Truth Nigeria report: Climate change does not explain attacks on Nigerian Christians
Truth Nigeria challenged the Nigerian government’s emphasis on drought and competition over land as explanations for attacks in the country’s Middle Belt, pointing to assaults on Christian villages, churches, and clergy as well as interviews with local survivors.
A Truth Nigeria report is challenging the Nigerian government’s emphasis on climate change as a cause of violence in the country’s Middle Belt, arguing that environmental pressures do not adequately explain attacks targeting Christian villages, churches, and clergy.
“Climate change does not persecute Christians; people persecute Christians,” International Christian Concern said in a statement cited by Truth Nigeria in its Aug. 19 report.
Nigerian officials have cited climate change and competition over land and water as factors fueling conflict between predominantly Muslim Fulani herders and largely Christian farming communities, according to Truth Nigeria. The report said Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said during a March meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that Nigeria was confronting both terrorism and “conflict from climate change,” and Nigerian House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas has said climate change has intensified tensions in the Middle Belt.
Truth Nigeria acknowledged that while drought, desertification, and land competition may contribute to the unrest, describing the violence primarily as a climate-driven resource conflict obscures the role of religious extremism, organized militias, and deliberate efforts to seize land.
The outlet pointed to the January killing of Christian farmer Joseph and five other Christians in Benue State. Joseph’s 20-year-old daughter, Christiana Joseph, told the outlet that Fulani militants had repeatedly entered the community’s farmland and forced members of her family to leave their ancestral home.
“We now live in fear because nowhere seems safe,” she said, according to the outlet.
Other residents interviewed by Truth Nigeria said the attackers appeared intent on driving Christian farmers from their land rather than merely securing access to water or grazing areas.
“They burned all the heaps of rice already harvested,” Benue farmer Ado Bartholomew told Truth Nigeria. “This has nothing to do with climate change; humans carried out the attacks to drive us from our ancestral lands.”
Truth Nigeria cited the use of religious language, along with the destruction of churches and attacks on clergy, as evidence that at least some of the violence is religiously motivated. The outlet argued that while environmental stress may create conditions for conflict, it cannot account for the way attackers disproportionately target Christian communities.
According to Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List, attackers killed 4,849 Christians worldwide because of their Christian identity during the organization’s reporting period, between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2025. Nigeria accounted for 3,490 of those deaths. Open Doors attributed the country’s crisis to a combination of “ethno-religious hostility, Islamist oppression, dictatorial paranoia, and organized corruption and crime.”
Catholic clergy have also faced widespread abductions. At least 212 Catholic priests were kidnapped in Nigeria between 2015 and 2025, according to a study by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria cited by Truth Nigeria. Of those priests, 12 were killed while in captivity.
The violence continued in July when an attacker reportedly killed Father Samuel Opeyemi Oyetoro with a machete in Kogi State, as Zeale News previously reported. Police found his body July 29 beside a road in Ajaokuta.
Clergy targeting has also intensified. Institutional records from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria confirm that more than 200 Catholic priests have been abducted since 2015, with 12 executed in captivity, including Father Samuel Oyetoro, who was killed in July in Kogi State.
International lawmakers have called on Nigeria to do more to protect its Christian communities. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., a Catholic, urged the Nigerian government in an Aug. 21 statement to “fulfill its most basic responsibility of protecting its citizens” after an attack killed at least 25 people in Plateau State.
The European Parliament also adopted a resolution July 9 calling for an end to the ongoing persecution of Christians in the country and called on Nigerian authorities to protect civilians.
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