• Gunmen wielding explosives stormed a church in Owo, killing 40 worshippers and injuring at least 60 others.
• Nigeria is struggling to end a 13-year jihadist insurgency in its northeast.
• ISWAP is primarily active in the country’s northeast, where it is part of a jihadist conflict.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has stated that recent church attacks that claimed dozens of lives were politically motivated in order to incite religious tensions.

On June 5, gunmen wielding explosives stormed a church in Owo, southwestern Ondo state, killing 40 worshippers and injuring at least 60 others in a rare such attack in the normally safer region.

Gunmen from a criminal gang kidnapped 36 people over the weekend after attacking several villages and two churches in northwestern Kaduna state.

Read More: Nigeria church attack families hold funeral mass

Three people were also killed in the attack, according to local officials.

Nigeria is struggling to end a 13-year jihadist insurgency in its northeast, while criminal gangs in the northwest raid villages and kidnap or kill residents despite army operations against them.

“From the tragedy in Owo two weeks ago that shook our nation to its core, to the killings and kidnappings just this weekend in Kaduna State, it is clear that there is a design by wicked people to put the country under religious stress,” Buhari was quoted as saying late Wednesday.

Although no group claimed responsibility for the attacks, Buhari said the assaults were politically motivated by “enemies” seeking to destroy the country’s unity.

“We will not let them. The nation will not be distracted or divided by these obviously planned and politically motivated criminal outrages,” he said.

Buhari, a northern Muslim steps down next year after two terms in office, and security will be a major challenge for whoever wins the February 2023 presidential election.

“The perpetrators are cowards; weak and wicked men with guns murdering, in cold blood, unarmed women and children at their places of worship,” Buhari said.

Religious and ethnic tensions often flare in hotspots in Nigeria, which has more than 250 ethnic groups and is almost equally divided between the mostly Christian south and predominantly Muslim north.

Read More: 21 people killed in church attack in southwest Nigeria: Official

The government has stated that it believes the Owo church attack was carried out by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

ISWAP is primarily active in the country’s northeast, where it is part of a jihadist conflict that has killed over 40,000 people and displaced 2.2 million more.