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Freedom of Belief

4 March 2024

4 min read

We’re ignoring Nigeria's hellish underbelly

Why the West averts its gaze from anti-Christian violence there.

Chris Wadibia

Chris Wadibia is an academic advising on faith-based challenges. His research includes political Pentecostalism, global Christianity, and development.

A burnt out motor cycle and car stand amid charred debris in a dusty compound.

Burned vehicles after Good Friday raid on April 7, 2023, in Ngban, Benue state, Nigeria.

Justice, Development, and Peace Commission.

Moments ago a Christian was killed in Nigeria—again. For the 100 million Christians living in Nigeria, news of brutal murders of their fellow worshippers has become commonplace. Every day 14 Christians in Nigeria die because of their faith. Nigeria is a land of extreme paradoxes known for many things. It’s one of the world’s leading oil producers. It’s home to the globally popular Afrobeats music scene. Its distinguished citizens include director-general of the World Trade Organisation Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, president of the African Development Bank Akinwumi Adesina, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Amina Mohammed, and former president of the International Criminal Court Chile Eboe-Osuji, just to name a few. Its global diaspora of 17 million consists of Nigerians working in positions of power in virtually every industry imaginable. From banking, finance, and tech to professional sports, higher education, healthcare, culinary arts, and consulting, there is not a single major industry in the world whose list of leaders does not include a Nigerian name.

But just as every coin has two sides, so does Nigeria. Nigeria's story is incomplete without explaining its hellish underbelly. Well over 60 per cent of Nigeria's population, or at least 133 million of its citizens, live in a state of multidimensional poverty. The vast oil wealth generated by its oil industry only benefits a minuscule sliver of its elephantine population.

Nigeria is the global leader in anti-Christian violence. Since 2009, over 52,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria by Islamist extremists. In the last 15 years, over 18,000 churches and 2,200 schools in Nigeria have been set on fire. Open Doors, a charity whose mission focuses on providing support to persecuted Christians globally, estimates that 90 per cent of murders targeting Christians across the world in 2022 took place in Nigeria. Islamist extremists killed at least 145 Nigerian Catholic priests in 2022 alone.

Anti-Christian violence is evil just like antisemitic and Islamophobic violence are both evil.

For people enjoying religious freedom in Europe and the United States, violence against Christians feels like a thing of the past. The concept of anti-Christian violence in the West triggers thoughts of Europe's religious wars in the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries, or The Troubles between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland in the 20th century.

However, the scale of anti-Christian violence in Nigeria puts it in a league of its own. In the West we take for granted the freedom of religion because we have had it for so long. It is human nature to take for granted the aspects of life we have grown most accustomed to. Ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has reignited in Western public debate the pervasive, threatening existence of antisemitism and Islamophobia in Western societies.

But why has the consistent, monstrously murderous Christophobia in Nigeria that has unfolded in the last two decades not cemented its place within Western public discourse? Do Christians in the West only demand action when White Christians get murdered? Are 52,000 brutal, gory killings of Black Christian bodies in Sub-Saharan Africa not sufficient reason for the powers that be in global Christian society to mobilise their vast political, military, and economic resources to intervene, protect, and bring peace?

Christians running for their lives in Nigeria are as much part of the bride of Christ as Southern Baptists sipping sweet tea in Alabama on a Sunday afternoon.

Violence against Christians is not a thing of the past. It is as real a phenomenon today as it has ever been. Few states in the Majority World have developed for themselves a reputation for institutional ineptitude and malfeasance more so than Nigeria. Solutions for ending Nigeria's anti-Christian violence will not come from the Nigerian state. Instead, they must come from the religious sector, civil society, foreign governments, and private actors. Anti-Christian violence in Nigeria is not motivated solely by extremist Islamist zealotry, albeit the influence of this element certainly plays a part. Poverty, competition for scarce resources, and relative deprivation along with educational underdevelopment and political profiteering on the heel of Christophobia are collectively responsible for these violent acts.

In Christian theology, Jesus Christ has a bride; this bride is the church, or all who believe in Christ and follow his teachings. Christians running for their lives in Nigeria are as much part of the bride of Christ as Southern Baptists sipping sweet tea in Alabama on a Sunday afternoon, Anglicans enjoying a Sunday roast, or Pentecostals in São Paolo playing football on the beach after a midweek worship service. The killing of one Christian in Nigeria is an assault on the 2.4 billion Christians living across the world. Christ has only one bride, and He lovingly cares for each member of His bride equally, overwhelmingly, and powerfully.

Anti-Christian violence is evil just like anti-semitic and Islamophobic violence are both evil. Western media’s reluctance to report about these murders and offer platforms to activists, clerics, and stakeholders whose voices can help galvanise support for ending this violence cannot be separated from irreducibly influential Western religious gazes that dehumanise and deprioritise the lives, experiences, and sufferings of non-White Christians globally. Until anti-Christian violence in Nigeria comes to an end, the collective dignity of Christians worldwide will remain tainted by a scourge those with power are too apathetic to eradicate.

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Work

10 September 2025

4 min read

Can KPIs really measure what matters?

Distilling down worth risks losing something sacred

Rick Hansen

Rick writes and speaks on leadership, transformation, and culture.

Which box this year?

Yogi Atmo on Unsplash

I remember recently when I was reduced to a data point. I became an inconvenient name on a spreadsheet.

"Your services are no longer needed. We have to let you go," he stated with feigned empathy. Just like that, years of my work and contributions - hours, days, weeks, months - ceased to matter. I didn't matter. "HR will contact you shortly to explain the final details. Again, I am truly sorry."

The Zoom meeting ended, the camera went blank. I sat in my home office, staring at the blank screen of the company-issued laptop. The only sounds were the disheveled thoughts scrambling in my head and the gentle hum of the fan circulating cool air from the ceiling above. All went quiet. Just like that I was reduced to a KPI - a key performance indicator.

Having spent years in the business world, I'm well-acquainted with its dynamics, including hiring and firing. I recognize ambition and its relentless pursuit of progress. Still, it felt like a personal blow, like a scene on Instagram or YouTube you replay endlessly on loop, trying to comprehend, trying to make sense of it all.

As your value is quantified and found wanting, a sacred inner part of you perishes. In that moment, it’s hard to feel the wonder and mystery of your creation. You don’t feel what for centuries has been called the imago Dei - that we humans are made in God’s image. Instead, you think about how you were just told “we don’t need you.” You think about paying your bills? How will this impact your career? Where will you find your next job?

As a leader, I understand metrics are crucial for business. However, this pervasive culture of metrics has warped our perception of worth. Instead of marveling at the wonder of being made in the image of God, we have become trained to value only what can be counted. We’ve become both deaf and blind to the unquantifiable beauty of human existence.

We’ve prioritized metrics over people. We’ve created a world where efficiency presides over meaning and productivity overshadows purpose. Ironically, this has crippled entire organizations, not optimized them. Critical components like morale, engagement, and productivity are at an all time low. Just check the numbers. (See what I did there)

We have built a ruthless culture defined by a dehumanizing machinery of metrics. People have become problems to be optimized rather than mysteries to be revered.

If we let our job define us and if as leaders we let it define our mystery and those we lead, we succumb to a cancerous, spiritual violence. To treat a person as a set of outputs is to willinging deny our capacity to reflect a divine truth.

Does it have to be this way?

William Blake's poem, "The Divine Image," eloquently conveys a core theological principle: humanity mirrors the divine, embodying God's very image. We are an irreducible, immeasurable value.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love

Is God, our father dear

And Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love

Is Man, his child and his care.

Are we imago Dei? Are we the very image of God the first chapter in Genesis speaks of?

Is this true? Are we always irreducible, immeasurable? Or is this just a conversation to have in a broader discussion when contemplating humanity’s place in the cosmos?

What about the workplace? What about when human worth is distilled into key performance indicators that then become the only thing measured, the only things that defines a person’s worth? What happens when our irreducible human value, this imago Dei is distilled to mere data points on business dashboards? To KPIs.

On one hand, nothing happens; we are still a complex mystery of God’s creation. We are still immeasurable, irreducible. We are imago Dei. On the other hand, something does happen to the person. Something sacred is expunged. Our infinite complexity like emotions, dreams, quirks, ideas, feelings, and virtues are reduced and transcribed into metrics and evaluated against random data sets. Perhaps this is where the shallow quip originates? “It’s not personal. It’s just business.”

I mean I get it. In the business world, we are a metrics driven culture, quantifiable data points are seemingly the only identifier of worth. It drives the business, right?

We read in our company handbooks that, “our people make the difference.” In reality, we all know that data is the true currency. It is here, I argue, that the soul gets buried beneath spreadsheets and the image of the divine is lost within a myriad of data sets.

We must raise a quiet but profound rebellion.

Our spirit of God’s very image that thrives in a mutual wonder and shared humanity cannot be replaced by a zero-sum race for higher scores.

Ask someone at work “How are you doing?”, actually listen to them and engage, and only then ask, “How are you doing with your targets?” Metrics are important, but the person behind them is essential.

When we become our job or when we think those we work with are defined only by how well they do their job, we are all vulnerable to this sacred loss. Our goal is not our job. Our purpose is not how and if we hit our metrics. Instead, our sole aim should be to seek how to better understand this mystery of this life - this imago Dei - that we have been given and how to share it with others.

This reminds me of the saying, "Not everything worthwhile can be measured, and not everything that can be measured is worthwhile."

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