by Jude Dangwam in Jos, Plateau State
These findings challenge the Nigerian government’s longstanding characterisation of the violence as merely a “farmer-herder conflict” and support the argument that Christian communities have been disproportionately targeted.
The figures come from the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa, or ORFA, a group that tracks killings and abductions tied to religious identity in Africa, in a report published in June 2026. The report found that Fulani Terror Groups killed 18,577 civilians, or 44 percent of the 42,033 civilians killed nationwide. Boko Haram and ISWAP combined killed 4,941 civilians, or 12 percent.
A second category in the data, called Unidentified Terror Groups, killed another 13,346 civilians, or 32 percent. The report said additional research found that a significant part of this category consists of bandit groups with a Fulani background, and that these groups can reasonably be considered affiliated with the Fulani Ethnic Militia, or FEM.
If that affiliation holds, the report said, FEM-linked groups could be responsible for up to 76 percent of civilian killings, six times the 12 percent attributed to Boko Haram and ISWAP.
80,000 deaths linked to terror groups
Over the six years, 79,323 people were killed in Nigeria in incidents tied to terror groups, of whom 42,033 were civilians, the report said. Of those civilians, 22,835 were Christian and 10,519 were Muslim, an actual ratio of 2.2 Christian victims for every Muslim victim. When adjusted for the size of Christian and Muslim populations in the states where the killings occurred, that ratio rose to 4.4 to 1.
A further 34,917 people were abducted over the same period, including 34,773 civilians. Of these, 15,932 were Christian and 15,272 were Muslim, an actual ratio of 1.0 to 1. The population-adjusted ratio was 3.2 to 1.
Seventy-five percent of civilians killed, or 31,573 of the 42,033 total, died during attacks on their communities rather than in isolated incidents, according to the report.
The pattern changed in the final two years of the study, the report said. In 2024, the actual ratio of Christian to Muslim civilians abducted was 0.6 to 1, and in 2025 it was 0.7 to 1, meaning more Muslim civilians than Christian civilians were abducted in both years.
ORFA said it is careful to distinguish between armed Fulani militant groups and the Fulani people as a whole.
Organised groups responsible for violence
Steven Kefas, the group’s senior research analyst, argued in a separate article cited in the report that violence in northwest Nigeria and the Middle Belt region is organised ethno-religious violence carried out largely by Fulani armed groups, rather than generic banditry or conflict between farmers and herders.
Kefas wrote that these groups operate with structure, cross-state logistics and, in some cases, links to jihadist networks. He argued that the labels “bandits” and “farmer-herder clashes” obscure the real nature of the violence, which is deliberate, organised and more religiously and ethnically motivated than is commonly acknowledged.
Two-tier captivity system
In another article cited in the report, titled “Captivity by creed: The Religious sorting system nobody talks about,” Kefas documented a two-tier captivity system run by Fulani militias. Muslim abductees, according to this account, generally receive lenient treatment, lower ransom demands and shorter negotiations.
Christian captives, by contrast, face systematic physical and sexual violence, higher ransom demands, prolonged captivity and a greater risk of execution.
The report’s policy recommendations state that violent community attacks in Benue, Plateau and neighbouring states are often labeled “farmer-herder conflicts” and attributed to climate change. It states that insisting on one generic narrative that denies any religious dimension will produce solutions that don’t address all of the root causes, and calls instead for acknowledging different dynamics in different locations and documenting firsthand accounts from villagers rather than recasting their attackers as “bandits” or “unknown gunmen”.
The data was compiled from a primary partner organisation inside Nigeria, whose name was withheld for security reasons, combined with secondary data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, known as ACLED.
Jude Dangwam is a reporter for The Sun Nigeria
