The blood of Christians is irrigating Africa’s soil, with Nigeria as an epicenter. As a senior research analyst at the Observatory of Religious Freedom in that continent (ORFA), Steven Kefas has been following closely horrific stories of martyrdom.

He is now one of the principal contributors to the explosive ORFA six-year study on violence and religious freedom in Nigeria. Because of Kefas’s investigative journalism, documenting human rights abuses and insecurity in Kaduna State, he faced growing pressure from authorities until he was arrested and imprisoned for 162 days in May 2019.

Kefas witnessed deaths among inmates and suffered health challenges. “An experience that only strengthened my resolve to continue exposing injustice,” he said for this interview.

For more than a decade, he has meticulously documented religious persecution, terrorism, mass killings, kidnappings, and forced displacement across Nigeria’s Middle Belt and other affected regions, combining field investigations, survivor interviews, and data analysis to better understand the drivers of violence and to ensure that the voices of victims are not ignored.

What were the key findings of the recent ORFA report on violence and faith in Nigeria?

The scale of violence documented by ORFA is staggering.

Between 2020 and 2025, our research documented 79,323 people killed and 34,773 civilians abducted across Nigeria. On average, that translates to about seven attacks and 36 deaths every single day over the six-year reporting period.

Of those killed, 42,033 were civilians, while 37,290 were security personnel or members of armed groups. One of the report’s most significant findings is that Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), despite receiving the most international attention, accounted for only about 12% of civilian deaths during the reporting period.

By contrast, the groups ORFA classifies as Fulani terror groups were responsible for 18,577 civilian deaths — about 44% of all civilian killings documented.

The religious dimension of the violence is equally concerning. ORFA documented the killing of 28,551 Christians and 13,224 Muslims. After adjusting for the population of affected states, Christians were killed at approximately 4.4 times the rate of Muslims.

While abductions appeared relatively similar in raw numbers — 15,932 Christians and 15,272 Muslims — our companion study, Captivity by Creed, found significant differences in how victims were treated. Christian captives consistently faced higher ransom demands, longer periods in captivity, harsher treatment, greater pressure to renounce their faith, and a higher likelihood of being executed even after ransom payments had been made.

These findings challenge many prevailing assumptions about the conflict and underscore the need for a more evidence-based understanding of the violence affecting Nigeria.

What challenges did ORFA face in conducting field research?

The greatest challenges were security and funding.

Many of the communities we studied are active conflict zones where attacks remain frequent. Conducting field investigations often meant travelling into areas where there was a genuine risk of terrorist attacks, kidnappings, or ambushes. In many cases, our researchers had to work under extremely difficult conditions while ensuring the safety of survivors who agreed to speak with us.

Funding has also been a major limitation. ORFA has carried out this extensive research with relatively modest resources. Despite those constraints, we have built one of the most comprehensive datasets on religious freedom-related violence in Nigeria.

With greater financial support, we could expand our geographic coverage, increase the frequency of field investigations, verify even more incidents, and provide a more complete picture of the crisis.

Could you share some of the stories that had the greatest impact on you or your team while collecting the data?

The testimonies of survivors who spent months, and in some cases hundreds of days, in terrorist captivity had the greatest impact on me personally. Their accounts gave us rare insight into the internal operations of terrorist groups, their methods and, importantly, the motivations behind many of their atrocities.

One story that continues to haunt me involves Christian women abducted from communities in Southern Kaduna. Many were repeatedly sexually assaulted by their captors, forcibly impregnated, and pressured or compelled to convert to Islam while in captivity. After enduring months of unimaginable suffering and finally regaining their freedom, some returned home only to face rejection by their own families. In several cases, their husbands refused to accept them back because they returned with children conceived through rape.

These women survived terrorism only to encounter another form of trauma upon returning home. Their stories remind us that the consequences of terrorism extend far beyond the attack itself and often continue long after victims escape captivity.

What is the typical reaction of Nigerian authorities to reports of this kind?

The reaction has too often been one of denial or dismissal rather than serious engagement with the evidence.

Instead of acknowledging the scale of the crisis and responding to the concerns raised by independent researchers, authorities have frequently sought to downplay reports documenting religiously targeted violence. We saw this clearly when the U.S. government under President Donald Trump raised concerns about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.

Rather than addressing the underlying issues, the Nigerian government strongly rejected those characterizations and publicly disputed the findings. It also retained the U.S.-based lobbying firm DCI Group under a contract reportedly worth approximately $9 million to improve Nigeria’s international image.

My hope is that future reports will be met not with denial but with constructive engagement, transparent investigation, and meaningful action to protect vulnerable communities.

Could it be said that the efforts of terrorist groups in Nigeria are aimed at eliminating or diminishing the Christian presence in the country, especially in the geographical and socio-political transition zone in central Nigeria known as The Middle Belt?

Based on ORFA’s findings, I believe there is compelling evidence that, particularly in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, many attacks by Fulani terror groups disproportionately target Christian communities.

The pattern we documented extends beyond isolated attacks.

The Middle Belt separates the predominantly Muslim far North from the mostly Christian South and is characterized by its high ethno-linguistic diversity and crucial agricultural output. Is that a factor for the violence?

Entire Christian farming villages have repeatedly been attacked, churches destroyed, clergy killed or abducted, and thousands of predominantly Christian communities forcibly displaced. In numerous cases, displaced communities have remained unable to return to their ancestral lands for years, with reports that some abandoned villages have subsequently been occupied by the attackers or others.

While motivations can vary across different armed groups and regions of Nigeria, the evidence from many parts of the Middle Belt indicates that Christian communities have been disproportionately targeted in ways that have significantly reduced their presence in affected areas.

In 2016, the BBC and other major media outlets framed the violence in Nigeria as disputes between herders. Have you seen any shift in the mainstream media narrative regarding the violence in Nigeria?

Yes, I believe there has been a gradual shift.

A decade ago, much of the international media described the violence primarily as “farmer-herder clashes,” implying that both sides were engaged in roughly equivalent communal disputes over land and grazing resources.

That framing overlooked the organized, sustained, and often highly lethal attacks against civilian communities that many local researchers and affected communities had been documenting for years.

Increasingly, however, journalists, researchers, policymakers, and international organizations are recognizing that many of these incidents cannot be adequately explained as resource conflicts alone. The scale, organization, and recurring targeting of civilian populations point to a much more serious security challenge involving terrorist violence carried out by armed Fulani militant groups in many parts of Nigeria.

While some media outlets continue to use the farmer-herder narrative, there is now a broader appreciation that the violence is more complex. Also, that terrorism, ideological extremism, criminality, and religious targeting all play significant roles in different parts of the country. I believe this more nuanced understanding is an important step toward developing effective responses.