Suspected Fulani criminals in western Nigeria kidnapped and murdered a Christian pastor despite receiving a ransom of 5 million naira (approximately 312,500 yen), officials said.
Pastor James Audu Issa of Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Ekati area of Kwara State was abducted from his home in ECWA compound in Ekati town, Patigi district on August 28 and was found dead in the wilderness on Thursday (October 2).
“The pastor was killed by Fulani bandits who were terrorizing Edu and Patigi Local Government Areas of Kwara State,” said Peter Kolo, a resident of the area.
Kolo said the perpetrators initially demanded an exorbitant sum of 100 million naira ($62,500).
“The distraught family of the pastor and the Ekati community were able to negotiate the amount down to five million naira, which they paid to secure the pastor’s freedom,” he said. “After collecting five million naira, the bandits showed extreme brutality by demanding another 45 million naira ($28,125).Sadly, before further negotiations could take place, Pastor James Audu Issa was murdered by the Fulani bandits.”
ECWA spokesperson, Reverend Romanus Ebeneokodi, issued a short statement regarding the killing.
“This harmless pastor was one of many pastors killed, leaving his wife, children, relatives, church and friends in agony,” Ebeneokodi said.
Ralph Madugu, editor of ECWA’s Today’s Challenge Magazine, said the killing was one of many targeted attacks on Christians and their pastors.
“Yet there are government officials who deny that there was a genocide against Christians?” Madugu said.
The Fulani, a predominantly Muslim group of millions in Nigeria and the Sahel region, are made up of hundreds of clans of various lineages that do not hold extremist views, although some Fulani espouse radical Islamist ideology, Britain’s All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) said in a 2020 report.
“They have adopted strategies comparable to Boko Haram and ISWAP, and have demonstrated a clear intent to target Christians and powerful symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report said.
Christian leaders in Nigeria say they believe herdsmen’s attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by a desire to forcibly occupy Christian lands and impose Islam, as desertification makes it difficult to maintain herds.
Nigeria remains one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a Christian, according to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the Most Difficult Countries to Be a Christian. According to WWL, of the 4,476 Christians killed for their faith around the world during the reporting period, 3,100 (69 percent) were in Nigeria.
“Countermeasures against anti-Christian violence in this country have already reached maximum levels based on the Global Watch List methodology,” the report said.
The report said that in the north-central region, which has a larger Christian population than the northeast and northwest, Fulani Islamist militias attacked rural villages, killing hundreds of people, especially Christians. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern provinces, which are poorly controlled by the federal government, and Christians and their communities continue to be targeted for attacks, sexual violence, and barricaded killings, the report said. Kidnappings for ransom have increased significantly in recent years.
Violence has spread to southern provinces, and in the northwest a new jihadist terrorist group, Laklawa, has emerged with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, WWL said. Raqlawa is affiliated with Jamaah Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslim (JNIM), an expansionist al-Qaeda rebel group originating from Mali.
Nigeria ranked 7th on the 2025 WWL list of the 50 most difficult countries to be a Christian.
