Nigerian worshippers celebrate Easter under tight security after deadly attack

Christians in Nigeria’s central city of Jos celebrated Easter Sunday Mass under a pall of fear following a shooting that killed around 30 people a week ago.

A large, imposing church situated metres from the site of the Palm Sunday attack was less than half full, as worshippers gathered to mark Easter, the most important festival on the Christian calendar.

With the city still under a curfew between 3:00 pm and 7:00 am, streets were largely deserted.

There was just one police checkpoint along the road where the church is located, in the Anguwan Rukuba district.

The military said it had deployed an additional 850 troops to Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital, following last Sunday’s deadly shooting around an open bar.

Worshippers said they did not feel safe and were sceptical of government promises to protect them.

“I don’t feel safe in the community, because the government is not doing enough…in terms of security,” John Abo Galadima, 57, told AFP.

There is “no sufficient security presence here”, he said outside the beige Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) building.

The church deployed private security to search attendees before allowing them access.

Another worshipper, Marian Mark Andy, said: “I don’t feel safe. People are afraid, they could not come to church”.

– ‘Too much’ –

Reverend Luka Musa Madaki prayed for peace as he urged the congregation to stay vigilant.

“As people of God, you need to stand up, spiritually and physically. The attacks are coming to us too much. You should always remain vigilant and reach out to each other,” said the reverend.

While Plateau state has seen repeated incidents of rural violence linked in part to farmer-herder conflicts, the incident in Jos marked a rare and unsettling urban attack.

Jos is home to a mixed population of Christians and Muslims, and many of them live peacefully side by side.

But ethnic and religious tension has sparked deadly sectarian riots in the past in Plateau state.

Such attacks are not new in the landlocked state. In one of the deadliest incidents of recent years, nearly 200 people were killed at Christmas in 2023 in raids on mostly Christian towns.

In September 2001, sectarian rioting in Jos claimed almost 1,000 lives in a five-day rampage.

Muslims last Friday observed the weekly Juma’a prayers under tighter security than usual, with soldiers and police deployed at Jos’s central mosque.

The chief Imam of Jos, Sheikh Ghazali Ismail Adam, in his post-prayer sermon admonished worshippers to “dignify humanity, uphold fear of Allah and…promote peaceful coexistence”.