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A woman reacts while gathering with others following a deadly gunmen attack in Yelwata, Benue State, in Nigeria June 16, 2025.
OSV News photo/Marvellous Durowaiye, Reuters
November 4, 2025
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Persecuted Nigerian Christians are embracing U.S. President Donald Trump's designation of their homeland a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) as a long-desired answer to their anguished prayers.
Within his Oct. 31 Truth Social post, Trump declared that “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and “the United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria, and numerous other Countries. We stand ready, willing and able to save our Great Christian population around the World!”
A country is identified as a CPC if it is deemed responsible for perpetrating severe religious freedom violations under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. Imposing this upon a nation can set the stage for sanctions, the withdrawal of aid or, as Trump suggested on Nov. 1, a military operation.
According to the human rights advocacy organization Intersociety, an average of 32 Christians have been murdered each day this year in Nigeria. The same report indicated that 125,000 Christians and 60,000 moderate Muslims have been killed in Africa’s most populous nation since 2009, the year the terrorist group Boko Haram began its jihadist campaign.
The watchdog organization Open Doors International estimates that nearly 70 per cent of all Christians killed for their faith worldwide last year were in Nigeria. Millions of other Christians have been forcibly banished from their land, and many have been abducted, including over 140 priests in the past decade.
Trump’s declaration was a significant personal triumph for Bishop Wilfrid Anagbe, the shepherd of the Makurdi diocese in Benue State. The 60-year-old testified on March 12 about Fulani militants killing or forcibly displacing rural Christians and an ongoing campaign of Islamization sweeping the country in front of the United States House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa. His diocese alone has lost over 20 parishes since 2018.
Anagbe told The Catholic Register he “thinks that something positive will come out of” Trump’s statement.
“Millions of people are in support of this,” said Anagbe. “Maybe some sanity will be brought into this country called Nigeria. All along the impunity that has been displayed in this country… lawless killings, occupation of territories, displacing peoples, abducting, raping and maiming. Nobody has been arrested, prosecuted, sentenced to prison or sentenced to death. Even though the Catholic Church is against this sentence, Nigerian law allows it.”
Nigeria’s government, led by President Bola Tinubu, has labeled as "misinformation… reports regarding the supposed targeting of Christians in Nigeria.”
Anagbe challenged the government’s downplaying of Christians being targeted by urging officials to objectively compare the number of mosques being destroyed and imams being kidnapped compared to Catholic and Christian counterparts.
For weeks after the congressional appearance, it was not deemed safe for Anagbe to return to Nigeria. In the interim, he spoke in front of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords.
Anagbe experienced deep sorrow when Fulani jihadists attacked his home village of Aondona in late May. At least 40 people, including some relatives, were murdered. And 278 of his flock were “roasted, butchered and killed in one raid” in just three hours overnight from June 13 to 14.
During his testimony on Capitol Hill, Anagbe said, “to remain silent is to die twice.” This mentality has guided him each step of the way on this journey of faith.
“I did not do this to seek attention or any sort of award,” said Anagbe. “I was weeping in front of God for my people to whoever would listen to me. I give glory to God that President Donald Trump has given me an answer to my prayer and to my cry as a bishop, a priest and as a Christian.”
Sitting alongside Anagbe in solidarity on March 12 was Nina Shea, a former commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom from 1999-2012. Shea said Trump made the decision on the CPC designation in spite of an organized dissuasion campaign.
“I work with a coalition (of Christian leaders), and we are overjoyed that President Trump took this step,” said Shea on Oct 31. “We know that he was under a lot of pressure from Nigerian lobbyists, the state department and foreign service not to do this.
“If we didn’t get the CPC designation, then religious freedom as a pillar of American foreign policy would be a joke,” said Shea. “For Americans, it is a great day.”
Based on past precedent, explained Shea, a country newly labelled with a CPC designation gets a “grace period” to respond.
Trump, however, is signalling a desire to move quickly.The U.S. president warned on Truth Social “that if the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria.” He also suggested “we may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth later confirmed that his department is preparing for potential strike action.
Anagbe suggested that Trump may have upped the ante in just over 24 hours because “the statement that came from the (Nigerian) foreign affairs ministry that the killings cut across board. It is not about Christians. What kind of rubbish is that?”
The official sentiments expressed by spokesperson Ebienfa is that the Tinubu government officials “remain committed in our resolve to tackle the violent extremism that is fuelled by special interests who have helped drive such decay and division.”
Ebienfa also asserted that “like America, Nigeria has no option but to celebrate the diversity that is our greatest strength. Nigeria is a God-fearing country where we respect faith, tolerance, diversity and inclusion.” He concluded the statement by avowing Tinubu’s commitment to maintain “genuine peace, stability, freedom and democracy.”
A past online critique of former President Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015) by Tinubu went viral online in the wake of Trump’s move to add Nigeria to the CPC list. On Jan. 29, 2014, Tinubu wrote on X, then Twitter, that “the slaughtering of Christian worshippers is strongly condemnable. It calls into question the competence of Jonathan to protect Nigerians.”
An estimated 2,500 to 3,500 Christians were killed in 2014. Christian murders under Tinubu’s regime in 2025 already exceeded 7,000 before the end of August.
(Amundson is a staff writer for The Catholic Register.)
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OSV News photo/Henry Romero, Reuters