Priest kidnapping in Nigeria seen as part of assault on Christian ‘soft targets’

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – Police in Nigeria have arrested two persons suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of Father Thomas Oyode, Rector of Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary School in the Diocese of Auchi, located in Edo State of the country’s embattled central-southern region.

While presenting the suspects to the media on Oct. 30, Edo state Police Commissioner Umoru Ozigi said the suspects were assisting the police in tracking down their accomplices.

He called on the population to volunteer any information that can lead to the arrest of criminals in a region where lawbreakers loom large.

Oyode was abducted Sunday evening at the seminary around 7:00 pm, during evening prayers and benediction, according to a statement by the Director of Communications for the diocese, Father Peter Egielewa.

He said the abductors initially took two seminarians, but the rector asked the kidnappers to release the students and take him instead.

“The institution’s Rector, Rev. Fr. Thomas Oyode, was abducted and led into the bush. However, the Vice Rector and all the seminarians have been accounted for and are safe and temporarily relocated to a safe area until security measures around the seminary are tightened. Unfortunately, no communication has been had with the abductors yet,” said Egielewa in a statement.

Unconfirmed reports say the kidnappers are asking for a ransom of nearly $122,000. Crux’s attempts to get confirmation from the diocese went unanswered.

The recent kidnapping highlights the growing threat to clergy and religious individuals in Nigeria, usually considered “soft targets”.

According to a report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, known as “Intersociety,” more than 150,000 religiously motivated civilian deaths have been recorded in Nigeria since 2009.

The report, published February 14, finds that some 14 million Christians have been uprooted and forced to flee their homes since 2009, and more than 800 Christian communities have been attacked.

The Director of Intersociety, Emeka Umeagbalassi, told Crux that the targeting of Catholic clergy and Christians is part of a larger plan to Islamize the country.

He accused the federal government of bias against Christians and described it as “a wing of Fulani killers,” a reference to a largely Muslim ethnic group widely dispersed across West Africa, including Nigeria.

“There are a lot of butcheries, abductions and disappearances going on in the country, and the security agencies are complicit in these crimes,” Emeka said.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja said the security agencies “have been put to shame” by the continued killing and kidnapping of Christians.

“Our nation continues to be plagued by increased insecurity. Boko Haram insurgents, herdsmen militias, bandits, kidnappers, and the so-called ‘unknown gunmen’ persist in spreading terror across various regions,” Kaigama told Crux.

He squarely blamed the federal government for failing to protect the people, stating that it has lost the capacity to check the perpetrators of violence who now terrorize the people in different parts of the country at will.

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, “HURIWA,” has urged the federal government to take firmer action against attacks on priests, pastors and moderate Muslims who are increasingly falling prey to kidnappers, terrorists, bandits and Fulani herdsmen.

Last year, the outspoken Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Hassan Kukah, said his diocese had spent over $37,200 to secure the release of pastoral agents.

“There are genuine fears that these abductions amount to targeted persecution of the Christian faith, but the financial motive appears to overshadow these concerns,” HURIWA stated in a report last year.

It said the failure of the government to address the issue of priest abductions and killings has emboldened other criminals to commit similar acts.

Franklyne Ogbunwezeh, a senior researcher for Sub-Saharan Africa at Christian Solidarity International, notes that while criminal gangs may be driven by money to kidnap clergy, jihadist elements have a different motive: To establish an Islamic caliphate by uprooting Christians from their communities, particularly in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.

“They kidnap and murder Christian leaders who have a high standing in their communities, sometimes even killing them after ransoms have been paid. This is to detach the community from its center, making it easier to destroy those Christian communities,” he said.