A Nigerian pastor is facing death threats after speaking out against attacks on Christians by Islamic extremists and calling for protection from “genocide.”
Pastor Ezekiel Dacomo, who is based in Plateau State as regional president of the Church of Christ of the Nations (COCIN) in Barkin Ladi, told reporters in Jos on October 24 that Islamic extremists have marked him for assassination for calling on the Nigerian and US governments to protect Christians from genocide.
“My life is in grave danger. As I speak, I am on alert for an attack,” he was quoted as saying. “I don’t sleep with my eyes closed anymore. I’ve been attacked before, but I was able to escape.”
The statement followed an Oct. 15 video in which Pastor Dacomo stands at a mass grave with the bodies of at least 12 murdered church members, criticizing the Nigerian government for denying genocide against Christians and calling for support from the U.S. government, the U.S. Senate and the United Nations. The bodies in the mass graves reportedly belonged to Christians killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Rachas village in Heipan district and Rauru village in Fan district.
“The Nigerian government continues to deny that there is no genocide against Christians in Nigeria, but look at the bodies killed today,” Dacomo said. “I am calling on President Trump of the United States to save our lives in Nigeria. Just as he intervened in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, I am calling for attention to Nigeria. Christians are being massacred. They claim that Muslims are also being killed, but the question is who are they being killed by? By Muslims, of course!”
Pastor Dacomo said in a statement on October 24 that the video and his claims about genocide had led to him putting his life in danger. He also said military officials were threatening him for failing to respond to reports of an impending attack on the Barkin Radi community.
“Even the Nigerian Army issued a press release against me, accusing me of inciting people,” Dacomo said, according to the Daily Post. “But it is they who are refusing to be arrested and inciting Muslims. This is what we are facing and we are now resorting to self-defense. Otherwise, the name of Jesus will never be mentioned again in our country.”
Pastor Dacomo said he received threats through phone calls, messages and social media, and said he also made the video to convey to future generations how Christians are being terrorized and persecuted as part of a genocide.
Representatives of the Nigerian military recently appeared at Dacomo’s church and vowed to protect him, and US President Donald Trump vowed to use military force against Islamic terrorists in Nigeria. Analysts doubt such an intervention is likely anytime soon, with some believing it could play into the hands of Islamic extremists seeking to destabilize the country through all-out war.
Pastor Dacomo continues to face threats, including unconfirmed reports on November 7 that Islamic extremists vowed to kill him within seven days. The pastor released a video saying that his martyrdom will help the growth of Christ’s kingdom.
“I have already told my family and members (of the church) that if they (terrorists) kidnap me, no one should donate a single cent as ransom,” Pastor Dacomo said. “My grave will speak, and my blood will cause a war that will lead to the liberation of Christians.”
genocide incident
Christian leaders in northeastern Nigeria recently recorded anti-Christian violence in the Gwoza area of Borno state, responding to claims by the region’s Muslim senators that there was no genocide against Christians in the state.
In a statement aired on state channel television, the leaders cited a series of targeted attacks and killings by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram, as well as government policies that have marginalized Christians in Borno state.
“Gwoza used to have a strong Christian presence. Before the uprising (which started in 2009), there were more than 176 large church buildings in the municipality. Currently, 148 of them have been burnt and are in ruins,” said Pastor Filibus Goma, former president of the Brotherhood Church (EYN) and chairman of the Gwoza Christian Community Association (GCCA). Ayuba John Bassa, National Coordinator of the association, said in a statement titled “Untold Genocide: GCCA Report on Christian Persecution in Gwoza, Borno State.”
“Christian communities are not given land for places of worship, and mosques are built freely. Before Boko Haram, civil service representation in Gwoza was approximately 5 percent Christian and 95 percent Muslim, despite roughly equal numbers of people. Muslims have dominated political positions and traditional titles because there has virtually never been an honest and free election in Gwoza.”
They noted that Christian religious knowledge was no longer taught in municipal public schools.
They reported that the human toll from Islamist attacks was staggering.
“Currently, approximately 107,000 Gwoza Christians are scattered across 27 internally displaced persons camps in seven states in Nigeria and the Minawao refugee camp in Cameroon,” they said. “Another 50,000 people are squatting with their relatives in towns and cities across Nigeria.”
They report that many Christians have been living as internally displaced persons (IDPs) or refugees for more than a decade, receiving little or no assistance from the government and no realistic prospect of returning home.
“This pattern of destruction of churches, exclusion of Christian families, and silence or inaction by authorities raises an inevitable question: Is there a systematic attempt to erase Christians and their heritage from Gwoza?” they said. “Reconstruction has been very uneven. Hundreds of Muslim homes have been rebuilt on their original land and thousands of homes have been restored, but virtually no Christian homes have been restored. Of the thousands of resettlement homes built, we are aware of only three beneficiaries who are Christian.”
To those who ignore or trivialize these crimes, they pose the question: “If a Christian is accused of being the perpetrator, who will be the suspect? Will the attacker invoke the name of Jesus while killing?”
Christians have never attacked Muslims in Gwoza. They said the church had been destroyed even before the rebels strengthened.
“We need to recognize and investigate that these are not isolated incidents and are part of a broader pattern of violence,” they said. “We demand truth, accountability and action.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nigeria ranked 7th on the 2025 WWL list of the 50 most difficult countries to be a Christian.
