Explainer
Culture
Freedom of Belief
Migration
7 min read

From Nigeria’s killing fields to Europe’s shores, the data behind the domino effect

While Nigeria thrives, some left-behind are desperate to escape.

Chris Wadibia is an academic advising on faith-based challenges. His research includes political Pentecostalism, global Christianity, and development. 

A data map shows circles of varying size across a map of Nigeria
Fatal attacks map.
ORFA.

Just as every coin has two sides, every soul contains the equal capacity for good and evil. Just like affairs of the soul, migration has the ability to strengthen or weaken societies.  

Nigeria, the Giant of Africa, has one of the world’s largest and most professionally distinguished diasporas. Over 17 million Nigerians live in other countries. The most famous members of the Nigerian diaspora, figures like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Anthony Joshua, John Boyega, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Wally Adeyemo, have achieved stardom thanks to talents that impact or entertain millions of people globally.  

However, these famous figures merely represent the glorious one percent of the Nigerian diaspora. Their success can easily distract observers from the grim reality of why so many Nigerians desperately seek to leave a country known for producing world changers.  

Seeking data on violence 

In October 2019, researchers at the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa started a project exploring the nature and impacts of of religious violence in Nigeria. The project spanned four years and generated many significant findings. Terror groups in Nigeria killed 31,000 civilians in 7,000 attacks in just four years, the Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) accounting for 39 per cent of these killings (a figure dwarfing the killings perpetrated by ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates),  So called “land-based community attacks,” a concept referring to instances when actors like FEM invade small Christian farming settlements to kill, rape, and abduct Christians and burn their homes, accounted for 82 per cent of civilian killings in the study, Christian death tolls far exceeding Muslim death tolls (2.7 Christians killed for every 1 Muslim killed) in the reporting period, and 6.5 times as many Christian murders compared to Muslim murders relative to average state populations.  

The methodology of the study set out to find data on all the people, regardless of their religion, negatively affected by terrorist violence. However, with every new batch of data collected, disturbing patterns emerged. Since the 2009 birth of the infamous Boko Haram insurgency, global media coverage of the terrorist violence has consistently argued Muslims rather than Christians disproportionately bear the brunt of this Islamist extremist violence. The findings of the study suggest otherwise.  

ORFA data map of fatal attacks across Nigeria.

A data map shows circles of varying size across a map of Nigeria
Source: ORFA.

Shouldn’t the government do something? 

Historically, Nigerian governments have been reticent, even reluctant, to condemn violence in the north associated with the Fulani ethnic group. Former presidents like Muhammadu Buhari, a member of the Fulani, have even gone as far as to dismiss the issue of Fulani ethnic violence as just “cattle rustling.” However, in Nigeria, mere “cattle rustling” to some is a seriously grave situation for others.  

Findings by the Observatory researchers suggest Nigerian security operatives, most of whom belong to the Fulani and Hausa ethnic groups, have a suspiciously selective way of engaging with terrorist violence in northern Nigeria, often leaving Christians distinctively vulnerable. Roman Catholics in Nigeria have even accused Nigeria's military of being a jihadist force. Churches in northern Nigeria live in a constant state of terror and acutely distressing fear.  

In Nigeria, the federal government alone, led by the president, has the final say on matters concerning security and the army. Incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has notably appointed far more Christians to senior government offices than his predecessor, Buhari. The Nigerian government is famously opaque. Despite its nominally democratic visage, family dynasties and networks continue to dominate political life and business affairs.  

Understanding the religious geography and reaction 

Religion in Nigeria is divided along geographical lines. The northern half is dominated by conservative Islam. Catholicism and Anglicanism reign supreme in the southeast. The southwest functions as a geographical melting pot of Islam (albeit a more secular variety compared to the north) and Christianity (especially Pentecostalism).  The north contains a surprisingly large number of Pentecostals. Many Pentecostal pastors and choirs in the north have been kidnapped by the mercilessly violent Islamist extremists.  

The overwhelming majority of Christians in Nigeria live in the southern half of the country. However, in a Nigeria which has suffered from one oppressive government after another for decades (most of these led by conservative Islamic military and civilian presidents), most Christians struggle to survive and lack the energy to speak up for their northern kin. Despite their weariness, the Southern Nigerian Church (the collective population of Christians living in the south) has a sacred responsibility to awaken and demand greater protections from the federal government and the military for Christians living in the north.   

Local causes, global effect 

Over the last two decades, commentators have routinely pointed to climate change as the primary factor facilitating violent encounters between Muslims and Christians. Fulani cattle herders, guided by the desire for better grazing lands for their livestock, have often encroached on land owned by Christian farmers in the north and middle regions. The findings by researchers at the Observatory suggest significantly more is going on to facilitate these violent clashes than just climate change. Ascribing the challenge of religious violence in Nigeria to just climate change provides a get-out-of-jail free card to the men of violence linked to the orchestrated killings of Christians. 

Ethno-religious violence has quietly become commonplace in northern Nigerian life. The single solution capable of curbing this violence is unprecedented, cross-party, interethnic, and interreligious security reform. Strength of security affects every person in Nigeria. From the richest to the poorest, no one is immune from a sudden kidnapping, suicide bomb, or violent act of banditry negatively changing their life forever.  

Nigeria's neighbours in Europe cannot afford to continue slumbering and must wake up. Readers in Europe feeling insulated from the violence the data records are just as susceptible to the shockwaves that a collapse of the Nigerian state as other West African neighbours. Such an event would imperil the security of citizens in countries like Italy, Spain, and Greece just as much as it would people living in Mali, Chad, and Cameroon.  

Nigeria has never been nearer to a civil war or state collapse since the Biafra War of the late 1960s. Ethno-religious violence disproportionately targeting northern Christians is one of the greatest and most overlooked factors contributing to Nigeria's dysfunctionality. In an unprecedentedly connected world, such a collapse would, in turn, trigger further collapses.  The European Union (EU) does not grasp the severity of how such a collapse would affect its own security and stability. At a time when every day brings news of small boats carrying migrants to European shores, Nigeria's collapse would trigger one of the greatest avalanches of mass migration in modern African history.  

A modern Middle Passage 

Nigeria has a population of over 235 million, the largest in Africa and sixth largest globally. If just 10 per cent of the population attempted to flee in the event of another civil war or a destabilising political event, that is 23 million Nigerians desperately fleeing into any country they reason might welcome them. Many of these millions would gamble by voyaging on the tempestuous Atlantic Ocean in small boats with the goal of beginning new lives in European countries. Some would inevitably perish in what might evolve into this century's Middle Passage. Nigeria’s collapse would destroy the EU by overwhelming its borders and social services. The average population of an EU country is just under 17 million, or the size of Nigeria's diaspora. The unprecedented connectedness of our world means catastrophic destabilisation in one country can have significant consequences for the stability of other countries globally. The EU has a geopolitical responsibility to invest in improving Nigeria's security situation. Abductions, killings, and displacements in Nigeria might trigger instability in Europe and beyond. 

However, the collapse of Nigeria would not only destabilise the EU. ISIS affiliates like ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) have a strategic interest in Nigeria's collapse, because it would open the door for them to expand their control throughout West Africa.  

A team of researchers guided by the goal of better understanding terrorist violence in Nigeria simply followed the breadcrumbs of organically emergent data to show why the broader world should take seriously violence against Christians in the Giant of Africa. Living in an unprecedentedly connected world comes with new privileges and new responsibilities. To simply indulge in these new privileges without standing strong and shouldering these new responsibilities would be foolish, selfish, and nearsighted.  

English poet John Donne once famously wrote,

No man is an island,  
Entire of itself,  of the continent,  
A part of the main.  
If a clod be washed away by the sea,  
Europe is the less. 
Every man is a piece.

The “old self” understanding of global connectedness, ruled by selfishness and ignorance, must give way to the “new self” model of prosperity and security via proactive collaboration. For every one Okonjo-Iweala, Boyega, or Antetokounmpo, millions of Nigerians suffering from the effects of a rapidly destabilising state dream of emigrating abroad. Global Christianity and global security stakeholders each have an interest in a stable Nigeria. A stable Nigeria functions as a wellspring of human capital for the benefit of the entire world.  

Donne, in the same poem, wrote,  

Each man's death diminishes me, 
For I am involved in mankind. 
Therefore, send not to know 
For whom the bell tolls, 
It tolls for thee. 

The world is involved in Nigeria and Nigeria is involved in the world. The death of Nigeria would pave the way for the death of the EU. The bell tolls for the EU community to awaken from decades of neglectfully overlooking its interests in a stable and secure Nigeria.  

 

Further resources 

  • ORFA report summary.
  • ORFA full report.
  • 'No Road Home', a data study on those living in displaced persons camps. Download the study (PDF).
Article
Creed
Migration
7 min read

I wrote Jesus was a child refugee, I got called crazy

Digging into history uncovers uncomfortable truths.

Joan is Professor Emerita of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism, King’s College London. 

A red sandstone statue of Jesus as a child.
A Victorian statue of Jesus as a child.

As a historian of Jesus, I have sometimes been asked to comment on the question 'what would Jesus do today?'. I have sometimes responded. In September 2015 I wrote a guest post for the Jesus Blog, titled Jesus was a Refugee. It was on the story of baby Jesus’ escape to Egypt with his parents, as written in the Gospel of Matthew, which I conclude is historically true. It is interesting to me, because I want to understand what informed Jesus’ teaching as an adult. 

I am not a theologian, a priest or a pastor. I have spent my academic career carefully working out what is true or false in terms of the many stories of the ancient past. So, when I discuss anything, it is after years of study, collegial discussion and discernment. Historians like me know that our ancient accounts come from particular people at different times, telling things with particular points of view. They don’t seek to tell the whole truth, but they shine a light on what is important to them. They can tweak, spin, modify or drop what is not essential to them, and we see this process unfold in retellings. In what I do, I am as analytical about biblical stories as I am about anything else, recognising that I too am located in a particular time and place, with my own capacity to see or not see. With biblical stories this is both rewarding and challenging because to me they are also Scripture, in that they inform my faith, spirituality and practice. 

But this is a world in which sharing of expertise can go up in a puff of public pushback. 

I wrote at the height of scaremongering about Syrian refugees who were fleeing to Europe to escape the dangers and devastation in their country and, given its relevance, the post was picked up on other sites. On Bible History Daily, there was a furious reaction in comments. People asked whether – even if Jesus was a refugee – his experience could be mapped on to issues of the contemporary world, which are so very different. Some commenters insisted that Jesus and his family could not be aligned with economic refugees like Mexicans or bogus refugees who were actually Muslim terrorists. More stingingly, I was told I was crazy, a professor of b******t and I was blaspheming for even suggesting that Jesus was a refugee.  

That Jesus was a refugee has actually been recognised as part of his life from the very beginning of Christian tradition, and contemporary theologians like Barnabas Asprey can well explore what this means for faith. But it seems that some people were alarmed that I was diminishing Jesus by associating him with people they considered reprehensible.  

My job is to understand Jesus in his own world. If I do it properly, people may well find resonances with today. But I do also understand that it is a tricky thing to map Jesus onto contemporary circumstances, especially contentious ones. Over a hundred years ago the philosopher and physician Albert Schweitzer critiqued the 'quest of the historical Jesus' as a whole as covertly creating a liberal model of Jesus. He commented that the 'historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma'. If we met Jesus today, he would seem completely alien to us. So, we do have to be careful when we look to him in our arguments concerning current issues. Yet, Schweitzer also put a lot of trust in the words of Jesus, because his 'spirit, which lies hidden in his words, is known in simplicity, and its influence is direct. Every saying contains in its own way the whole Jesus.' 

So where do we go with this? What did Jesus say? Frankly, Jesus’ ethos was utterly uncompromising. "Woe to you who are rich … woe to you who are well-fed now" (Luke 6:24-25), he said. There are a decent number of Jesus’ statements that suggest people who were economically struggling should be fed and welcomed, and those with wealth should share what they have with the have-nots. Jesus said to a rich man that he should "go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me" (Mark 10:21). Following Jesus was not about becoming destitute, but about joining a community of disciples who saw each other as one big family of siblings. In this group resources were shared (Acts 2:44-45 and 4:32-37). This is beyond philanthropy. And Jesus didn’t talk about the worthiness of the poor; the problem was not with the poor, it was with the rich.  

There’s a big question then in how to use Jesus as a model for ethics. To use Jesus as a model, you have to see the bigger picture of the whole movement he created, within an ancient context, a movement that does not exist any longer in its original form. Was Jesus a refugee? By calling anyone a refugee, in antiquity, I mean someone who flees their home to a place of refuge, to escape danger or disaster. As for my particular 'blasphemy', I reiterate it. Jesus was a child refugee: Jesus’ family fled from the danger of the Roman client king in Judaea, Herod, and escaped to Egypt. In classical Christian doctrine, this is not at all thought of as diminishing Jesus. It made Jesus one of us, in all our human hardships. 

I think he turns things around, radically, so that the life of the wandering refugee is actually a paradigm for action. 

Curiously, the fears expressed by the commenters on my post mirror ancient attitudes to poor, foreign people. Later apocryphal stories of the holy family in Egypt present them facing continual hostility from Egyptian townsfolk and attacks by robbers. These tales reflect an actual situation in which incoming foreigners, for whatever reason, were not welcome. For refugees, it could be a life of vulnerability.  In the second century, the anti-Christian writer Celsus scoffs that child Jesus in Egypt worked for hire because of his poverty (Origen, Contra Celsum 1:28). 

Egypt itself was not a totally safe place to be Jewish. Under the Roman prefect Flaccus (38-39 CE), soon after Jesus, there were riots and pogroms against the Jewish population of Alexandria, as the historian Josephus records (War 2:487-98; Ant. 18:257-60). In 41 CE the Roman emperor Claudius cautioned the long-settled Jewish population of Alexandria that they lived in 'a city not their own', and they were 'not to bring in or invite Jews who sail down to Alexandria from Syria[-Palestine]' (CPJ I:151). Later in the first century (70-73 CE), there were many Jewish refugees fleeing dangers in Judaea by going to Egypt (War 7: 407–419). Hundreds of these men, identified as troublemakers by the Romans, were killed, along with their families. I explore this and much more in my new book, Boy Jesus: Growing Up Judean in Turbulent Times. The life of a refugee was hard, and Jesus would have been told his parents’ stories about what they endured. 

This is what is so interesting to me, because we know from contemporary studies of trauma that this would have had an impact on Jesus. There is received trauma resulting from the suffering, persecutions, hardships and distresses of parents and grandparents. 

So how are these experiences reflected in Jesus’ sayings? I think he turns things around, radically, so that the life of the wandering refugee is actually a paradigm for action. Jesus, in his mission as a teacher and healer, identified himself as a displaced person: "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of humanity has nowhere to lay his head" (Matt. 8:20), he said. Jesus was itinerant, and he entered villages with nothing, offering healing and looking for kindness (food, shelter). He asked those who acted in his stead to go out without money or extra clothing, essentially to walk along the road like destitute refugees who had suddenly fled from home, relying on the generosity and hospitality of the ordinary people whose villages they entered (Mark 6.8-11). And it was precisely the villagers’ welcome or not to such people that showed what side they were on when it came to divine justice: "And if any place will not receive you and refuse to hear you, shake off the dust on your feet when you leave, for a testimony to them" (Mark 6.11).  

If the sayings of Jesus show his spirit, time and again this spirit rests with the experience of the marginalised, the displaced, the persecuted, the sick and the poor. I say this as a historian, thinking of Jesus in his own time. How that sits with contemporary issues remains a question. To what extent can people of modern times, with all our baggage of private ownership, debts and anxieties about our jobs and livelihoods, share in Jesus’ ethos? In answering it, I suspect few of us will feel comfortable, whatever side we think we are on.  But taking out the logs in our own eyes, rather than the specks in someone else’s, has never been easy. 

 

Boy Jesus: Growing Up Judaean in Turbulent Times, Joan Taylor, SPCK Publishing.

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