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‘If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country.’
Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken / flickr | Creative Commons
Church leaders welcomed the announcement from US President Donald Trump that he would reprove Nigeria for religious freedom violations.
In a social media post on Friday, Trump said he would add it to a Department of State list of “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act.
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,” he said on Saturday. “Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
Trump threatened to take military action if authorities in Nigeria fail to respond: “If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and 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.”
He continued: “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!”
In response, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu insisted that his government “opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it”.
“Nigeria stands firmly as a democracy governed by constitutional guarantees of religious liberty. The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” he said.
Christian activists who had been campaigning for the US to restore Nigeria to the CPC list since it was removed in 2020 welcomed Trump’s decision.
“We have won big,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, director of the Catholic-inspired group Intersociety, the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law.
“We thank President Trump and Americans for being their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We thank the American Congress because this latest decision has amplified the Ted Cruz bill, the Nigerian Religious Freedom Accountability Act,” he told The Tablet.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz introduced a bill in Congress to require the US government to sanction Nigerian officials for religiously motivated violence and the enforcement of blasphemy laws against Christians and other religious minorities. It includes the requirement to re-designate Nigeria a CPC.
Trump also referred to Congressman Riley Moore, who write to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding that the US use every diplomatic tool to stop the “slaughter of Christians” in Nigeria, and Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Both have campaigned for the suspension of arms sales and technical support to the Nigerian government, which they accuse of complicity in attacks by Islamist groups including Boko Haram.
In Nigeria, opinion is divided even among Christians as to the nature of the crisis driving the violence. Observers blame a combination of historical grievances, ethnic tensions, economic disparities, religious extremism and weak governance.
Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram frequently attack Muslim communities. In 2017, at least 50 people were killed when a bomb was detonated in a mosque in the Unguwar Shuwa area of Mubi, Adamawa State. In 2018, a double suicide bombing in another mosque in Adamawa killed 86 people, including Christians and Muslims.
Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto, a prominent advocate for Nigerian Christians, had opposed calls to re-designate Nigeria as a CPC and declined to call the violence “genocide”, provoking criticisms from other religious freedom activists.
During the launch of the Aid to the Church in Need’s 2025 World Report on Religious Freedom in the World, Bishop Kukah said both Christians and moderate Muslims were victims of extremist violence. Despite the deteriorating security situation, he said he did not feel threatened in Sokoto.
“We are not dealing with people going around wielding machetes and looking for me in order to kill me because I am a Christian,” he said.
Intersociety’s Umeagbalasi disputed Kukah’s claim. “Sokoto diocese is crumbling,” he told The Tablet, accused the bishop of becoming a “government hired public speaker and apologist [rather] than a Catholic bishop”.
Following Trump’s announcement, Kukah told the Sunday Punch that the Church “must wait to see its outcome”, adding: “Let us see what lessons can be drawn from this development for our national growth.”
Christianity under siege in Nigeria
Nigeria divided: when poverty and ignorance kill
Bishop Matthew Kukah
Boko Haram
Bola Tinubu
CATHOLIC NEWS
Donald Trump
Intersociety
Nigeria
Persecution of Christians
Religious freedom
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