Suspected Fulani terrorists on Wednesday (March 11) killed a Christian and kidnapped five others in western Nigeria, sources said.
John Omoniyi Ajise was killed in the attack in Oyatedo village, in the Irepodun area of Kwara state, and his wife and four other Christians were kidnapped, according to a press statement from the Rev. Samuel Adewumi and the Rev. Dr. Joseph Agboluaje, chairman and secretary respectively of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Kwara state.
Omoniyi Ajise was the brother of ECWA Vice President the Rev. Sunday Stephen Ajise.
The attack was the latest of several cases of killing and kidnappings of Christians, Adewumi nd Agboluaje said.
“Many pastors are now without congregations, while members and residents have been compelled to flee their homes,” the church leaders said. “Economic activities have been severely disrupted, and many families have been pushed into hardship.”
They issued the statement after a joint meeting of all leaders of ECWA Districts Church Councils of Ilorin, Omu-Aran, Igbaja, Oro-Ago and Fate-Tanke in Kwara state.
The church leaders cited two other Christians previously kidnapped in Ahun village, another predominantly Christian community, identified only as Dada and Ishola.
Police in Kwara state have acknowledged a series of attacks and said efforts were underway to curb them.
“You know the command is not resting on its oars,” Kwara State Police Command spokesman Adetoun Ejire-Adeyemi told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “The Inspector General of Police visited Kwara state, and he promised to ensure banditry in the state would be a thing of the past. We also made some arrests recently, and those suspects will be charged in court soon after the conclusion of investigation.”
More Christians were killed in Nigeria than in any other country from Oct. 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025, according to Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List. Of the 4,849 Christians killed worldwide for their faith during that period, 3,490 – 72 percent – were Nigerians, an increase from 3,100 the prior year. Nigeria ranked No. 7 on the WWL list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.
“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.
Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.
In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.
The violence has spread to southern states, and a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali.
