Reach the Last: Hausa People Find ‘a Faith Worth Dying For’

TWR broadcasts 12.75 hours on programming weekly to the Hausa people of West Africa, an unreached people group of 55.4 million people found in 16 countries. 

In Hausaland, choosing to follow Jesus is a life-or-death matter. 

“If you accept Jesus to be your personal Lord and Savior, you believe your faith is worth dying for,” said Canon Lazarus Bitrus, a Hausa Christian in northern Nigeria. “You expect to die for it.” 

Yet the Word of God is being proclaimed through TWR in Hausaland, and Hausa people are responding. 

“Please, how can I become a Christian?” a Nigerian listener to Christ to the World in the Hausa language wrote via social media in March 2023. “The teachings are so real. I see truth and hope in this way of life.” 

Hausaland isn’t a country, or a state, or a province. It’s the historic designation for a large region of current-day northern Nigeria in which the Hausa people predominate. Although the Hausa are spread across 16 countries in all, 38 million of the 55.4 million total Hausa population call Nigeria home, mostly in the north. 

Fewer than 1 percent are evangelical Christians, according to the Christian research initiative Joshua Project, although Hausa Christians interviewed for this report insist their numbers are larger. What’s indisputable is that those living in Nigeria are in, by far, the most dangerous country in the world in which to be a Christian. According to Open Doors, an agency that documents persecution, more Christians are killed for their faith annually in Nigeria than in all other countries combined.  

Welcome to the latest installment of Reach the Last, our ongoing series profiling some of the world’s least-reached people groups and how God is using the work of TWR to introduce these groups to the love of Jesus Christ.  

Serious faith 

The persecution in northern Nigeria means that those who choose to follow Christ are serious about their faith, said Joshua Irondi, director of TWR Nigeria. 

The numbers 

Joshua Project counts people groups whose Christian population is less than 2% as unreached, reasoning that at that level indigenous believers lack the numbers and resources to evangelize their own group without outside help. By that measure, the Hausa certainly are unreached. 

But Ambassador J.D. Jydson, a Hausa Christian who founded the Hausa Christian Foundation in northern Nigeria, argues that Joshua Project is significantly undercounting the number of Hausa Christians. 

“I can take you to a place [in Hausaland] where you can travel more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) [and] you can count nothing less than 50 churches, but you cannot see one single mosque,” said Jydson, whose church uses the honorific title “ambassador.”  

Jydson, whose foundation is not connected with TWR, believes much of the data seen in the West about the Hausa originally come from Muslim sources, who count Christians as “Maguzawas” – infidels. He doesn’t profess to know the exact number of Hausa Christians, but he said he believes it’s about 30% of the population.  

In a separate interview, the Rev. Musa Philibus, a second-generation Hausa Christian, affirmed that. “Millions of Hausa people are Christians,” he said. “You will not hear of them because they are not in [political control].” 

Bill Morrison, who manages Joshua Project’s database, said in an email that the data about the Hausa come from the Nigerian Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA). But Bolarinwa Oluwole, NEMA’s director for Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning and Research, said in an email the “working percentage” they are using for the Hausa is 10% evangelical Christians.   

“This conclusion is from a thorough consultation with NEMA member agencies working among the Hausas, which includes Ambassador Jydson,” Oluwole wrote from NEMA headquarters in Jos, Nigeria.   

Morrison wrote that neither conclusion is necessarily incorrect but that the discrepancy results from “defining categories somewhat differently.” Joshua Project’s numbers are generally consistent with other sources, such as the International Mission Board, he added.  

“It’s not very surprising there is lack of agreement given the complex situation we are in,” he wrote.  

The dangers 

Whatever their population, Hausa Christians face life-threatening challenges. 

“Churches have been attacked, pastors kidnapped,” Jydson said. “Communities have been displaced, [their people] killed.” 

Kichime Bulus, also a Hausa Christian, affirmed that.   

“We are all surrounded by danger,” Bulus said. “People are kidnapped, people are killed, houses burned, churches burned.”  

Just in the first weeks of January of this year, 100 Christians – not necessarily all Hausa – were kidnapped in Nigeria, according to Release International, an English company that speaks on behalf of persecuted believers.  

Bulus, Philibus and Bitrus were at the home of Pastor Mark Mukan in northern Nigeria, when they were interviewed online recently. Mukan is from the Ngas people group of Nigeria’s Plateau State but is married to Eunice Lantana, who was born and raised in Hausaland. None of the group is connected with TWR but graciously agreed to share their perspectives as Hausa Christians for this article.   

TWR often uses pseudonyms for people serving in sensitive areas. Neither these men nor Jydson sought that. The danger they were in could hardly be increased. They spoke earnestly but matter-of-factly, with no hint of hyperbole.  

“The devil has arisen in fury,” Bulus said. “The bloodshed is on the rise. There is no guarantee that when you come into a place you’ll come back.” 

The previous Sunday, Bulus had been in a refugee camp to worship with and encourage the believers there. Those in the camp – one of many for people who fled violence in their communities – lacked sufficient food and other provisions but remained faithful, he said. “The Word of God has been their only sustenance.” 
 

Freeing the girls 

One of the tools used against Nigerian Christians is the abduction of their girls. That got the world’s attention 10 years ago, when 276 girls were abducted from their school in the town of Chibok. The world’s interest has waned, but the abductions haven’t stopped.   

Hausa Christian Foundation had its roots in 2017 when Jydson, who is an architect by trade, was asked to help in a village where a 14-year-old girl had been abducted, forced to convert and marry.  

By God’s grace, and by cagily bringing in media, Jydson was able to arrange for the girl’s return to her mother. To date, he said, Hausa Christian Foundation has been able to free 24 abducted girls, although the organization’s mission goes far beyond that.  

TWR’s partners in Nigeria experience the dangers. FM stations that broadcast TWR content in Hausa have been told, “If we hear it again, we burn down your station,” Irondi related. “And when they see people tune in to listen to those messages, they threaten them, they attack them.” 

Personnel from Calvary Ministries (CARPRO), an on-the-ground partner in northern Nigeria, move from place to place for their safety, Irondi said. Some translators work outside of their home states so they can’t be traced.  

It is against this backdrop that TWR brings hope to the Hausa.   

“Some people are afraid to go to church [thinking] they may bomb the church if we go to worship,” Irondi said. But that’s where radio comes in. “If they are afraid to go to church, they can still tune in to our stations and hear the Word of God.” 

Hausa Christians are sharing that Word creatively, Irondi said. “Some of them, for fear of attack – people are attacking them – they enter into their premises … They lock the gate and then tune the equipment to the highest volume. So, passers-by on the road hear the messages. They are not seeing the people.” 

On the ground