Before a gathering of religious leaders in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, a Catholic bishop from Nigeria gave an account of how his country had become a “cauldron of violence” at the hands of Islamist extremists.
Addressing the G20 Religion Forum in Bali on Nov. 3 in advance of the Group of 20’s meeting later this month, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah testified to the violence committed against both Christians and Muslims caught in intra-sectarian warfare.
“Every day, news of abductions, armed robberies, kidnappings for ransom, murders, and assassinations of our innocent citizens persists. Our sacred spaces have become killing grounds,” the bishop said. “Hundreds of worshippers have been murdered in mosques and churches across the country.
According to a report by the nongovernmental organization Open Doors, 4,650 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2021— that’s more than the number killed in all of the other countries in the world combined.
The G20 Religion Forum was hosted by Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama political party, which, according to its press release, represents 120 million “moderate” Muslims, or about 40% of the country’s 231 million Muslims.
The conference was convened to “prevent the weaponization of identity” and “curtail the spread of communal hatred,” according to its stated goals.
Kukah, the bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto in the northwest region of Nigeria, where Muslims are in the majority, commended the group for “taking the historic step to address these issues directly,” he said.
In his address, he shared details of some of the recent acts of violence committed by Muslim extremists in his diocese, including the kidnappings of fellow priests and the case of Deborah Samuel, a Christian student who on May 13 was accused of blasphemy and brutally murdered by a mob of Muslim students.
Kukah explained that Muslim elites see secular laws as a threat to Islam and, therefore, disregard them. Nigeria’s constitution includes protections of the freedom of religion and prohibits federal or state governments from adopting any religion as a state religion.