January 21st, 2026
The Middle Belt Coalition Against Violent Occupation (MB-CAVO) condemns in the strongest possible terms the confirmed mass abduction of 177 worshippers from three churches in Kajuru Local Government Area, Kaduna State, on Sunday, January 19, 2026.
What the authorities hastily dismissed as “falsehood” has now been irrefutably established. A full, verified list of 177 abducted persons, including children as young as five and elders up to 71 years, has been publicly released by the Adara Development Association (ADA). Entire families were taken together. Some households lost more than ten members in one day.
This is not rumor.
This is not propaganda.
This is a documented crime scene with named victims.
STATE DENIAL IS COMPLICITY
MB-CAVO is gravely alarmed by the initial denial issued by the Kaduna State Police Commissioner, who publicly challenged Nigerians to “produce names” of abducted persons. Those names have now been produced 177 of them.
Worse still, credible human rights groups report that security operatives blocked independent fact-finding teams from accessing the affected communities. This obstruction raises a fundamental and disturbing question:
What exactly was the police trying to hide while citizens were being marched into forests by terrorists?
In any serious country, such premature denial in the face of unfolding atrocities would trigger immediate removal, investigation, and sanctions. In Nigeria, it is treated as routine.
OUR DEMANDS, NO NEGOTIATION, NO RANSOM
MB-CAVO hereby demands the following urgent and non-negotiable actions:
1. Immediate redeployment of the Kaduna State Commissioner of Police and a full investigation into the official denial and obstruction of verification efforts.
2. Massive, coordinated security deployment, Army, Air Force, Police tactical units, and intelligence assets, to locate, encircle, and dismantle the terrorist camps holding these 177 abducted worshippers.
3. No payment of ransom. No negotiations with terrorists. Nigeria must stop financing its own destruction. Every ransom paid fuels the next abduction.
4. Immediate arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators, their informants, logistics suppliers, and sponsors, without ethnic, religious, or political cover.
5. Permanent security presence in Kajuru and surrounding communities, including protection of churches, farms, and access roads.
A PATTERN OF DECEIT AND BLOOD
This abduction occurred barely days after the same community reportedly paid ransom to secure the release of earlier victims. Terrorists have clearly learned that Nigeria rewards violence with cash and silence.
At the same time:
Communities in Benue, Plateau, Niger, Taraba, Nasarawa and Southern Kaduna continue to bury their dead.
Victims are told there is “no genocide,” even as churches are raided and families erased overnight.
Government resources are spent on foreign lobbyists and image laundering, while citizens are kidnapped in their hundreds.
No nation wins a war against terror by denying the victims exist.
CALL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
MB-CAVO calls on the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, and international human rights bodies to urgently intervene:
Demand transparent rescue operations for the 177 abducted worshippers.
Sanction officials who obstruct truth, verification, and justice.
Hold the Nigerian government accountable to its constitutional duty to protect life and liberty.
The world must understand this clearly:
When a government denies verified mass abductions, it crosses from incompetence into complicity.
Finally, the people of the Middle Belt are tired of condolences without action, denials without shame, and security forces that arrive only after the damage is done.
These 177 names are not statistics.
They are fathers, mothers, children, worshippers.
They must be rescued alive.
The terrorists must be arrested and prosecuted.
And those who covered up this crime must answer for it.
Enough is enough.
Signed:
Vershima Orkuma Hemen
National Publicity Secretary
Middle Belt Coalition Against Violent Occupation (MB-CAVO)
MB-CAVO
Security Is Our Constitutional Right