‘A Killing Field’: Nigerian Archbishop Condemns Murder Of 39 Catholic Priests In 2022

The numbers are hard to fathom.

According a report released this week by Nigerian geopolitical intelligence platform SBM Intel, there were 339 attacks on Catholic priests in the country in 2022. That’s close to one a day.

As a result of these incidents, 39 Catholic priests lost their lives and 30 were kidnapped. It’s unclear how much overlap there was between the two categories. On average, the ransom requested to release those in the latter category was $110,000 U.S.

Some of the kidnapped priests were released. For example, in May, Father Felix Zakari Fidson was freed after 40 days of captivity.

More recently, on Jan. 17, Father Michael Olubunimi Olofinlade was released after being kidnapped Jan. 14. He was taken to hospital, with authorities refusing to divulge if a ransom had been paid.

Meanwhile, another 76 priests were injured in the 2022 incidents. “Although there were quite genuine fears that the abductions were targeted persecution of the Christian faith, the financial imperative in a holy abduction has somewhat eclipsed such concerns,” the report stated.

It’s been an ongoing and well-known problem in Nigeria, but the SBM Intel data serves to bring it all into horrific focus. “The continuous killing, as well as kidnapping of Christian clerics in Nigeria, is alarming,” the Christian Association of Nigeria said. “This has to be stopped at all costs. It’s a killing field.”

In a Jan. 22 Sunday sermon just ahead of the SBM Intel figures, the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Ignatius Ayau Kaigama , decried the current terrorism against priests. “Our crisis is incubated in religious fanaticism and ethnic bigotry, hatching grievous social disorder, whereby priests are killed in the most barbaric manner and citizens attacked, kidnapped or killed regularly,” he bemoaned.

The SBM Intel report lists the Catholic priest murders also by geographic zone. The North-Central region accounted for 12 of the murders, while the North-West region was responsible for nine.

All manner of incidents are listed as being connected to the murders: banditry, mob violence, Boko Haram attacks, herdsmen attacks and efforts of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a nationalist separatist group.

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