; Whereas the Aid to the Church in Need reports that, since early 2022 alone, 20 Nigerian Catholic priests have been kidnapped, 5 of whom were murdered, with many of these attacks occurring on church grounds; Whereas, on January 11, 2023, Bishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, president of the Nigerian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, and four other bishops on the conference’s administrative board met with President Buhari to appeal for civil protections in Nigeria, stating, [o]ur Church personnel have been frequent victims in terms of kidnapping or outright murder ; Whereas the Methodist Church reported on May 29, 2022, that eight Fulani militants abducted and tortured its head, Prelate Samuel Kanu-Uche, a chaplain, and Bishop Dennis Mark of Owerri, who were released after paying a $240,000 ransom, while the militants warned, We will finish you people and take over this land , according to Bishop Kanu, who added, They claimed that Nigeria belonged to Fulani ; Whereas imams were also abducted in 2022, according to Nigerian media reports, with the chief imam of Masama-Mudi village, Zamfara, being abducted from his mosque on December 29, 2022, by unknown assailants, and an imam being abducted in Zugu, Zamfara State, in a mosque attack on September 2, 2022, reportedly by terrorists ; Whereas in northern and central Nigeria, near-weekly, violent assaults on churches and their congregations are reportedly carried out by designated terror groups, Fulani militants and other nonstate actors, who act with impunity; Whereas northern Nigeria has seen the destruction of over 17,000 churches since 2009 in attacks by Boko Haram militants, Fulani herdsmen, and others, according to a 2020 Vatican report of its interview of a Nigerian Catholic civil rights expert, and in 2021, the Department of State reported five attacks on mosques by unidentified gunmen, bandits, and Boko Haram