ON a Sunday that should have passed like many others, worship was disrupted by fear in parts of Kaduna State. Gunmen abducted Christian worshippers during church activities, reviving an all too familiar pattern in a state that has for years stood at the intersection of faith, violence, and a fragile security order. The incident was not unprecedented. What makes it unsettling is how routine such attacks have become, and how little clarity exists about when, or whether, they will ever end.
For communities in southern Kaduna, the news did not arrive as a shock. Churches have repeatedly been targeted in attacks ranging from mass abductions to killings and arson. Official condemnations, assurances of rescue operations, and calls for calm often follow these incidents repeatedly. Yet the cycle of such sorrow persists, leaving residents to worship with apprehension and families to weigh the risks of public religious life.
The Kaduna kidnapping fits into a broader pattern of insecurity that has evolved over the past decade. What once took the form of communal and ethno-religious clashes has increasingly shifted towards organised criminal violence. Armed bandit groups now exploit weak rural security, poor intelligence coverage, and rugged terrain in forests to abduct civilians for ransom. Places of worship, particularly in remote areas, have become soft targets.
While the victims in this case were Christian worshippers, the underlying threat cuts across identities. Kidnapping has affected Muslims and Christians alike across Kaduna, Niger, Zamfara, and Katsina states. What differs is the symbolism. An attack on a church, like an attack on a mosque, resonates beyond the immediate crime. It strikes at the sense of safety tied to faith and communal life, and in Kaduna’s delicate social landscape, it risks deepening mistrust if not carefully addressed.
Kaduna State occupies a strategic position in Nigeria’s north-west, linking the north to the Federal Capital Territory and other regions. Persistent insecurity there has national implications. When worshippers are abducted in Kaduna, it raises questions about the safety of highways, farmlands, and urban centres across the region. It also tests the credibility of broader claims that security conditions are improving.
Calls for stronger protection of worship spaces and for dialogue that goes beyond crisis moments keep mounting from religious leaders in Kaduna. They argue that security cannot rely solely on reactive deployments after attacks occur. Instead, they point to the need for intelligence-led policing, community trust and coordinated federal and state action. These demands echo those of civil society groups who warn that, without structural change, kidnappings will remain a lucrative and low-risk enterprise for criminals.
The federal government has acknowledged the challenge of banditry and kidnapping across northern Nigeria and has launched various military operations over the years. While these efforts have recorded some tactical successes, they have not yet delivered lasting safety for vulnerable communities. The persistence of attacks on churches and other civilian targets suggests that force alone is insufficient without addressing governance gaps, local grievances, and economic drivers of crime.
For Christians in Kaduna, the latest kidnapping is another reminder that worship has become an act of quiet courage. Congregations continue to gather, sometimes under the watch of local vigilantes or with altered service times. Life goes on, but with an edge of anxiety that was once unthinkable.
The deeper question raised by this incident is not only about who carried out the abduction, but about what it says of the Nigerian state’s capacity to protect its citizens in their most ordinary moments. Churches are not political spaces; they are places of refuge, prayer, and community. When they become theatres of fear, something fundamental has broken.
Shifting from the Kaduna kidnapping, the recent decision by the Katsina State Government to release bandits has unsettled many Nigerians and reopened painful questions about the coherence of Nigeria’s anti-banditry strategy. Although the state government framed the move within the language of reconciliation and de-radicalisation, for communities that have buried relatives, paid ransoms, and fled farms because of attacks attributed to the same networks, the releases feel less like peace building and more like a betrayal of justice.
We cannot deny the fact that the government have indirectly been complicit in these ongoing killings with their attitude. When our approach to rescuing people has entirely shifted to ransom-paying and criminal swap for peace deals, what else do we expect, rather than a repeated pattern of endless kidnapping, because we have unknowingly legalised crime that pays?
When the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, sat down with BBC Hausa recently, his words carried the weight of a country wearied by years of violence and difficult choices. Nigeria’s borders, he said, remain too open, too easily crossed by men who traffic weapons, abduct civilians, and vanish into forests and neighbouring countries. Until those borders are better secured, he warned, insecurity will continue to spill across communities like an uncontained fire.
Listening to General Musa Christopher, the Minister of Defence, repeatedly kicking against paying bandit ransom and seeking peace with them, shows that at least we have a few people in government who know what they are doing. Musa was equally blunt about ransom payments, describing them as the oxygen that keeps kidnapping alive.
Each negotiation, he argued, sends a signal that crime pays and that the state can be pressured through human suffering. In his telling, the tragedy of abducted citizens is compounded when fear pushes communities into silence or, worse, quiet accommodation with violent groups.
Terrorism, he insisted, does not survive on guns alone; it feeds on sympathy, hesitation, and the willingness to look away. Ending it will require more than military operations. It will demand collective resolve, honest intelligence from citizens, and the courage to stop rewarding violence even when the cost feels unbearable. For Musa, the path to lasting security is neither easy nor comforting, but he insists it is the only way to break a cycle that has trapped the nation for far too long.
