Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe, of the diocese of Makurdi in Nigeria, said in a Fox News interview published on Tuesday that his home village of Aondona was attacked by “terrorist jihadis” and over 20 of its residents were murdered after he testified at a U.S. congressional hearing on Christian persecution.
Anagbe gave a statement to the House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee in March at a hearing on “conflict and persecution in Nigeria.” The goal of the hearing was to determine if Nigeria warranted designation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
Nigeria received the CPC designation in 2020, but it was mysteriously rescinded under the Biden administration. Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, bizarrely insisted that while a great deal of violence was undeniably being perpetrated against Christians, there was insufficient evidence the attacks were motivated by religion.
Instead, Blinken stunned religious freedom advocates by dismissing the assaults and looting as “intercommunal clashes.” Critics responded by noting that more Christians were being killed in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world, and the killers were primarily Islamist radicals from groups like Boko Haram and militant Muslim tribesmen known as the Fulani.
On March 11, Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) introduced a resolution asking the Trump administration to restore Nigeria’s designation as a CPC. Smith’s resolution noted that both Christian and Muslim leaders in Nigeria who attempt to make peace are frequently threatened, attacked, and killed.
Bishop Anagbe told the subcommittee on March 12 that Nigeria, and especially his diocese in the state of Benue, “have become, in recent years, one of the most dangerous and insecure places for Christians.”
“Islamist extremists are fiercely contesting the possessions, control, and governing law of the land, especially in the country’s northern and central regions,” he said.
Anagbe noted that Nigeria has always been a “fragile” nation prone to “ethnic, political, and religious conflicts over land and allegiance,” but the situation grew much worse as Islamism became ascendant.
“Today, the clear influence of Islamist extremists has changed the traditional social dynamics of tribe, ethnicity, religion, and social status in Nigeria, as elsewhere in Africa,” he warned.
“A long-term Islamic agenda to homogenize the population has been implemented, over several presidencies, through a strategy to reduce and eventually eliminate the Christian identity of half the population,” he said.
“This strategy includes both violent and non-violent actions, such as the exclusion of Christians from positions of power, the abduction of Church members, the raping of women, the killing and expulsion of Christians, the destruction of churches and farmlands of Christian farmers, followed by the occupation of such lands by Fulani herders,” he said.
“All of this takes place without government interference or reprisals,” he added.
Anagbe said the Fulani tribesmen are agents in a “campaign to take land to spread Islam” by driving Christians away from their farms. He said the Fulani steal, vandalize, rape, and kill with “total impunity from the elected authorities,” who also have no problem with Islamists aggressively recruiting more fighters from among impoverished Nigerians, or with Islamic groups seeking to impose sharia law upon Christian communities.
“The experience of the Nigerian Christians today can be summed up as that of a Church under Islamist extermination. It is frightening to live there!” he said.
For all of these reasons, the bishop asked the Trump administration to “re-designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern,” in order to “signal that you are paying attention to what happens to us.” He further asked the United States to pressure the Nigerian government to allow internally displaced Christians to return to their lands, instead of keeping them in refugee camps.
Anagbe said he knew he could face reprisals for speaking out, and Rep. Smith said he was aware of threats that “something might happen to him” when he returned to Nigeria. Smith said he was “appalled” that Nigerian officials could punish Anagbe and another Christian cleric who testified along with him, Father Remigius Ihyula, for testifying to Congress about threats to religious freedom.
In April, the U.S. Mission in Nigeria said it was “disturbed” by reports of “intimidation and threats” against Anagbe and Ihyula.
“We call on all actors to respect Bishop Anagbe’s and Father Remigius’s right to speak freely without fear of retribution or retaliation,” the mission said.
Anagbe told Fox News this week that four attacks were perpetrated against his home village of Aondona, and the neighboring town of Naka, between May 23 and June 1. He said Aondona was “attacked for hours, leaving over 20 people dead, scores injured, and thousands now displaced and living in makeshift camps.”
Anagbe said Naka was attacked with such intensity that “even those earlier displaced and taking refuge in a nearby school were not spared.”
“All over Nigeria, these terrorists are going about on a jihad and conquering territories and renaming them accordingly,” he said.
The bishop warned Nigerian Christians could be facing a “genocide” on par with the Holocaust, or the 1990s tribal atrocity in Rwanda.
“In both cases, the world hid its face in the sand like an ostrich. If the world does not rise up now to put a stop to the atrocities orchestrated in the name of being politically correct, it may wake up one day to casualties that make the Rwandan genocide a child’s play,” he said.
On Monday, Anagbe mourned the deaths of over a hundred Christians in attacks across Benue State by Fulani jihadists last month.
“No nation watches her citizens slaughtered like animals and says there is nothing to be done. It’s genocide,” he said.
Anagbe noted that 17 parishes in the state have been shuttered over the past three weeks, as the terrified parishioners were driven from their homes.
“An entire community has been displaced and taken over. They cannot go back,” he said.
“These cold-blooded attacks on defenseless communities — where countless have been slaughtered, homes destroyed, and families left in anguish — are an affront to God, a stain on our shared humanity, and a terrifying reminder of the utter breakdown of security in our land,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) said in a statement.
“The relentless attacks on innocent and defenseless communities under the watch of civil authorities constitute a grave moral and constitutional failure. This carnage must end,” CBCN said.
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