The media’s relative silence on Christian persecution in Nigeria
Editorial | By Easton Martin | October 1, 2025
The persecution of Christians in Nigeria has reached levels that should shock the conscience of the world. Yet outside of advocacy circles and occasional mentions, even comedian Bill Maher recently noted it, global media has been largely quiet. The silence is jarring given the scale: according to the Nigerian watchdog group Intersociety, at least 7,087 Christians were killed between January and August of this year alone, with more than 7,800 abducted. That amounts to roughly 30 Christians murdered every single day in 2025’s first eight months.
This is not an isolated surge but part of a sustained trend. In 2024, Open Doors reported over 3,000 Christians killed in Nigeria, and in 2023, Intersociety estimated more than 8,200 deaths. Churches have been burned, entire villages sacked, and pastors kidnapped. Families are left shattered, congregations scattered, and communities living under constant fear.
Why is this happening? Several overlapping forces are at work. Boko Haram and its offshoots have waged a jihadist insurgency for over a decade, explicitly targeting those who refuse to embrace their extremist ideology. Meanwhile, radicalized Fulani herdsmen have increasingly launched brutal raids against Christian farmers in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, turning resource conflicts into campaigns of terror marked by religious and ethnic hostility. Weak or absent government response has only emboldened the killers. Reports from survivors repeatedly describe security forces arriving late, if at all, while perpetrators often operate with impunity.
The international media’s muted response only compounds the tragedy. While conflicts elsewhere dominate headlines, massacres of Nigerian Christians rarely receive front-page coverage. The deliberate targeting of Christian identity is not incidental; it is central to these attacks.
