Nigeria now accounts for over 80% of all incidents involving the murder, kidnapping or unjust arrest of Catholic priests and religious in 2025.
Two more Catholic priests were kidnapped over the weekend in Nigeria, aggravating what has been a terrible first quarter of the year in terms of security of religious in the African country.
According to statements sent to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Fr Stephen Echezona was abducted on Saturday in the Diocese of Awka, Anambra state, while he was stopped at a filling station to purchase fuel. Only 24 hours later, the Diocese of Owerri announced the kidnapping of Fr John Ubaechu, who was abducted while driving along a road in Imo state.
With these two cases, the number of religious kidnapped in Nigeria since the beginning of 2025 rises to 12, two of whom – FrSylvester Okechukwu and seminarian Andrew Peter – were murdered by their kidnappers. During the same period in 2024 the total number of kidnapped was three, with no fatalities; in 2023 it was two, with one murder, and in 2022 it was 7, with one murder. This makes the first quarter of 2025 the worst since ACN began to collect data on priests and religious kidnapped, murdered or arrested for persecution-related reasons throughout the world.”
To add a global perspective, in 2025, ACN has recorded 15 new incidents, 12 of which are kidnappings in Nigeria. Besides these 12 cases, there are also still three priests missing in Nigeria who were kidnapped in previous years but who, according to ACN sources, were never released or declared dead.
The security situation in Nigeria is complex, with a number of factors contributing to the crisis, depending a lot on the region of the country where the incidents take place.
Some attacks on clergy or religious are motivated by anti-Christian bias, however, many of the kidnappings are simply carried out by criminals trying to make money from a ransom industry which continues to plague Nigerian society and are not directly related to religion intolerance, with the kidnappers seeing clergy merely as an easy target. This was the case of two priests recently kidnapped in Yola, where it emerged that members of the Christian community were involved in the crime.
Seven of the 12 kidnappings carried out so far in 2025 took place in the south of the country, which is majority Christian, with the remaining five having occurred in the more volatile Middle Belt. Of the two murders, one was in the south and the other in the Middle Belt.
Nigerian bishops have tirelessly called on the authorities to improve security conditions in the country for the benefit of the entire population, while steadily appealing to the faithful to not try to pursue justice through their own means.
ACN echoes these appeals and remains committed to supporting the Church in Nigeria as it faces this worsening security crisis, while urging its friends and benefactors to keep the country in their prayers.
Update : On 24 March, ACN received reports that Fr Stephen Echezona was rescued by security forces.
By Filipe d’Avillez & Maria Lozano.
