“Christians in Nigeria amid  closure of Catholic Parishes, across his Episcopal See and multiple displacements owing to heightened activities of Islamist Fulani herdsmen.Bishop Anagbe has insisted that Nigeria be redesignated as a CPC owing to increased Islamist attacks against Christians in the West African country”

By Agnes Aineah,

Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah’s speech at the recent launch of the  Aid to the Church in Need’s 2025 world Report on Religious Freedom in the World has attracted a lot of criticism, with some believing that what the Local Ordinary of Nigeria’s Catholic Diocese of Sokoto   said in Rome about persecution in his country does not address the anguish of Christians in the West African nation.

In his October 21 speech at the Augustinian Patristic Pontifical Institute  in Rome, Bishop Kukah acknowledged the deterioration of security in Nigeria, but added that it is not just Christians who are being persecuted across the nation.

He said that “floods of blood in Nigeria” today “have no boundaries,” and added that “terrorist and murderous groups” who first emerged, targeting Church structures, kidnapping Priests, the Religious, Seminarians and other pastoral agents, while “invoking the words like, allahu akubar”, are now also killing Muslims who do not believe in their brand of Islam.

Bishop Kukah insisted, “We are not dealing with people going around wielding machetes and looking for me in order to kill me because I am a Christian.”

He further cautioned against re-designating Nigeria as a  Country of Particular Concern (CPC), arguing that such a move would “hurt the initiatives we are working on with the current government to collectively resolve the nagging problems of…the persecution of Christians.”

 The Catholic Bishop praised the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for “confidence-building measures” that, he said, show “a government willing to listen.”

His sentiments, however, did not sit entirely well with some Nigerian Catholic leaders who felt that while the Bishop sought “to balance truth-telling with bridge-building”, he missed “the deep anguish of believers living under the shadow of violence and fear” in Nigeria.

“In essence, Bishop Kukah… acknowledged Christian suffering but placed it within a wider national tragedy affecting all Nigerians. Yet in doing so, he missed the deep anguish of believers living under the shadow of violence and fear,” Fr. Stan Chu Ilo, the Coordinating Servant of the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN) said in  a report he named “Are Nigerian Christians Persecuted?”

In what he described as “a divided pulpit in a wounded nation”, Fr. Stan juxtaposed Bishop Kukah’s perspective and that of Bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe of the Catholic Diocese of Makurdi   who has been vocal about what he describes a genocide targeting Christians in Nigeria. Bishop Anagbe has spoken extensively on persecution of Christians in Nigeria amid  closure of Catholic Parishes, across his Episcopal See and multiple displacements owing to heightened activities of Islamist Fulani herdsmen.

Bishop Anagbe has insisted that Nigeria be redesignated as a CPC owing to increased Islamist attacks against Christians in the West African country.

In his March 12 plea  to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Africa Subcommittee, Bishop Anagbe maintained that designating Nigeria as a CPC will ensure that the Nigerian government accounts for the situation of Christians in the country.

Bishop Kukah’s words, which Fr. Stan said were intended as a pastoral appeal for dialogue and national harmony, “have instead exposed the fractures within the Nigerian Church.”

He said that there are, on one side,  “shepherds who prefer diplomacy with the powers that be” and those who speak for those that “inhabit the existential peripheries of life”, on the other side.

Fr. Stan recalled that for his testimony, Bishop Anagbe was harassed and investigated by agents of the Nigerian federal government.

“His (Bishop Anagbe’s) passionate defense of the faith community’s suffering stood in sharp contrast to Bishop Kukah’s transmission of this same sentiment of the people’s suffering,” Fr. Stan said.

According to Fr. Stan, Bishop Anagbe’s testimony is “prophetic and denunciatory” while Bishop Kuka’s is “diplomatic and conciliatory”, and that both testimonies “have laid bare the painful tension within the Nigerian Church over how to speak truth to power in a time of blood and national anxiety and anger.”

However, according to the PACTPAN official, both perspectives reveal a deeper question of how shepherds should speak “when their flock bleeds.”

He said that while Bishop Kukah has been a consistent champion for a robust engagement of the Church in Nigeria’s politics, not much has come out of his efforts.

“It is hard to see the evangelical fruits of such engagement for the Christian community in Nigeria,” said, and added, in reference to the Church leader who was honored by President Bola Tinubu  on his 73rd birthday, “Familiarity with power often leads to compromises that may bring temporary relief to Church leaders while potentially doing permanent harm to the Christian mission, even when that is not their intent.”

“This is why the Church in its wisdom is cautious in its relationship with the state, especially corrupt and extractive leaders who destroy the common good,” he said.

Fr. Stan said that while persecution of Christians in Nigeria persists, Church leaders in the country cannot give any impression in the eyes of the Nigerian Christians that they are appeasing the government of the day.

He noted that while the priorities and interests of the state and of politicians “shift like the weather”, the mission of the Church, on the other hand, possesses “a deeper and more enduring rhythm.”

“To confuse these temporal orders or to align the eternal mission of the Church with the transient ambitions of political power through appeasement or comfortable relationship with Nigeria’s corrupt ruling class is to betray the very heart of the Gospel,” he said.

The criticism of Bishop Kukah’s sentiments by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law and (Intersociety) was harsher, with the Catholic research entity in Nigeria describing the Bishop’s speech in Rome as a “misrepresentation of facts.”

In a report that revealed the killing of 100 Christians in Nigeria in the period between August 10 and October 26, Intersociety also weighed in on Bishop Kukah’s comments about the situation of persecution of Christians in the West African country.

Intersociety criticized the Catholic Bishop and other Nigerian leaders who the entity said are “also victims of Christian persecution” but “have chosen to battle their consciences by way of misrepresentation of facts of the matter concerning religious freedom, tolerance and accountability.”

“The last time we checked, Bishop Kukah was a highly respected and outspoken Catholic Bishop in Nigeria and defender of the Persecuted Christians dating back to 2015,” Intersociety said, and added, “However, the revered Catholic Episcopal Head of Sokoto Diocese has been widely criticized by critics who also accused him of inconsistency, blaming it majorly on his alleged undetached closeness to central political power in Nigeria.”

Intersociety faulted the Bishop for claiming that the Tinubu-led government had put in place “confidence-building measures” for dialogue to tame insecurity.

The researchers said that they had conducted investigations that revealed that not less than 22,000 defenseless Christians had been killed since Senator Armed Bola Tinubu became Nigeria’s President on 29 May 2023.

They said that under Tinubu, churches “numbering several hundreds” have been attacked, shut down, or burned down.

Meanwhile, Fr. Stan had called on faith-based leaders to continue speaking out against the ongoing persecution in Nigeria.

He said, “When Christians cry out for religious freedom and protection amid radical Islamic fundamentalism, silence becomes complicity, careless speech can inflame fragile peace, and disunity can prolong our long night.

 This article was written by Agnes Aineah,  published on October 29, 2026 by Aciafrica. Aineah is a Kenyan journalist with a background in digital and newspaper reporting. She holds a Master of Arts in Digital Journalism from the Aga Khan University, Graduate School of Media and Communications and a Bachelor’s Degree in Linguistics, Media and Communications from Kenya’s Moi University. Agnes currently serves as a journalist for ACI Africa.

Note: The headline was our editorial discretion

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