Kogi Church Attack: Pastor, Wife and Worshippers Abducted

Terrorists Storm Ejiba Church and Abduct Pastor, Wife and Worshippers

Terrorists attack Cherubim and Seraphim church in Ejiba, Kogi. Pastor, wife and worshippers abducted as state deploys security to rescue victims.

Atlantic Post

November 30, 2025

2–3 minutes

Banditry, Church Attack, Ejiba, Kidnapping, Kogi State, National Security, religious persecution

LOKOJA, Kogi State — The early Sunday raid on the Cherubim and Seraphim church in Ejiba, Yagba West LGA, is at once a human tragedy and a strategic failure.

Kogi State authorities have confirmed that armed men burst into a morning service. They whisked away the pastor, his wife, and several worshippers. This act threw the town into panic and prompted an immediate security sweep.

This incident is not isolated. In 2024 and 2025, Nigeria has experienced an alarming surge in mass abductions. There have also been attacks on soft targets, including churches and schools.

International wire reports and government briefings show a wave of mass kidnappings this month alone. Hundreds of schoolchildren were seized in separate raids. There were also multiple church attacks in neighbouring states.

The pattern is clear. Kidnapping has become a business model for organised armed gangs and an instrument of terror.

Official statistics underline the scale. The National Bureau of Statistics Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey estimated more than two million kidnapping incidents in the May 2023–April 2024 period. The North West bears the heaviest burden.

That figure, staggering as it is, tallies with monthly dashboards from the National Human Rights Commission that continue to record hundreds of kidnappings and killings in single months in 2025. The state and federal response to date has been reactive rather than preventive.

Comparatively the recent spate of church abductions in Kwara and elsewhere shows a shift in target selection. Where once bandits focused principally on ransom rich convoys and schools, they now strike places of worship during services.

In Kwara, dozens of worshippers were abducted in November. The subsequent release of some victims after security action highlights the precariousness of rural congregations. It also emphasizes the speed with which violence can travel across forest corridors.

Kingsley Fanwo, Kogi’s commissioner for information, was blunt. He warned congregations against meeting in isolated, unsecured venues and urged citizens to volunteer intelligence.

The warning is necessary but incomplete. It is not enough to tell civilians to stay away from churches in crime corridors. The state must give protection, create regular patrols, secure routes and install rapid response units linked to local intelligence.

Communities might be asked to avoid mass worship. In such cases, the state must show viable alternatives. It should also provide an actionable security plan.

Critically, the federal and state security architecture remains under-resourced and fragmented. Helicopter and anti-kidnapping deployments were reported around Ejiba after the raid but such measures, while useful, are stopgap.

What is required now is a coherent strategy. It must tackle root causes such as the economics of kidnapping. It should also tackle impunity, porous borders, and the politicised neglect of rural security. Until disruptors of the criminal economy are prosecuted and local policing reformed, churches, schools and markets will remain targets.

For victims and their families the immediate priority is rescue and care. For policymakers the imperative is structural reform. The state must shift from admonitions to action. If prayers are to be safe, governance must stop outsourcing security to chance.