari of the Lutheran Church of Nigeria, a well-known political advocate for Christians, was reportedly killed in a night attack; and the Islamic State released a video of an eight-year-old child soldier killing a Christian man in Nigeria and another showing the beheading of 10 Christian aid workers.
Month after month of continuous violence has taken its toll. Since 2015, the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust estimates that more than 6,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria (1,000 in 2019 alone) and as many as 12,000 more have been displaced from their homes. In July of last year, the Jubilee Campaign, an international human rights nongovernmental organization, wrote a report to the International Criminal Court stating that “the standard of genocide has now been reached” in Nigeria.
While this genocide may seem worlds away, the effects are vast and far-reaching. Crux editor John L. Allen Jr. recently wrote, “If things go bad, the consequences won’t be confined to Nigeria’s borders but could spark economic, military and cultural upheaval around the world.” He indicated that Nigeria may be nearing its tipping point and warned the international community that it’s unclear how much longer the country will be “spared a larger eruption” if the violence continues, and that there is a “perception that authorities are unable, or unwilling, to do anything about it.”
That is why action is so critical. What's more, inaction against these terrorist groups only embolden them to take more extreme actions.
With this in mind, the Nigerian government and the international community must immediately increase efforts to secure Leah’s release and reunite her with her family. The United States government must do its part to keep the eyes of the world focused on Leah and demand her freedom. Beyond that, we need to send a clear message to the Nigerian government that the silent slaughter of Nigeria’s Christians will not be tolerated.
Enough is enough. It’s time to put an end to the culture of religious violence that allowed Leah to be taken in the first place, and it is time to bring her home.
Stephen S. Enada is Executive President of the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON), which he co-founded in 2017. ICON exists because injustice and a lack of inclusive governance that falls along ethnoreligious fault lines threatens the stability of Africa’s most important nation. ICON works in both the USA and in Nigeria to raise awareness and build collaborative partnerships to address both the religious liberty at home and violations of religious freedom abroad.
