Nigeria: Sharia-Based Discrimination Against Christians Including blasphemy laws and extrajudicial mob violence. by Uzay Bulut
https://www.frontpagemag.com/nigeria-sharia-based-discrimination-against-christians/
Christians in Nigeria are murdered almost daily through indiscriminate attacks led by Muslims. Nigerian Christian women are abducted, raped, gang-raped and sexually abused on a widespread scale. Violence is only one of the many forms of persecution that Christians in Nigeria face. They are also subjected to systematic, Sharia-based discrimination, a situation which is particularly routine in the majority-Muslim northern states.
One of the methods used to silence Christian voices utilizes the deadly blasphemy laws. In many cases, Muslim mobs take the law into their own hands and execute Christians who they accuse of blasphemy.
In 2022, for instance, Deborah Samuel Yakubu, a second-year Christian college student, was stoned and burnt to death by a mob of Muslim students in Sokoto, Nigeria, after being accused of blasphemy against Islam.
The Council on Foreign Relations reported:
Ms. Yakubu was thought to have ‘blasphemed’ Islam and Prophet Muhammad after a voice note that she left on a WhatsApp group responding to another student’s post on the theme of Islam rubbed her colleagues the wrong way. After forcibly extracting her from a safe room where the school authorities had hoped to hide her, a mob comprising Ms. Yakubu’s colleagues struck her repeatedly with stones and clubs before eventually setting her lifeless body on fire, all the while shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great).
Footage of the killing would later appear on various social media platforms.
A Nigerian analyst said:
Christians have to be very careful in discussions with Muslims as their words can easily be used against them. Christians have been killed when they were accused of speaking ill of Muhammad or Islam. Many opinions spoken by Christians are deliberately misconstrued and regarded as blasphemous. In several instances mobs have killed Christians for simply preaching in public or expressing opinions on issues.
According to its Constitution, Nigeria is a secular state. However, for decades, the northern ruling elite have discriminated against Christians in favor of Muslims. Since 1999, Sharia law has been established in 12 northern states. The adoption of the Sharia legal system by the northern states has placed Sharia law above the Constitution, and its implementation leads to systematic human rights violations against Christians.
In Kano State, a Muslim-majority state in northern Nigeria, strict blasphemy laws carry punishments as severe as the death penalty for insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad. The ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) Court has recently called for the laws to be repealed, stating that they violate international human rights obligations.
ECOWAS has 12 member nations, including Nigeria, and the justices have unanimously ordered Nigeria to repeal, or amend, blasphemy laws across the nation, reported the human rights organization Open Doors.
Blasphemy laws “had led to serious violations including arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention, and in some cases, death sentences,” said Expression Now Human Rights Initiative, as reported by Nigeria’s Punch newspaper.
As well as infringing on freedom of expression, these laws often lead to extrajudicial mob violence. Even if someone is never officially found guilty of blasphemy, an accusation makes them very vulnerable to vigilante attacks, and even murder.
Kano State is ruled by Sharia (Islamic law), and Section 210 of the Kano State Penal Code was singled out. The court said, “It fails to clearly define what constitutes an insult to religion’, falling short of the legal clarity required under human rights law.” The judges also focused on Section 382(b), which imposes the death penalty for insulting Islam’s prophet Muhammad. The Justice said it was ‘excessive and disproportionate in a democratic society’.”
Kano State officials have signaled unhappiness at this ruling. “We will not be deterred by external pressures,” Kano State Commissioner Ibrahim Waiya said. “Our responsibility is to uphold the values of our society, which are grounded in religious and moral beliefs… While we respect international opinions, our laws are a reflection of our people’s will.”
While southern Nigeria has a majority Christian population, several northern states are predominantly Muslim. Christians in northern Nigeria, especially in the states that follow strict Sharia, face persecution and exclusion as second-class citizens.
For instance, Christian children are forced to adhere to Islamic religious precepts. Converts to Christianity suffer from discrimination and violence. In addition, blasphemy laws are commonly used to censor and punish Christians. In its 2025 Nigeria country report, Open Doors notes:
In general, there is a climate of impunity; those who attack Christians and their properties are hardly ever arrested. However, Christians have served prison sentences for crimes for which a Muslim is easily discharged or not charged at all. At times, Christians are charged in Sharia courts, which have no jurisdiction over them. Their evidence is worth half that of a Muslim. Although the Constitution recognizes the right to freedom of religion or belief, Sharia law (adopted in 12 northern states) supersedes this.
While Christians are accused and charged with blasphemy, Muslims who target Christians through smear campaigns or hate speech are almost never brought to account:
Nigerian social media has been awash with many hate speech posts against the Church, and many Muslim clerics have made it a point of duty to constantly preach hate against Christians. The immediate past governor of Kaduna was seen on video preaching hate against Christians. Almost all the time the perpetrators of these kinds of smear campaigns are not brought to justice. Smear campaigns are a very common thing against Christians… Also, Christians in the North experience daily abuse and are called all kinds of derogatory names such as “infidels.”
Christian families and children appear to be a specific target of Muslims in Nigeria:
Christian spouses and/or children of Christians have been subject to separation for prolonged periods of time by circumstances relating to persecution. Children of Christians have been harassed or discriminated against because of their parents’ faith. Most of this happens in the North, although increasingly also in the South.
Babies and children of Christians have automatically been registered under the state or majority religion.
Many Christian babies in northern states are not registered at birth. Once a parent of a child is known to be a Christian, the registration officer often denies registering the child under the state. State officials often claim that they do not have indigenous Christians in their state, so those children cannot be registered under that state. Parents are asked to provide proof of their indigeneship before their infants are reluctantly registered.
Parents have been hindered in raising their children according to their Christian beliefs. For converts, it is very difficult due to the fear of discovery in their families and beyond. Added to that, if the conversion of a parent from Islam to Christianity is discovered, often their children are taken away from them, or they have to flee and lose contact with their children.
Another form of discrimination is that Christians are hindered in sharing community resources because of their faith (e.g. clean drinking water).
Most of this happens in the North, although increasingly also in the South. It has two dimensions: One is about Christians living in the same locality as Muslims and not being allowed access to the water well or local dispensary, because the Christians are deemed ‘impure’.
Another is about the local or state authorities. Social amenities from the government do not reach Christian communities as they ought to. Often they just receive a token amount.
With respect to the provision of infrastructural development, more is invested in Muslim-dominated areas than in Christian-dominated ones in states where Christians and Muslims are almost an equal 50-50 percentage.
Some Christian communities in rural areas have been completely denied water and have to trek for hours to fetch water. Even in cities, the Christian quarters are sometimes denied amenities such as sanitation services.
Furthermore, there are many Christian IDPs in the northern zones. However, Nigerian relief agencies tend to be biased when it comes to the distribution of relief items: Christians are often left out and relief agencies in Nigeria are known not to respond swiftly when emergencies involve large numbers of Christians. Even when humanitarian aid is brought, it is often grossly inadequate.
In addition, Christians experience disadvantages in their education across all levels for faith-related reasons (e.g. restrictions of access to education):
Most of this happens in the North. Christians are often discriminated against in their educational pursuits. Particularly Christian or tribal names can make it increasingly difficult to access education. Christian or ethnic minorities in predominantly Muslim areas are often denied admission to schools and where they are admitted, they are often not given their chosen courses. At university and college, those with Christian names are frequently automatically excluded from getting admission to study courses in medicine, for example. Christians have had to change their names to Muslim names to be admitted. Results and certificates can be withheld for years to frustrate Christians. Some young Christians who cannot get admission into universities and who cannot get jobs, feel forced to leave the country in search of better opportunities.
In Nigeria, it is risky for Christians to display Christian images or symbols:
In the three northern zones any open identification of being a Christian is dangerous for Muslim converts. For other Christians, it is also dangerous during attacks and sometimes in IDP situations. Christians are easily detected by their Christian names. One’s ID is regularly the passport to life or death at roadblocks set up by violent Islamic groups (including armed ‘bandits’). This is not limited to the North and can happen in some parts in the South.
Meanwhile, conversion from Islam to Christianity has been opposed, forbidden, or punishable in Nigeria. Converts to Christianity from Islam in the three northern zones often have to flee their homes and states to escape being killed or harassed. They usually find refuge in “safe houses.”
It has also been risky for churches or Christian organizations to speak out against instigators of persecution, reports Open Doors:
In a climate of “agitation,” chaos, impunity and increasingly oppressive Islamization, speaking out against the persecution of Christians is not a safe thing to do – particularly in the areas where outright violence is rife. The space to advocate for justice naturally depends on the advocates’ standing in the community. People with a high public profile have more opportunity than those who are less well-known in the most affected areas. But even for them, such advocacy is not without danger. Several well-known Christians were called for interrogation by the security services after they had negatively commented on the situation of insecurity in the country and the corresponding weak performance of the federal government.
All of this discrimination and persecution is enabled by the Nigerian government’s attempt to Islamize the whole country. Former President Muhammadu Buhari used his position to appoint Muslims to key positions and he facilitated a culture of impunity that makes it possible for violations against Christians to go largely unnoticed.
According to Dr. Funom Makama:
In 2001 at an Islamic seminar in Kaduna, Buhari was given an opportunity to choose between Nigeria’s secularism and fundamentalist Islam, this is what he said; ‘I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the Sharia movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria’. He then added that ‘God willing, we will not stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the country’.”
Current President Tinubu has not yet been able to turn the tide, Open Doors notes:
The governments (and non-state actors) of the 12 Sharia states were already on the same track, but they may thus feel encouraged to further Islamize their states with oppressive policies instead of guaranteeing the elementary rights of their Christian citizens… Governments (and non-state actors) in other states might also feel encouraged, or sometimes forced, to promote (further) Islamization of their states, even in the South.
Islam within northern Nigeria uses everything possible to pressure Christians into leaving the Christian faith, be it money, land-grabbing, forceful abduction or denial of rights. Many minority Christian groups have been denied access to basic social amenities in an attempt to force them to accept Islam. Because of high levels of poverty, money is also being used to entice Christian youth to leave the Christian faith. Many young girls and women have been put under immense pressure to denounce Christianity to join Islam because of false promises of comfort and luxury. It is a constant battle for Christians. They make you suffer, then offer solutions with the condition of accepting Islam for you to get the help.
There are around 106,608,000 Christians living in Nigeria. They constitute 46.5% of the country’s entire population. In the northern states, Sharia law keeps Christians in a second-class citizenship position. If Sharia becomes normalized across the whole country, then this second-class citizenship might be the future for all non-Muslims in Nigeria. Unfortunately, this appears to be the objective of Nigeria’s Muslim authorities.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist formerly based in Ankara.
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