Four years ago this month, a young Nigerian Sufi musician named Yahaya Sharif-Aminu was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. His trial had taken just a few months, and he had no lawyer to defend him. A mob burnt down his home when he was arrested. No one in the mob was arrested.
His alleged crime was sending music lyrics over a social media chat group that others thought were “blasphemous” towards the Prophet Muhammad.
I am thinking of Yahaya because today, August 22, is the UN’s International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief. Nigeria is one of the many countries where the victims of violent religious persecution are in danger of being forgotten.
Yahaya was the victim of a violent mob that could not peacefully tolerate religious expression different from its own. Yahaya was then victimized by a legal system that would appease the mob, forcefully shut him in prison away from family and friends, and threaten him with death for his religious expression.
While Yahaya’s conviction was eventually overturned, he was ordered to a retrial to face the same death penalty blasphemy law. He has now spent four and a half years in prison alone, waiting for the Supreme Court of Nigeria to hear his case.
I recently traveled to Nigeria and was able to meet with Yahaya in prison. He told me that the most difficult part of his imprisonment was that he had not been able to see his parents since his arrest in March 2020. I could only tell him that many people around the world were praying for his release.
Yahaya Sharif-Aminu was not the only victim of violent persecution I met in Nigeria.
I met the leaders of a small Christian church in a town in northern Nigeria, a region that is overwhelmingly Muslim. The church leaders had helped a young woman who converted from Islam to Christianity flee to a safe location after her family and friends threatened to kill her. For that, the church leaders were themselves kidnapped and tortured for two weeks by unnamed men. They told me their abductors would shackle them to the ground and walk over their backs for hours on end.
The torture wasn’t enough. They were handed over to the police, and while one of the church leaders was released after the intervention of local lawyers, the other was charged with kidnapping and convicted in a three-day sham trial. He is now out on bail pending appeal.
I also visited with five villages that were attacked by militants over Christmas in 2023. Roughly 200 Christians were killed in just a few nights. In one village, the pastor was taken from his home at 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, led behind his church to a rocky outcropping, and beheaded. His home and vehicle were then set on fire. Other villagers showed me the mass graves from the attacks, as well as the destroyed homes, churches, and farmlands.
They said no one from the West had set foot in the villages in the months since the attack. But they were firmly resolved to rebuild their villages and lives. Besides, they had nowhere else to go, as the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps were under-resourced and dangerous.
As in Yahaya’s case, none of the attackers in these incidents have been brought to justice.
These are not isolated incidents, either. I hear similar stories every week, and the data bears this out. The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom cited one study finding that over 8,000 Christians were targeted and killed for their faith in Nigeria in 2023, with over 7,000 of those occurring in northern Nigeria. Amnesty International Nigeria reported that in the months following the Christmas 2023 massacres, over 1,300 people were killed just in that one small area.
There has been occasional international outcry over the worst of these incidents. UN experts recently called for Yahaya Sharif-Aminu’s immediate release, and Congress has held hearings focused on the widespread violations of human rights, including religious freedom, in Nigeria. But the outcry is rarely sustained.
The State Department likewise has directed its focus on Nigeria to the most egregious incidents, and has commendably spoken out on Yahaya’s case, but since removing Nigeria from the U.S. religious freedom watchlist back in 2021 without explanation, its general approach has been muted. It is difficult to imagine a change in direction for religious freedom conditions in Nigeria when the U.S., the world’s leader on international religious freedom, holds its tongue.
On this day of remembrance for the victims of violent religious persecution, the U.S. should change its course. The U.S. should place Nigeria back on its religious freedom watchlist and offer clear recommendations to stop the impunity for attackers and support victims. Some of the worst persecution in the world is happening right now in Nigeria. If we cannot speak strongly and act accordingly in defense of the victims of persecution in Nigeria, then our words – and commemorations – are in vain.
