Nigeria: Violence data which the government cannot ignore

You’re offline. This is a read only version of the page.

Nigeria | 19 October 2021

As levels of violence against Christians and others in Nigeria rise, there are a number of agencies gathering data on the incidents occurring. Three of these, which all have data for the nine month period of January-September 2021, are listed below:

Intersociety (3 October 2021): This agency reports specifically on the number of Christians attacked, killed and abducted and offers insightful analysis. It lists at least 4,400 Christians killed and 3,500 Christians abducted so far in 2021.
SBMIntel - 2021 (Q1) Jan-March; 2021 (Q2) April-June; 2021 (Q3) July-September: This geopolitical intelligence platform collates statistics from media reporting. Although its figures make no religious distinction, its population breakdown and charting of areas affected is highly useful. It lists 8,281 people killed so far in 2021, of which 4,234 were civilians.
Since 2011, the Council on Foreign Relations'‚ Nigeria Security Tracker (NST, accessed 13 October 2021) catalogs violent incidents (in an extensive downloadable Excel table) based on a weekly survey of Nigerian and international press.‚ HumAngle has developed some useful charts based on this source (HumAngle, 7 October 2021). NST lists 8,329 people killed in total and 4,257 abducted so far in 2021.

Frans Veerman, Managing Director of World Watch Research, comments: "The data published by these agencies clearly reveal the seriousness of the violence occurring in Nigeria. The agencies all show the incredibly high number of small-scale attacks on innocent civilians who - in many areas - are forced to live in constant fear. Killings and abductions are only part of the picture; the violence taking place also takes the form of village raids, rape, farmland being occupied or destroyed, and people being internally displaced. There is much hidden suffering behind the numbers being published and many Nigerians are angered that the government under President Buhari seems to be turning a blind eye to the facts on the ground."