Are Nigerian Christian People, Churches and Schools being Persecuted (Episode 336)?

Are Nigerian Christian People, Churches and Schools being Persecuted (Episode 336)?

What does it change when you’ve stood inside a room-stained blue by gas, walked past rows of wooden bunks that trapped heat, and stared at steel cages overflowing with worn shoes? That memory doesn’t sit quietly; it points forward—and it won’t let us look away from fresh reports of identity-based violence today.

We draw a straight, careful line between what was witnessed at Majdanek and what credible investigators and journalists are reporting in parts of Nigeria: targeted killings, burned churches and schools, communities living with fear, and families carrying the weight of ambiguous loss when someone doesn’t come home. The goal isn’t shock; it’s clarity. We ground the numbers in sources, stress precision over generalization, and ask what mental health care looks like when trauma is ongoing rather than over. From psychological first aid to community rituals that restore agency, we share practical ways faith leaders, neighbors, and listeners can help survivors stabilize, grieve, and rebuild without erasing the truth of what happened.

Along the way, we talk about grief as it really feels—wave-like, unpredictable, and human regardless of belief or geography. We sit with the tension of honoring faith while resisting the urge to flatten complex realities. And we name a hard but hopeful claim: justice is a health intervention. When violence is acknowledged and accountability pursued, symptoms ease because the world becomes a little more coherent. That’s why storytelling matters, why verification matters, and why solidarity—between Ohio and Nigeria, between past and present—can turn empathy into action.

If this conversation moved you, subscribe, share it with someone who cares about human dignity, and leave a review so more people can find it. Your voice helps turn remembrance into responsibility.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome and Milestone Gratitude

1:17 Trigger Warning and Topic Framing

2:06 Setting the WWII Context

4:56 Arrival, Deception, and Selection

7:31 Gas Chambers, Labor, and Control

10:58 Visiting Majdanek: Evidence Seen

14:23 Barracks, Heat, and Conditions

17:38 Mass Shootings and Burial Sites

19:53 Artifacts: Shoes, Crematoria, Proof

23:04 Turning to Present-Day Nigeria

24:15 Reported Killings and Sources

26:45 Burned Churches, Schools, and Data

28:43 Press Blind Spots and Reach

31:06 Why This Matters to Mental Health

34:12 Grief, Uncertainty, and Faith

37:08 Universality of Trauma and Worth

40:05 Hopes, Blessing, and Closing

#NigerianChristians #ReligiousPersecution #ChurchesInNigeria #ChristianityInNigeria #PersecutionAwareness #NigeriaNews #FaithUnderFire #HumanRightsNigeria #ChristianSchoolsNigeria #ProtectOurFaith #ReligiousFreedomNigeria #NigerianChurchChallenges #VoicesOfThePersecuted #ChristianCommunitySupport #StopReligiousViolence #justiceforsurvivors #justice4survivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #factoverfictionmatters #transparency #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices336

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Milestone Gratitude
• 1:17 Trigger Warning and Topic Framing
• 2:06 Setting the WWII Context
• 4:56 Arrival, Deception, and Selection
• 7:31 Gas Chambers, Labor, and Control
• 10:58 Visiting Majdanek: Evidence Seen
• 14:23 Barracks, Heat, and Conditions
• 17:38 Mass Shootings and Burial Sites
• 19:53 Artifacts: Shoes, Crematoria, Proof
• 23:04 Turning to Present-Day Nigeria
• 24:15 Reported Killings and Sources
• 26:45 Burned Churches, Schools, and Data
• 28:43 Press Blind Spots and Reach
• 31:06 Why This Matters to Mental Health
• 34:12 Grief, Uncertainty, and Faith
• 37:08 Universality of Trauma and Worth
• 40:05 Hopes, Blessing, and Closing

Transcript

VoicesforVoicesJustinAlanHayes: 0:02

Hey everyone, it's Justin Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us today. Um uh episode we're over the hump of 330 total episodes. Uh, thank you for watching, listening. Uh, whether you're watching on a public server or private server, uh, whether you're near, whether you're far, whether you're in Ohio, or whether you're uh uh in New Zealand, uh in all areas uh in in between. Thank you for joining us and making uh the voices for voices, TV show and podcasts what it is, uh watching and listening, uh always having it with you on the go, no matter where you're at. Thank you for making us part of uh your day, uh a day, more days, one episode, 300 episodes. Uh we can't do this without you. So thank you for joining us today. Uh this episode, we're gonna be diving into uh some pretty disturbing information that we're uh that we're finding out outside of uh uh outside of Nigeria, uh, the country. And uh want to preface as we as we get into this, uh the some of the information may be uh found troubling, uh, but again, we're we're looking to share information, how it relates to mental health, how it relates uh to health in general, uh especially uh to us as human beings. Uh so before we get into uh what uh what we believe to be happening uh and having happened uh in in Nigeria, uh first uh want to level set and take ourselves back to uh the late 1930s and uh 1940s. And uh there was something called World War II that was taking place. Uh there was something uh that was now it's been called the the Holocaust, where there were specific individuals uh for one reason or another that were um picked up, uh put on trains and taken to uh taken to uh not nice places. And what these individuals were being told was uh you know a new life waits for you, and wear your wear your finest clothing, uh, finest accessories, earrings and jewelry and rings, uh, and and so a lot of these individuals, uh with a good good percentage uh of them being uh uh Jews, uh, they were again they were told these things, a new life, everything's gonna be so much better. And so they would see their neighbors and people they know uh that were being uh being asked in a little bit of a forceful way to leave and hop on the train. So they did. And this is what started what uh some may call uh as far as terms, the Holocaust, where some individuals were uh were as their their train was pulling into certain areas. Uh you're talking about let's see, you're talking about Poland, uh among other other countries that uh had these uh so-called uh uh they're now dubbed you know concentration camps. And to get a little bit of background then on so once these trains would arrive, they would they would arrive. Um the individuals on the trains. This isn't I'm not claiming to be a you know super historian, um just from information that I've read and things I've seen that we're gonna get to, uh make it apparent that these events did happen. Uh and so trains will pull in to uh these these stations, and they were at these concentration camps. So everybody got off, uh, and then all of a sudden there was very stern individuals telling them to remove their clothes, remove their jewelry, their uh accessories, uh and to go into let's say called a house, but uh into this building, and there's really two paths. It starts out in one path, and then there's really two paths uh as things kind of as hallways, condens, and uh and and one of those paths. Uh well actually before that, uh these individuals were told that you know they were gonna you know be taking showers uh you know before their before uh you know their great life is to begin. And one way was in one room and one way was in another room. Uh one way was for all intents and purposes a place to exterminate individuals through um through gas uh that would come through the vent. So if you actually looked at the room, you would see you know these vents and uh and so that to the average person, they would see that uh and so that's what they think. They think, oh, we're gonna go in, we're gonna get a shower, and then we're gonna get started on this just new life. Uh for half of those people, uh, gas came came out of those and really just kind of suffocated people to death. And so they passed away. And then the others on the other side of the building, another room, uh, who were deemed uh well enough to to work and to do the work that uh these uh these these German troops uh were were asking them to do. More not uh asking, they're more directing and saying this is what what you're gonna to do. So a lot of the people that were in the gas chamber were a lot of the a lot of the men and there were also children and and um women in in there uh and that was because the uh you know the the soldiers they didn't want any rebellion, they didn't want people to go against them and run away and get out and then go tell people what's happening, and so uh what I what I believe in good faith that uh in those cases that uh these uh German troops that they they didn't want that to happen, they'd want people to get away and and share what what's going on, and so um I'm not gonna get into like uh any more of those specifics, but uh a lot of people died. There's been questions that have arisen over the years of if these things really happen and all that. Um and so why am I bringing that up today? Is number one, I was able to go to um in my travels over the years, uh at one time I was able to go to uh I'll say the the the best uh of what's left of a concentration camp uh in uh Lublin is called My Jena, My Genake, which is M-A-J-D-A-N-E-K. Uh, and and there I was able to see just the vast amount of space, uh, the different buildings, and so walked into that initial building that I just said and talked about uh everybody has their opinions, but I was there, I saw it, so I know this was this had happened. Uh and so I with my tour guide, we went into the building, that first building that I talked about, where there's you know two ways. One go one way, you go into the gas chamber. The other way, uh they were they they say they disinfected them uh because the Germans thought that there was something wrong with with with these particular individuals. Uh and so they that's what they did. Uh and so I was able to see the room where there's still uh shades of blue on on the walls and the ceilings, which were remnants, which are remnants of uh the gas that was uh that was used to lack of better terms, exterminate vast amounts of people. So we're talking overall, not just the one that I was at, but there are many other of these concentration camps. Uh and you may ask, well, why are we talking about this on a on a mental health show? Well, there's there's some people who have survived, who who got out, who made it through, who were children at the time, or by other means they were able to get through uh the horrendous conditions. Uh, that if if they didn't make it through that building, uh you know the forced labor, the lack of food, uh it was it I didn't know what to expect until I went and I saw these things firsthand. I see these barracks where you know hundreds of literally just wood beds that these uh these individuals had to sleep in. The intense heat that these individuals had to endure because there weren't any windows built out of wood, and I remember the day that I was there, uh the temperature may have been high sixties, low seventies. We walked into one of those barracks, and it was just unbelievably hot, and I had I think shorts on and a short sleeve shirt, and so just to think what individuals were going through is just uh incredible, and one scene, and I'll leave leave it at this, and then we'll turn our attention to current day. Excuse me. After after the people would get off the train and before they would go into the building, that one way was the gas chamber, or people weren't making it out alive, and then the other other room. Um and I mentioned you know them having to take their clothes off, and uh all their jewelry and clothing was collected by these troops, sent back to a central location for uh for Russia to be able for uh Germans to be able to have and to sell into you know gold rings, they're able to melt that. Uh they're able to take tires from cars uh and help uh actually not tires from cars, they were able to take headstones from from cemeteries that were in stone, and they were able to use that to build different different things throughout these concentration camps, and it was just it was sickening to see. What also was sickening to see was the crematorium where I can't remember how many of these were lined up, maybe 10. Um, and it's it's where the when people passed away, they would take them in these crematorium, they'd cremate, so there would be no um or or or little little evidence of what was happening. But what I want to get at is the scene that really made to the actually two scenes that made the biggest impressions on me, besides the rooms and the gas chambers and and that. Uh one of those was uh towards the back of the property, there's grass. And so, right, so there could be hills, there could be it could be flat. And I looked at the particular area of grass that the two-year guide was sharing with me, and there was like it was like a anybody who's golfed, you know, there's it's kind of uh you know, the bunkers, so the usually they're sometimes they're steep. So if if you hit your ball into the bunker, you gotta hit it over five feet, ten feet, depending on the golf course. Um I'm not equating golf to these concentration camps, but just have that thought in your mind. Um, where you you look out, you see grass, but then you see like kind of almost like curved divots. And what was explained through history was uh on the most deadly day at that particular concentration camp, uh they would line people up, and then they would have soldiers with guns, and and then you know the rest, and after they're shot, then they go down, the bodies go down into these doets, and uh they either bury them there or they take them to the crematorium and have their their bodies cremated, and so I was able to see that. That was something I was able to see with my own eyes, and I couldn't help but just think about what that feeling must have been like for those those people, uh, or even the soldiers, whether they wanted to do it or not. But I saw it, it's there, it's real. So for all the naysayers that seem that never happened, uh I invite you to go on a trip and and and see see these things, and then this the second, the last scene was there were at least one building, and there were these like I don't know, steel cages. And I mentioned how when the people would get off of the train, they would have to take their clothes off and all their accessories and that. Well, this particular building and the steel cages were the shoes that the people on on the trains that got rounded up, and the shoes are still there to this day in these big steel cages, and uh the color is worn away in most of them. Um, I'm talking steel cage, six, seven, eight feet tall, a couple hundred feet long, and there was, I believe, three different of these contraptions with shoes filled from the bottom all the way up to to the top, and and all I could think of like, oh my gosh, these uh these are shoes of people, and uh the reason why uh this particular uh concentration camp was still in as good as uh as good as condition is to my understanding the Russians and World War II, they were closing in, and so what the Germans were trying to do with all their uh concentration camps was to take all as much evidence as they could, and so nobody would find out that that never that those things ever happened. Well, in this case, this was in Poland, and the the Germans didn't get word enough ahead of time to be able to try to destroy uh you know these uh these barracks, these are these uh crematoriums, uh the again the that initial registration building where there's a gas chamber on one side and not on the other, and you don't know. Um, and they take the previous people that went into the gas chamber and they just rounded them up and took them to a crematorium. Uh and and so people weren't able to hear the screams, uh, which I just I just boggles the mind. So I went into this uh pretty pretty long uh detail of these things because what's come to our attention in good faith is what uh what we're finding out about uh Christians in in the uh the country of Nigeria where over the years, and I'm gonna pull this up here just to make it a little bit easier for for everyone. So over um okay, here we go. Over the years, so we're talking about this is the Vatican News. So this is where we're where we're coming from. Uh and the news title is over 50,000 Christians killed in Nigeria by Islamist extremists. And again, so this is from the Vatican News. Uh that uh that uh we're we're seeing this. There's many other articles out there. This is the one I I had chosen to bring up. Uh so according to uh report, martyred Christians in Nigeria issued by inner society over the past 14 years. So over a period of time, at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been brutally murdered at the hands of Islamist militants. And this article was written by Lisa Zengrini, and and so we find a little bit of a crossover from what I was mentioning uh uh about you know World War II in the concentration camp I was at uh that I was able to view. Uh the reports are over 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since the outbreak of Boko Haram, which is uh Islamist insurgency in 2009. And this is a newly released report published by a non-Nigerian governmental organization revealed. So, as we know, if governments or individuals have control over uh the press and and and events, uh that they can spin a story a certain way. So when you have uh fair and balanced news, you you hear all the different sides, not just uh one side. And so this is this is a report of this uh titled martyred Christians in Nigeria. It's been published by an International Society of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, which is a Nigerian-based research and investigative rights troop group, troop group, which has been monitoring and investigating religious persecution and other forms of religious violence by state and non-state actors since 2010. So we talk about you know the the amount that is being alleged here. It's a lot, 52,000 plus individuals. We get down here and talk about churches, 18,000 in the same period approximately 18,000 churches were set on fire, 2,200 Christian schools were set ablaze, and 34,000 moderate Muslims also died in these attacks. Uh and and so what why we're bringing this up is there are in the United States of America as well as other countries like Nigeria, uh there are different religions that are being uh that are being practiced. And having the the uh the right to practice uh what whatever religion it may be, uh we think of that as you know a fundamental right, or again, we get back to that first amendment where people might might not care, they might not want to uh get involved in a particular situation, and so things like this potentially occur. And so we want to talk about this, and we wanted to bring this up in our show for a couple of reasons. One is mainstream media here in the United States isn't covering it, so we just want to bring it to the nation, and especially Ohio, northeast Ohio uh audience, our viewers or listeners, but then our viewers and listeners that are not just in the United States of America, that they're in the 80 plus, 900, 80 plus countries, 900 uh approximate cities across the world that have watched or listened to at least one of our shows. And these are these are numbers that we're able to get. We know there's private servers, we know there's uh numbers that are higher. We don't know by how much, uh, but we do know that there's more than uh meets the eye as far as the analytics that we're we're seeing uh and others are seeing uh because uh because of that being one of the the reasons. Somebody lives in, I say, uh you know rural out out uh out on a farm in uh specific areas of the United States, um specific parts of states. Uh you know, they can't get you know spectrum internet or or uh ATT. So in order for them to get their information, they have to get it and Different way. So they have to get it. They have a private server that acts like Spectrum. But because it's private, the analytics don't come through the traditional manner. So that's why we know our numbers are low. How low are they from what we're seeing? We're not sure, but we know that they are uh lower than what the true picture shows. And so we want to share this really because you know we bring it back to mental health. If anybody has family that has lived in any of those uh areas in Nigeria or is living, uh dealing with a trauma of seeing a horrific event, like a church being burned, schools, others, right? In this case, dealing with Christians being rounded up somehow, some way, and and not all of them surviving. And so we want to bring that to light, that even in the year 2025, uh, we would think that we wouldn't be repeating history, and so instead of exterminating or getting rid and in the terms of you know you know, Germans in the 1940s, of you know, the people who are Jewish uh live in their ghettos. The here we have Christians that are being impacted given the information in good faith that we we found. Uh, and there's multiple, excuse me, nose, it's just thank you, uh that we're able to find that. And so there could be, and there are individuals who live again here in the United States, here in Ohio, uh, or other countries across the world, that to deal with the trauma of losing somebody is is hard enough. I know with with my dad's uh kind of untimely passing that I'm still grieving, and so some days are better than others. Uh and he wasn't massacred, he wasn't taken to one of these concentration camps, and so I know just as a 43-year-old person in the United States that I'm still grieving and going through that that process uh over a year later, and I can just only imagine having a family member and see them being picked up by the police or whomever, and then never seeing them again. That has got to weigh extra heavy on on their minds, and so say, oh you know, we should just be able to get past this, or you know, this is uh just a you know one-time thing, and you just just need to get past it and it got it happen, but we just gotta we gotta keep going on. And so, you know, that's easier said than done. And so, yes, mental health plays a big part with these events, uh individuals, um even guards and soldiers who say we were just taking orders from our superiors, and so there could be trauma from that, and could be trauma from their families that they're working through had to work through. Uh and so we did again, number one, we want to bring this to light that this is happening, uh, so whether that 52,000 Christians you know being killed is the number, or whether it's 20,000 or 20, there's there's Christians in the United States of America, uh, as well as other other religions. And and so a lot of us can relate to just that faith of God for Christians, um, and to hear and to find stories where because you're a Christian, you may be you know taken away and picked up and not sure of what you know what the future holds, uh, purely based off of if you're a Christian. So that's what this story is about, and that's why we thought it was beneficial to share and correlate a little bit from concentration camp in Poland uh what I was able to see, what I was able to feel, um and then to watch listen to this particular story about Christians being persecuted in Nigeria to some extent. So for me, one life lost due to something like this, or being a Christian or whatever the criteria is, I I think, and I think we think that that's that's not uh a good thing. That's why we brought it up. Want to let people know about it, want people to learn more about it, not just oh, it's happening, but oh I just had somebody from my church go on a mission trip to Nigeria, and they're supposed to be gone for a week, and we haven't heard from them in two weeks, so we don't know what to think. Is there no cell service? And then, you know, some of us may find out that because of the beliefs that you know they were they were taken, and so giving information, and in that case of being a parent or a loved one, a sibling, somebody who went on a mission trip and got caught up in this. You know, talk about mental health and the the the trauma and potentially nightmares and that somebody's thinking, the thoughts that are coming in their head. It's it's just really it's unfathomable what people are feeling, or even the mental health of the individuals that can see that their their life's gonna be cut short, where they're just waiting in line to have their life taken, and so just because those individuals may not still be with us alive on earth, some of them went through a lot of trauma and a lot of can't even imagine. So mental health is everywhere, and this is one of those areas that it does especially occur. And we think the no matter who we are, what we do, uh that you know every life matters. We're not gonna nitpick and and say only these lives matter. Uh we're saying that all lives matter. And so even here in the United States and as far away that Nigeria is, there's still human beings that live there or on mission trips there, and so their lives don't deserve to be cut short. Nobody's are, yeah, that's up to God. And my belief, Sisum. We don't know if we're gonna be if we're gonna wake up tomorrow. We don't know if we're not promised any second, any minute more than what the present time is. And so that's kind of that third prong of why we're talking about this. Because maybe just maybe somebody watching and listening to this show, this particular episode. Um, I've been swatting out a fly. So if you see my hand, just like like, is that a hand? Yeah, so I'm swatting out a fly. We have we have one that kind of made made its way inside. Um but it's because of you that's made us who we are, and we thank you for that. Uh we we want to say uh that we we we hope that uh you're you're able to dream, that you're able to go after your dreams, and we want to say celebrate and be a voice for you or somebody in need. And lastly, what we'd like to share from us to you, whether you're a believer, um, like I am or not, we still want we want God to bless you, whether you're here in the United States or whether you're across the world. Uh we're all God's children, and we all deserve that that right to right to live. As uh as long as you know God has us on this earth, we're here to do something. Some may be some things may be clearer than others. Uh, and and so that we're using Voices for Voices to do that. Uh and so we'll see you on the next episode and hope you have a great rest of your day. Goodbye for now.