Tension is mounting in Nigeria’s Kaduna state after Christian leaders and local residents challenged a military claim that dozens of worshippers were rescued following a deadly church attack in Ariko village.

The Nigerian Army announced that its troops had freed 31 people allegedly abducted when armed men stormed a church during a Sunday service, killing and injuring worshippers. Military officials portrayed the operation as a swift and successful response to the assault, part of a broader campaign against armed groups in the region.

But the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, has publicly rejected that account. Reverend John Joseph Hayab, who chairs CAN in northern Nigeria, said there was no evidence of any such rescue and insisted that those taken from the church remain in captivity.

Hayab accused the authorities of misleading the public and warned that inaccurate statements could deepen insecurity. According to him, false claims of success risk emboldening gunmen, undermining trust in security agencies and diverting attention from the urgent task of locating and freeing the abducted worshippers.

Residents of Ariko and surrounding communities have echoed CAN’s concerns. A former village head said the official narrative does not match what villagers witnessed, alleging that the death toll is higher than reported and that several victims have already been buried. Community members say families are still searching for missing relatives and receiving no clear information from the authorities.

The army has yet to directly address these contradictions. Human rights advocates and church leaders are calling for an independent investigation to establish how many people were killed, how many were abducted and what, if any, rescue efforts have actually taken place.

The dispute comes amid growing international scrutiny of violence in Nigeria’s north and Middle Belt, where churches, mosques and rural communities have repeatedly been targeted by gunmen, bandits and extremist groups. Foreign governments and global Christian organisations have raised alarms about attacks on worshippers, while Nigerian officials insist that the violence is driven by criminality and local conflicts rather than a campaign against Christians.

For many in Ariko, the immediate concern is more basic: recovering the missing, burying the dead with dignity and obtaining credible information in a crisis where, they say, truth itself has become another casualty.