A civil society organisation, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Intersociety, has declared the Papal invitation of President Bola Tinubu for the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV as undeserved.
DAILY POST reports that the presidency confirmed that President Tinubu was invited to Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration, scheduled to hold at St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Sunday, May 18, 2025.
However, in a statement made available to journalists on Saturday, Intersociety said the invitation stands rejected.
It predicated its stand on the allegation that Christians were being killed in Nigeria on a daily basis.
The statement was signed by Emeka Umeagbalasi, Lead-Researcher/Head, Intersociety, Chinwe Umeche, Head, Democracy and Good Governance, Engineer Ekene Bede Umeagu, Head, Religious Freedom and Human Rights, and Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Head, Civil Liberties and Rule of Law.
The rights group claimed that in two years of Tinubu presidency, “Estimated 15,640 Christians killed by Jihadists on average of 7,820 deaths per year, 650 per month, 22 per day and one per hour.
“Estimated 14, 600 Christians abducted on average of 7,300 per year, 608 per month, 20 per day and almost one per hour.
“Out of the estimated 14, 600 abducted Christians, 1,460 (ten percent) died in their captors’ dens.”
Intersociety said based on the above claims, it had “declared as undeserved and totally rejected the papal invitation extended to President Ahmed Bola Tinubu of Nigeria to attend the inauguration of the 267th Pope of the global Catholic Church, Cardinal Francis Robert Prevost (as he then was) or Pope Francis Robert Prevost or ‘Pope Leo XIV as he is presently addressed.”
It said the global Catholics had recorded serious denominational and religious retardation, under-growth and under-development in Nigeria since the Boko Haram Jihadist uprising in July 2009 and the Jihadist Fulani State Power Conquest since June 2015 to date.
Intersociety also stated that the enlistment of some Catholic bishops in the itinerary of Nigeria’s Presidency to the Vatican was strongly condemnable.
“It further exposes the conspiracy of the country’s Christian leaders in grisly and egregious attacks by Jihadists and their patrons against Christians and their properties.
“This, such clerics most likely do by way of being too attached to the country’s top serving political office holders particularly top Federal and State executives and legislators.
“It must also be pointed out that much political attachment by top Christian clerics in Nigeria to the country’s top political office holders have brutally robbed Christian leaders of vocal and assertive voicing and powers particularly in matters of defense of Christian Faith and securement of security and safety of the country’s lay Christians.
“It is therefore our insistence that the country’s Catholic Bishops have no business whatsoever having their names in the list of the country’s presidential itinerary to the Vatican for the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV.
“One of the dire and damning moral implications of such is that it is likely that the named Catholic top clerics will have their flight tickets and other add-ins catered for by the Presidency, which if true, raises further concerns and suspicions over the likelihood of the named clerics becoming the country’s presidential image launderers particularly by demarketing the defense of Christian and Catholic Faith and covering up or whittling down reports or campaigns against violent attacks on Nigerian Christians and their properties including dwelling houses, sacred places of worship and learning, livelihoods, etc.
“Emerging statistics have shown that apart from Nigeria’s Catholics losing about 16 dioceses and thousands of parishes and outstations to the country’s Islamic Jihadists or Radical Islamists and their patrons in the past sixteen years or since July 2009, the country is now home to dozens of Islamic Jihadists and jihadist elements/jihad enablers within the country’s security forces.”
“The country’s Jihadists and their patrons have launched unchecked, untamed and untracked attacks on defenseless Christians and sacked or seized not less than 1000 indigenous Christian communities and occupied estimated over 70% of Christian forests out of the country’s total of 1,129 forests.
“The Jihadists and their patrons have also seized and occupied over 20,000 square miles and hundreds of thousands of hectares of Christian farmlands and farm settlements covering Benue, Plateau, Southern Kaduna,” it further claimed.
