Bandits free kidnapped Nigerian Catholic priest, kill his cook

Rev. Fr. Joseph Danjuma Shekari was abducted by bandits late on Sunday night.

CAPE TOWN, February 8 (ANA) – A Nigerian Catholic priest who was kidnapped on Sunday evening in the Kauru Local Government Area of Kaduna State has been released by his captors, but the bandits killed the priest’s cook and made off with 2 million naira (around US$5,000), local media reported on Tuesday.

Rev. Fr. Joseph Danjuma Shekari was abducted by bandits late on Sunday night.

The Chancellor of the Diocese, Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Okolo, on Monday said that Shekari was kidnapped at about 11.30pm from his residence, the Guardian Nigeria reported.

According to Nigerian online news publication Punch News, the bandits stormed St. Monica’s Catholic Church, Ikulu Parish, and kidnapped the priest.

During the attack the bandits killed one of the helpers, the cook, reported local media.

Just hours before the attack, the Catholic Bishops of the Lagos Ecclesiastical Province had urged Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime to use all the resources at their disposal to put an end to the killings and violence across the country.

The province, made up of the Archbishop of Lagos, the Diocese of Ijebu-Ode and the Diocese of Abeokuta, made this call at their first meeting for the year held in Lagos, according to Punch News.

In August 2021, Nigeria’s Catholic bishops decried the rise in abductions, killings and property destruction and called on the federal government to “take full responsibility for the present culture of violence”.

“Deaths at the hands of kidnappers, killer herdsmen, bandits, terrorist groups have made Nigeria one of the most terrorised countries in the world,” they said in an August 26 statement.

Nigeria has experienced rising insecurity since 2009, when Boko Haram, one of Africa’s largest Islamist groups, launched an insurgency seeking to turn Africa’s most populous country into an Islamic state.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher