A six-year investigation by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa has found that 79,323 people were killed in terrorism-related violence in Nigeria between 2020 and 2025, alongside 34,773 civilian abductions over the same period.The findings were unveiled in Jos on Tuesday in a report titled “Four Times Boko Haram? How the World Misreads Nigeria’s Violence,” confirmed in a statement signed by ORFA’s Senior Research Analyst, Frans Vierhout.
The report puts the scale of violence at an average of seven attacks and 36 deaths daily, noting that more than 42,000 of those killed were innocent civilians.ORFA, which monitors religious freedom and produces research to inform policy and advocacy, said its researchers spent years cross-checking attack patterns, producing findings that challenge long-held assumptions about who is driving the violence. The report puts civilian deaths at 42,033, with the remaining 37,290 fatalities attributed to security forces and members of terrorist groups.
Crucially, the investigation pushes back against the widespread perception that Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province are the country’s primary perpetrators. According to the report, the two groups were responsible for only 12 per cent of civilian killings combined — eight per cent for Boko Haram and four per cent for ISWAP. By contrast, armed groups categorised as “Fulani Terror Groups” were blamed for 44 per cent of all civilian deaths, or 18,577 killings, more than triple the 4,941 civilian deaths attributed jointly to Boko Haram and ISWAP.
ORFA was careful to draw a line between armed Fulani groups and the broader Fulani ethnic population, stating that it distinguishes between the two, since the vast majority of Fulani people are not involved in violence. Vierhout said the data revealed a pattern that could no longer be ignored, noting that the organisation examined how killings occur, who the victims are, where attacks happen, and seasonal patterns of violence, with the evidence pointing strongly in one direction. He argued that Fulani militia violence is the dominant force behind the country’s death toll, calling the Western focus on Boko Haram misleading at best, and warned that Nigeria is incubating a terror network the outside world has yet to acknowledge.
On abductions, the report found that groups classified as “Fulani Terror Groups” and “Unidentified Terror Groups” accounted for 43 per cent and 49 per cent of the 34,773 documented cases, respectively. The investigation also flagged what it called a religious dimension to the violence, recording 28,551 Christian and 13,224 Muslim deaths over the period. Adjusted for state population figures, the report found Christians in affected states were killed at 4.4 times the rate of Muslims.
A pattern the report termed “Captivity by Creed,” drawn from survivor testimonies, found that Muslim captives generally faced lower ransom demands and less violence, while Christian captives faced higher ransom demands, a greater likelihood of execution, and, for women, a higher risk of sexual violence. The report recorded 15,932 Christian and 15,272 Muslim abductions, and noted that Christian hostages were more likely to face prolonged negotiations, harsher treatment and execution even after ransoms were paid.
ORFA’s Senior Research Analyst and author of the accompanying study, Captivity by Creed: The Religious Sorting System Nobody Talks About, Steven Kefas, said the field research points to a consistent pattern in which a lesser value is assigned to a Christian life, adding that from the moment of capture, Muslim and Christian hostages enter different realities — not driven by individual captors, but by a system consistent across multiple states, armed groups and years of survivor testimony.
The investigation further found that 75 per cent of civilians were killed in attacks on communities, many involving raids on farming settlements, abductions, rape and destruction of property. ORFA said its database captured up to 60 data points per incident, drawing on field research, local partners, academic institutions, media and NGO reports, and verified social media content.The organisation called for a broader reckoning with the crisis, arguing that efforts to address insecurity in Nigeria will remain incomplete without a full accounting of the conflict’s religious dimensions.
