One of the deadliest persecutions against Christians in history is happening right now in Nigeria.
Most people do not know that. It is one of Satan’s best-kept secrets. Some people have heard about the persecution in Nigeria, but they do not know just how bad it is.
There are more Christians killed in Nigeria than in all countries combined.
4,849 Christians were killed for their faith worldwide in 2025—over 70% were killed in Nigeria. That is 3,490 Nigerian Christians.
Over the last 25 years, between 50,000 and 120,000 Christians in Nigeria have been killed.
One of these martyrs is a 21-year-old woman named Deborah Samuel. She was a student at a university in Sokoto State, northern Nigeria. She was murdered at her school because she praised Jesus for her academic success.
In a class WhatsApp group, a classmate asked Deborah how she passed a recent exam. She said, “Jesus.” Some of her Muslim classmates replied with Islamic statements and demanded that she retract her words about Jesus. But she refused. Instead, she defended her Christian beliefs.
The Muslim students believed Deborah had committed a crime worthy of death. They accused her of blasphemy under the state’s sharia law, which is punishable by death.
Deborah’s classmates called other Muslims in the community to execute mob justice. School security tried to protect Deborah, but the mob overpowered them.
Police officers were at the scene, but they were supposedly intimidated by the large crowd and didn’t do anything. The mob threatened to kill anyone who tried to help her, including a small group of Christian students who wanted to protect her. But scared for their lives, they fled the scene and returned home for their own safety.
Deborah, however, never returned home to her parents.
The mob found her hiding in a security room. They dragged her outside, and yelling “Allahu akbar,” her classmates and other residents in the community—including elderly women—beat her with large sticks, stoned her, and dumped tires and gasoline on her body and burned her to death.
Local and federal politicians defended the classmates and residents who murdered Deborah. Years earlier, Nigeria’s then-president, Muhammadu Buhari, said:
“I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the Sharia movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria. God-willing, we will not stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia all over the country.”
A local police officer released a video saying, “Anyone insulting the prophet [Muhammad] should be killed, and anyone questioning that is an unbeliever.”
The classmates who organized the lynching were not charged with murder. Instead, they were charged with “criminal conspiracy and incitement of public disturbance,” a minor crime with a maximum sentence of just 2 years.
They received overwhelming support from local leaders; 34 lawyers represented them. Worse, local prosecutors refused to show up in court to make a case against the murderers, and they were subsequently acquitted.
The prosecutors refused to defend Deborah Samuel, but a brave, Christian mother of 5 named Rhoda Jatau refused to be silent. She condemned the lynching, and she was charged with blasphemy. She was in prison, away from her children, for almost 2 years.
She would probably still be in prison if it wasn’t for Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADFI). They provided the legal support that persecuted Christians in northern Nigeria desperately need, and after nearly 3 years of legal proceedings, she was fully acquitted and freed from the possibility of the death penalty.
Alliance Defending Freedom International is the most effective legal advocacy group in the world in protecting religious freedom. They have successfully defended the liberty and lives of Christians worldwide, especially in Nigeria.
Since 70% of Christians who die for their faith are Nigerians, supporting ADFI’s advocacy in Nigeria would offer protection to the most persecuted Christians.
You can support persecuted Christians in Nigeria here.
To know more about Alliance Defending Freedom International, please watch the video below.