Nigeria: Killings, land and cattle
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Christmas Day 2025, the US carried out missile strikes on suspected Islamist militants in Nigeria. They came after President Trump said he would intervene to protect Christians amid controversial claims of a “Christian genocide” in the country. The Nigerian government rejects such claims, saying both Muslim and Christian communities have been affected by insecurity in the country. Alex Last visits Plateau state in central Nigeria one area where ethnic and sectarian violence that has been the focus of US concern, to hear from both sides and meet those trying to bring peace.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.3 | Welcome to the documentary podcast from the BBC World Service, with me, Alex Last, here in Nigeria. |
| 0:17.4 | You see this house? This house, they kill people there. |
| 0:22.4 | As you can see, this house was born completely. |
| 0:26.1 | I'm walking along a rutted mud road towards the village of Zeeke, deep in the rolling hills of the countryside of Plateau State, |
| 0:34.2 | lining the track of houses with mud walls and metal roofs and there's some thatched huts too |
| 0:39.5 | and beyond to my left and right lie the fields where maize and milliter grow but there's a army presence here |
| 0:46.9 | there's a heavily armed pickup outside the village primary school just on my right and that's because of |
| 0:53.8 | what happened here in April 2025. |
| 0:58.0 | Around 2 12, I said 2 minutes to 12. I heard the first gunshot. I went out, barefooted, then I just heard the thing was closer. |
| 1:09.3 | Joseph Isazino is a university student and a youth leader among the Christian Irigue ethnic group |
| 1:14.9 | who live in this part of Plateau State in central Nigeria. |
| 1:18.9 | He was on a visit home when around midnight one Sunday, gunman approached his village. |
| 1:24.0 | We don't have electricity here. |
| 1:26.6 | So I went to my father's door. |
| 1:29.8 | I knocked. |
| 1:30.8 | Everybody in the house was came out. |
| 1:33.0 | And then we started here, gunshots from nowhere. |
| 1:36.2 | It started, my house is up there. |
| 1:38.0 | At the top of the hill. |
| 1:38.9 | Yes. |
| 1:39.3 | Oh, yes. |
... |
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