YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – Police in Nigeria have arrested two people suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of Father Thomas Oyode, the rector of the Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary School of the Diocese of Auchi, located in Edo State in the South Central region of the country.

While presenting the suspects to the media on October 30, the Edo State Commissioner of Police, Umoru Ozigi, said the suspects were assisting the police in tracking down their accomplices.

He appealed to the public to volunteer any information that can lead to the arrest of criminals in a region where law breakers are high.

Oyode was abducted on Sunday evening at the seminary at around 7pm during the evening prayers and blessing, according to a statement by the Diocesan Director of Communications, Father Peter Egielewa.

He said the kidnappers initially took two seminarians but the rector asked the kidnappers to release the students and take him.

“The rector of the institution, Fr. Thomas Oyode, was kidnapped and driven into the bush. However, the vice-chancellor and all seminarians have been accounted for and are safe and temporarily moved to a secure area until security around the seminary is tightened. Unfortunately, there has been no communication with the kidnappers yet,” Egielewa said in a statement.

Unconfirmed reports say the kidnappers are demanding a ransom of nearly $122,000. CruxHis attempts to get confirmation from the diocese went unanswered.

The recent kidnapping highlights the growing threat to Nigeria’s clergy and religious people, usually considered “soft targets”.

According to a report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, known as “Intersociety”, more than 150,000 religiously motivated civilian deaths have been recorded in Nigeria since 2009.

The report, released on February 14, found that some 14 million Christians have been uprooted and forced from their homes since 2009, and more than 800 Christian communities have been attacked.

Intersociety director Emeka Umeagbalassi said Crux that the targeting of Catholic clergy and Christians is part of a larger plan to Islamize the country.

He accused the federal government of bias against Christians and described it as “a wing of the Fulani killers”, a reference to a largely Muslim ethnic group widely dispersed across West Africa, including Nigeria.

“There are a lot of slaughters, kidnappings and disappearances going on in the country and the security agencies are complicit in these crimes,” Emeka said.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja said security agencies “have been put to shame” by the ongoing killing and kidnapping of Christians.

“Our nation continues to be plagued by heightened insecurity. Boko Haram insurgents, herdsmen militias, bandits, kidnappers and so-called ‘unknown defendants’ persist in spreading terror in various regions,” Kaigama said. Crux.

He squarely blamed the federal government for failing to protect the people, saying it has lost its ability to control the perpetrators of violence who are now terrorizing people in different parts of the country at will.

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, “HURIWA”, has urged the Federal Government to take stronger action against attacks on priests, pastors and moderate Muslims who are increasingly falling prey to kidnappers, terrorists, bandits and Fulani herdsmen.

Last year, the outspoken Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Mathew Hassan Kukah, said his diocese spent over $37,200 to secure the release of the pastoral agents.

“There are real fears that these abductions amount to a targeted persecution of the Christian faith, but the financial motive appears to overshadow these concerns,” HURIWA said in a report last year.

The government’s failure to address the abductions and killings of priests is said to have encouraged other criminals to commit similar acts.

Franklyne Ogbunwezeh, Senior Researcher for Sub-Saharan Africa at Christian Solidarity International, notes that while criminal gangs may be driven by money to kidnap clerics, jihadist elements have another motive: to establish an Islamic caliphate by uprooting Christians from their communities, particularly in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.

“They kidnap and kill Christian leaders who hold a high position in their communities, sometimes even killing them after ransoms have been paid. This means detaching the community from its core, making it easier to destroy those Christian communities,” he said.