Police say the pastor and several congregants were abducted after the Tuesday night attack in Kwara state.
ERUKU, Kwara — A live-streamed church service in this farming town was cut short Tuesday night when armed men entered Christ Apostolic Church, opened fire and sent worshippers running, killing two people and abducting the pastor and several others, authorities said.
State police described the assault as part of a broader security crisis stretching across central and northern Nigeria and said a search was underway in nearby bushland. The attack, captured on a parishioner’s phone before the feed went dark, has intensified pressure on local and national officials to stem killings and kidnappings in rural communities. The governor ordered additional security deployments, while residents spent Wednesday accounting for missing relatives and gathering at a clinic where the wounded were treated.
The shooting began shortly after 6 p.m. during an evening worship session at Christ Apostolic Church, Oke Isegun, in Eruku, a town near the Kogi state border. In the video posted online, congregants are seen singing and clapping before the first shots crack outside. Moments later, figures with rifles enter the sanctuary, and the camera angle dips as people crouch or scramble behind benches. A parishioner who gave his name as Joseph Bitrus said the intruders “later rounded up some worshippers, including the pastor, and took them into the bush” as gunfire continued outside. The stream cut off minutes later, and the phone used to broadcast the service was later recovered by authorities, according to local residents.
Kwara state police identified the dead as a man found inside the church after the gunfire and another whose body was discovered along a footpath outside town. The victims were later named by community leaders as Tunde Ajayi and a man known locally as Mr. Aderemi. A neighborhood vigilante, Segun Ajala, was treated for gunshot wounds at ECWA Hospital in Eruku, according to hospital staff. Police spokesperson Adetoun Ejire-Adeyemi said officers responded to reports of gunfire around 6 p.m. and escorted medical workers into the area as the gunmen fled toward thickets that line informal trails out of town. Witnesses said between three and four assailants moved through the pews for about five minutes, seizing handbags and phones before driving people outside at gunpoint. The exact number of abducted worshippers remained unclear by Wednesday evening, and authorities said they had not identified the attackers.
Residents said the men returned briefly around 11:20 p.m., prompting more people to hide in their homes while vigilantes called for help over handheld radios. Eruku sits less than three miles from the garrison town of Egbe, where a small military post is stationed along a regional road. Locals questioned how the attackers moved in and out despite the proximity of security forces. “We heard bikes and running footsteps, then more shots,” said Bukola A., who lives behind the church. “Everyone lay on the floor until the voices passed.” While some families reported missing loved ones, others reunited at dawn after spending the night in nearby compounds and farm shelters. Church volunteers swept the sanctuary on Wednesday morning, collecting spent casings and splintered wood from shattered window frames.
The attack comes as officials confront overlapping threats from armed gangs and insurgent groups. Central Nigeria’s “Middle Belt,” where this town lies, has endured cycles of violence tied to land use and cattle grazing disputes that sometimes take on ethnic and religious overtones. Elsewhere, extremist factions continue raids and kidnappings. Two days before the church assault, 24 schoolgirls were seized by gunmen at a boarding school in the northwest, drawing nationwide anger. President Bola Tinubu delayed a planned trip to southern Africa to receive security briefings on both incidents and directed security agencies to hunt down the perpetrators, his office said. The federal government has rejected claims that violence in Nigeria is primarily religious, saying victims include Muslims and Christians alike in areas where armed groups operate.
In Eruku, Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s office said additional police and soldiers were requested to patrol feeder roads and footpaths that crisscross farmlands between Kwara and neighboring Kogi. Police units searched huts used by illegal loggers and seasonal herders along the Ilorin–Egbe corridor and set up checkpoints on the main road out of town. Investigators were reviewing the church video and other clips filmed by residents to identify faces and weapons. Officers also interviewed worshippers to compile a list of those taken. Authorities did not announce any arrests by late Wednesday and said they could not confirm how many kidnappers participated. Church leaders said the abducted pastor’s family was receiving support from neighboring congregations while waiting for updates.
People who watched the live stream described a sudden shift from music to panic. The feed shows older women near the front, swaying as a soloist leads a hymn. A child steps into the frame to clap. Then, loud cracks echo from outside, and someone shouts. Benches scrape as people duck. When the gunmen enter, one points his weapon toward the front rows as another rummages through bags. “Don’t move,” a voice orders in a local dialect. The camera remains on a side table, tilted toward the floor. After several minutes, the phone appears to vibrate with an incoming call. A hand reaches into the frame, and the video ends. “It was like watching a nightmare,” said Opeyemi O., who recognized relatives in the congregation. “We kept calling their numbers, but nobody picked until morning.”
Church members said the evening service had been announced publicly and that services were often streamed to a Facebook page run by a young cameraman. Friends said his account went offline hours after the attack, and it was unclear whether he was among those taken. The church, known locally as CAC Oke Isegun, draws farmers, traders and schoolchildren from a small cluster of neighborhoods near the town market. On Wednesday, volunteers set out plastic chairs under a neem tree for a prayer vigil. A chalkboard in the entry listed the week’s Bible readings, still visible next to a window pocked with bullet marks. A local carpenter measured a broken door frame while a tailor collected fabric torn during the stampede.
Medical workers at ECWA Hospital said three patients were treated for gunshot wounds and minor injuries from falls. Families lined the corridors to check on relatives and to ask staff whether newly arrived patients matched the names of those unaccounted for. A nurse said two children were treated for shock and sent home with neighbors. Outside, a pickup truck delivered bottled water and bread donated by shopkeepers. “We are trying to take names carefully,” said a community organizer who was helping relatives file missing-person forms. “People ran through fields in the dark. Some are still coming back this afternoon.”
Officials urged residents to share tips directly with police rather than circulating unverified descriptions on messaging apps. Officers collected casings for ballistics and photographed footprints leading into scrubland north of town. Hunters and local vigilantes were asked to stand down from independent searches after police warned of potential ambushes in the bush. Security teams also visited nearby settlements to ask whether motorbikes or unusual groups had passed after sunset. By evening, officers expanded patrols toward a cluster of abandoned farm buildings used in past kidnappings, residents said.
Authorities said the investigation would focus on identifying the group responsible, tracing the route used to exit the town and determining whether the live stream influenced the attackers’ timing. Prosecutors could bring counts ranging from criminal conspiracy and unlawful possession of firearms to murder and kidnapping under state and federal law. Police said they would brief reporters again after formal statements were taken from hospitalized witnesses and after they completed a door-to-door canvas in the immediate neighborhood. The governor’s office said it would outline new security measures for rural worship centers and schools in a follow-up announcement. No ransom demands had been reported publicly by late Wednesday.
At the church grounds, a small crowd gathered near sunset. A woman wrapped in a blue headscarf pressed her palm to a cracked windowpane and closed her eyes. Men quietly repositioned benches that had been knocked sideways during the scramble. The choir director, still holding a folded sheet of music, said the congregation would suspend evening services until further notice. “We will pray for those taken and for the families of the dead,” he said. A shop owner across the lane said people were closing early again, as they did after past scares. “We don’t know if they will come back,” he said. “But we want our people home.”
As night fell Wednesday, police patrols fanned out on the road toward Egbe and along a dirt track that runs behind the church. Officers said they planned additional searches at first light Thursday and would release any confirmed names of abductees after notifying families. For now, the church remained taped off, the sanctuary dim except for slivers of light through broken glass.
Author note: Last updated November 20, 2025.