The Rev. James Audu Issa, ECWA pastor in Ekati, Kwara state, Nigeria, was found dead on Oct. 2, 2025. (ECWA church, Ekati)

ABUJA, Nigeria (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – Suspected Fulani criminals in western Nigeria kidnapped and killed a Christian pastor despite receiving 5 million naira ($3,125 USD) in ransom, sources said.

The Rev. James Audu Issa of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in the Ekati area of Kwara state was found dead in the wilderness on Thursday (Oct. 2) after he was kidnapped from his home within ECWA premises in Ekati town, Patigi County, on Aug. 28.

“The pastor was killed by Fulani bandits terrorizing Edu and Patigi Local Government Areas in Kwara state,” area resident Peter Kolo said.

His captors initially had demanded an exorbitant sum of 100 million naira ($62,500 USD), Kolo said.

“The distraught family members of the pastor and the Ekati community were able to negotiate the sum down to 5 million naira, which they paid in an effort to secure the pastor’s freedom,” he said. “After collecting the 5 million naira, the bandits exhibited extreme cruelty by demanding an additional 45 million naira [$28,125]. Tragically, before any further negotiation could take place, Rev. James Audu Issa was killed by the Fulani bandits.”

The Rev. Romanus Ebeneokodi, spokesman of ECWA, issued a brief statement about the killing.

“This harmless pastor has been cut down, one among many, leaving his wife, children, extended family, church and friends in agony,” Ebeneokodi said.

Ralph Madugu, editor of the ECWA’s Today’s Challenge Magazine, described the killing as one of many targeted attacks on Christians and their pastors.

“Yet there are some government officials denying that there is genocide against Christians?” Madugu said.

Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a 2020 report.

“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.

Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds.

Nigeria remained among the most dangerous places on earth for Christians, according to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. Of the 4,476 Christians killed for their faith worldwide during the reporting period, 3,100 (69 percent) were in Nigeria, according to the WWL.

“The measure of anti-Christian violence in the country is already at the maximum possible under World Watch List methodology,” the report stated.

In the country’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than they are in the North-East and North-West, Islamic extremist Fulani militia attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, Christians above all, according to the report. Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), among others, are also active in the country’s northern states, where federal government control is scant and Christians and their communities continue to be the targets of raids, sexual violence, and roadblock killings, according to the report. Abductions for ransom have increased considerably in recent years.

The violence has spread to southern states, and a new jihadist terror group, Lakurawa, has emerged in the northwest, armed with advanced weaponry and a radical Islamist agenda, the WWL noted. Lakurawa is affiliated with the expansionist Al-Qaeda insurgency Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, originating in Mali.

Nigeria ranked seventh on the 2025 WWL list of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

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