Nigerian Christian Student Abducted and Coerced into Conversion

Student Dorcas Adedayo Adekanola is still missing after Kaduna State University personnel abducted her and forced her to convert to Islam. | Courtesy Campus Watch Mission

ABUJA, Nigeria — Personnel of Kaduna State University have aided in the kidnapping and forcible conversion to Islam of a Christian student, according to a campus watchdog group.

Dorcas Adedayo Adekanola, a 20-year-old, first-year chemistry student at the university, was an active member of the Fellowship of Christian Students when other members noticed her absence last month, according to leaders of Campus Mission Watch (CMW).

Her parents received a phone call on Sept. 20 from Christian students saying they were distressed that she was acting strange before her disappearance.

“She was always looking scared, which shows she was being threatened by the Islamists on campus,” CMW leaders said in a press statement. “Dorcas was also not seen on campus for some days.”

After her parents were informed of her absence, they immediately called her mobile phone number.

“Their daughter’s phone was suddenly switched off, indicating that the call was rejected by her abductors who kept her in a house of a Muslim cleric outside the campus,” the CMW leaders said. “We believe she was forcefully abducted and taken out of campus by the Islamists on the fear of parents of the Christian student withdrawing her from the university.”

Fearing she had been abducted and forced to convert to Islam, her parents reported her absence to school authorities and the commissioner of police on Sept. 20.

“The following day being 21st of September, Miss Dorcas Adedayo Adekanola was physically seen being conveyed in one of the Kaduna State University (KASU), MAJLIS buses belonging to Muslims in the institution at about 4:30 pm, to the campus Chief Security Officer’s (CSO’s) office,” the CMW leaders said, adding that her parents were quickly alerted and came to the CSO’s office.

“Miss Dorcas told her parents that she was taken to an imam’s house, the imam of Sultan Bello Mosque, in the city of Kaduna, where she was kept against her will and threatened not to disclose that she was coerced into embracing Islam, before being brought back to campus,” the CMW leaders said. “She also told her parents that one Muslim woman, Mallama Amina, an academic staff in the Department of Biochemistry, was appointed as her godmother, who facilitated her forceful conversion to Islam through the renouncing of Christianity and the recitation of Kalma Sha’ada, the Islamic creed.”

The abducted student said Amina also taught her how to do Islamic ablution and prayer, among other Muslim practices, and gave her “a lot in cash and kind,” including Islamic clothing, according to the CMW leaders.

The university CSO referred her case to the Kaduna state commissioner of police, who in turn referred it to the Kaduna State Inter-Faith Commission. The commission was to decide her case on Sept. 29, but it has yet to make or reveal a ruling, and Adekanola has remained with her captors, CMW leaders said.

“Dorcas remains with the Muslim leaders and has not been allowed to have any contact with her parents or other Christians on campus,” CMW leaders said. “This development has created fear in Christians on KASU campus, forcing some to want to leave.”

A university spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the case. A representative of the Kaduna State Inter-Faith Commission also did not respond to request for comment.

CMW leaders said a well-financed campus group called the Majlis Muslim Sisters is pressuring students and staff members to convert to Islam.

“This group is made up of highly placed and influential female staff in the university. Some of them are professors, directors, senior lecturers from academic and non-academic cadres,” they said. “They are well coordinated and professionally structured. They have agents at the top management level, directorate levels, faculty levels, department levels, and even at the Student Union levels.”

The CMW leaders said the Majlis Muslim Sisters, with the tacit support of Muslim leaders in Kaduna state and the Muslim-controlled state government, is implementing a plan to forcefully convert Christians to Islam through use of charms, fetish substances, coercion, threats and even hypnosis.

These campus Islamists are also pressuring Christians with abduction, isolation, deprivation, false accusations of blasphemy, slander, brainwashing, segregation and manipulation, CMW leaders said.

Nigeria led the world in Christians abducted (4,726), sexually assaulted or harassed, forcibly married or physically or mentally abused in 2022, and it had the most homes and businesses attacked for faith-based reasons, according to Open Doors’ 2023 World Watch List (WWL) report. It also led the world in Christians killed for their faith, with 5,014. As in the previous year, Nigeria had the second most church attacks and internally displaced people.

In the 2023 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, Nigeria jumped to sixth place, its highest ranking ever, from No. 7 the previous year.

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