Press Release
“Nigeria: A Strategy of Christian Extermination
Amidst Official Silence”

23 April 2026

The Universal Christian Church of the New Jerusalem denounces, with escalating alarm, a wave of coordinated attacks that has bloodied three Nigerian States in recent days, targeting leaders, families, and young people of the Christian communities.

Between 18 and 19 April, in the Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, Fulani jihadist militiamen abducted two prominent Christian authorities: the newly installed monarch of Olayinka and his wife were seized, and the community leader of Oloruntele was taken away from his home in front of his family.

That same night, eight Christians were killed and ten others were wounded during a series of synchronised raids across the Bassa, Barkin Ladi and Riyom areas of Plateau State. Notably, one of these assaults took place just five hundred metres from a Nigerian military outpost, which didn’t intervene.

On 20 April, approximately thirty Fulani jihadist militants stormed the Christian village of Awon, in the Kachia Local Government Area, in Kaduna State. Two young men were killed while trying to defend their community, and seven people, including a 14-year-old girl and a 75-year-old man, were kidnapped. Three girls are still missing. This attack occurred near Ariko, a village previously targeted on Easter Sunday, where thirty-seven people are still being held captive in inhumane conditions.

These are not isolated incidents, but rather coordinated acts forming a deliberate strategy of extermination and displacement. The clear objective is to eliminate the Christian presence from Nigeria’s Middle Belt and hand these territories over to those who oppose the Gospel of Christ.

The Church draws close with all her love to those held captive, the injured, the families of the victims and all those living with daily anguish. The Church cries out to the Lord for justice for the blood of these innocents and urges the relevant authorities to act without further delay. Every day of silence is another day of bloodshed for the Christians of these lands.

“How long, holy and true Master,
until you pass sentence and take vengeance for our blood
on the inhabitants of the earth?”
(Rev 6:10)