In parts of the world, religiously unaffiliated people are increasing in numbers, and can safely and publicly be an atheist or agnostic. In countries like Nigeria, the situation is starkly different. Nonbelievers in Nigeria said they perennially have been treated as second-class citizens in the deeply religious African country. Its population of 210 million is almost evenly divided between Christians dominant in the south and Muslims who are the majority in the north. Some nonbelievers say threats and attacks have worsened in the north since the leader of the Humanist Association of Nigeria was jailed for blasphemy last year.
