ADAMAWA STATE, Nigeria (BP) — Nigerian Christian leaders are seeking clemency for a Christian farmer given the death sentence for killing a Fulani herdsman during an attack on his farm, it was widely reported.

The Nigerian Supreme Court upheld the death sentence on March 7 for Sunday Jackson, a farmer in Adamawa, who was a 20-year-old student with a pregnant wife when Fulani herdsmen attacked him on the couple’s farm. As Ardo Bawuro stabbed Jackson in the head and leg, according to Jackson’s published account, Jackson managed to wrest Bawuro’s knife from him and fatally stab the herdsman.

At the initial trial in 2021, Justice Fatima Ahmed Tafida, a Muslim, sentenced Jackson to death, interpreting the law to mean he should have fled the altercation.

Leaders of the Northern Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), representing 19 state chapters of the multi-denominational group, expressed concern that the nation’s highest court could accept the ruling, describing it as glaring evidence of discrimination against a Christian who will be hanged to death after being attacked by an armed Fulani herdsman without provocation and responding in self-defense, Christian Daily International — Morning Star News (CDI-Morning Star) reported March 12.

Northern CAN Chairman John Hayab and Mohammed Naga, CAN’s secretary general for northern Nigeria, described the death sentence as a “grave travesty of justice” and a misinterpretation of Section 23 of Adamawa State Penal Code Laws.

To conclude “that Sunday Jackson had the option of flight when he was attacked and injured on his leg and not to fight in self-defense clearly distorted logic on its head by saying plaintiff should have run away while having admitted into evidence that he was stabbed in the leg and thus momentarily handicapped,” the CAN leaders said in a statement.

The leaders joined Jackson in asking Adamawa State Gov. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri to grant him a pardon.

“Mr. Sunday Jackson has truly been subjected to the excruciating pain of waiting for death in the midst of the shadow of death by the grave travesty of the misinterpretation of Section 23 of the Adamawa State Penal Code Laws,” CAN said, “and the unnecessary prolonged trial that lasted six and half years, which ordinarily should not have lasted such a lengthy period.”

Jackson, now in his early 30s, was only 20 when the altercation occurred. His daughter was born shortly after his arrest and he has never met her, he said in a statement seeking a pardon that was published in the March 12 edition of Sahara Reporters. He has been imprisoned since his arrest in the mid-2010s.

According to Jackson’s statement, he was going about his day when he was “violently attacked and sustained severe injuries. Despite this, I was able to overpower my attacker and defend myself whereupon my attacker died. However, in a gross miscarriage of justice, I was sentenced to death in 2021 after already being in prison for several years.”

Jackson said he initially tried to flee as the herdsman attacked him, but became too weak to continue when the herdsman stabbed him in the back of his head.

“My assailant stabbed me again on my leg, and one more move from him was going to end my life,” Jackson wrote. “I was too weak to run, so in defense of myself, I disarmed him while already in a pool of my own blood, and killed him to save my life.”

Jackson’s attorney, U.S.-based Emmanuel Ogebe, said in a press statement the original trial judge based her ruling on opinion instead of fact, CDI-Morning Star said. Tafida sentenced Jackson to death on Feb. 10, 2021, but the date of the attack was not stated in press reports.

“This is a sad day for Nigerians, as their ability to protect themselves from violent attackers has been further diminished,” Ogebe said.

Christian farmers in Nigeria suffer attacks by gangs of militant Fulani herdsmen, but Jackson’s case appeared to be a smaller attack by a group that did not have the sophisticated weaponry common to militants.

In Nigeria’s North-Central zone, where Christians are more common than in the Northeast and Northwest, radicalized Islamic ethnic Fulani militia increasingly attack farming communities, killing many hundreds, most of whom are Christians, Open Doors said in narrative material supplemental to its 2025 World Watch List.

Nigeria ranked 7th on the list of the 50 worst places for Christians to live, and is the most dangerous country for Christians. In the 2025 reporting period (2024), 3,100 Christians were killed in Nigeria, 69% of the 4,476 Christians killed worldwide for the faith, Open Doors reported.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)