Standing with a Bereaved Christian Family and Community in Barkin Ladi, Plateau State
“Is my crime that I speak for widows who have no voice? Is my crime that I cry for orphaned children whose parents were murdered?”
These are the words of Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, a Christian minister who has continued to speak courageously about the suffering of Christians in Nigeria, even when doing so has placed his own life and family at grave risk.
On 16 June 2026, the Christian community of Ungwan Magaji, Kauru Local Government Area of Kaduna State, was subjected to a horrific attack by Fulani militia.
Nine people were murdered and eleven others were critically injured. Among those brutally killed were four innocent children, aged between four and six years. Even the tender age and helplessness of these children did not move the attackers to show mercy.
ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY
In compliance with Article 10b of the constitution of CSMN, the Governing Council hereby invites all Christians to the Annual General Assembly of the socio-political arm of the Nigerian Church.
By Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi
As political activities gradually gather momentum ahead of the 2027 general elections, Nigeria's leading socio-cultural organisations and the National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF) appear to be converging around what they consider as the country's most urgent national question: the need for a new constitutional order founded on true federalism.
RESOLUTIONS
The National Christian Elders Forum (NCEF), at its July 2026 meeting deliberated on the state of the nation and, reviewing the ongoing preparations for another cycle of elections in 2027, noted as follows:
For years, violence has wreaked havoc on our brethren, leaving crying children and abandoned villages in its wake. In May, the cycle repeated itself: new sets of faces, ransacked of all happiness.
In Benue, militants plundered Christian communities with such violence that the residents had no time to carry clothes before they fled. In the Middle Belt, survival often comes by the skin of the teeth. When gunshots and Islamist chants shatter the silence at midnight, you run with what you wear, and nothing else. With the unusually heavy rains this year, the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)—especially the children—needed shelter, and safety, and most of all, clothes on their backs.
This report is an uncomfortable reminder that cruelty does not discriminate. We focus on six children whose father was murdered by Boko Haram. Forced into the same situation as thousands of other refugees, the bereaved family fled to Maiduguri with their mother. But the relief was not to last. Perhaps through the weight of grief or the emotional turmoil of caring for seven with nothing to her name, the mother soon fell ill. After escaping religious violence and bravely fighting a long war with sickness, the mother also died. Now, six children were displaced, bereaved of both their parents, and alone in a camp of refugees. Regular readers will know the Nigerian Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps have an unspoken truth: what might initially appear to be a temporary stay slowly turns into a life sentence. Still, more trouble lay on the horizon for the mourning orphans.
In Exodus 35:5, God commanded Moses thus, _Take ye from among you an offering unto the Lord: whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, an offering of the Lord; gold, and silver, and brass, ..._ To build the tabernacle, God’s people were called upon to pool resources together. That same pattern was repeated when David was preparing for the construction of the temple.
The Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN), the socio-political arm of the Nigeria Church, hereby responds to the provocative and insensitive press statement of the Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) under the leadership of the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar. That press statement, signed by Mr. Abbas Jimoh, the Public Affairs Officer of the Islamic body, “warned” the Federal Government of Nigeria to act quickly before Muslims “run out of patience” over what it alleged as “persistent attacks, profiling and marginalisation of the faith and its adherents.”
Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN) condoles Nigerians over the myriads of distresses and calamities that have befallen the country under the All Progressives Congress (APC) led government. Since APC made its debut in government in 2015, the country has been reeling from one distress to another. As the country prepares for another election in 2027, CSMN calls on Nigerians to objectively appraise the condition of the country and call a spade a spade. It can no longer be denied that Nigeria is afflicted with unimaginable leadership deficit in the past few years. In other nations, this leadership appraisal might not be a challenge, but in a country in which pretence and deceit are fast becoming the culture, it is necessary to remind Nigerians that “only the truth sets free.” A people that cannot tell themselves the truth will remain in bondage.
The food and clothing relief distribution was planned for eight displaced villages in Agatu — Ogwumogbo, Akele, Ikpele, Kpokpolo, Ejima, Ogbayi, Ole‑gadakolo and Olegadapa. All eight communities had suffered severe attacks by Fulani herdsmen for the second consecutive year. The survivors from these villages fled to Usha Community in Agatu LGA, Benue State, carrying with them their grief, and not much else.
For over thirteen years, the same people and faces have lived in the worn makeshift tents and walked the same beaten paths across eight IDP camps in Maiduguri. It is all too common for us, far removed from the hardship to glance over these reported numbers as sad statistics. The truth is, these are real lives and real people whose dreams and goals have been violently uprooted and thrust into a cycle of fear, lack, and uncertainty.
When we arrived at Otobi Akpa, the air was heavy with a sorrow we could almost touch. What we saw in the faces of the people, however, was not despair but the unspoken resilience of a village that has looked death in the face and continues to eke out a living amid suffering.
The Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN) wishes to express concern about the attitude and response of some Christians in southern Nigeria to the ongoing Islamist insurgency in the North and Middle Belt regions of the country. The Islamist insurgency has assumed genocidal and disastrous humanitarian dimensions. While some Christian bodies have sought to respond by taking relief to the affected brethren, the overwhelming lack of concern by a large section of the Church is disturbing.
PRESS RELEASE
CHRISTIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENT OF NIGERIA (CSMN)
The Christian Social Movement of Nigeria (CSMN) expresses anguish over the murder of 34 Christians at Angwan Rukuba in Jos City, on Palm Sunday, 29th March 2026. The CSMN mourns with the families affected in the carnage. We pray that God will comfort and strengthen them to bear the loss.
