Trump’s Remarks Ignite Hope for Nigerian Christians — but Reality on Ground Remains Deeply Complex – National Catholic Register

EWTN News, Inc. is the world’s largest Catholic news organization, comprised of television, radio, print and digital media outlets, dedicated to reporting the truth in light of the Gospel and the Catholic Church.
Subscribe for just $49.95 $32.50!
In the face of experiencing the highest level of persecution globally, Nigeria maintains the highest Mass attendance in the world.
President Donald Trump’s vigorous defense of Nigerian Christians has been widely welcomed by Christian and human-rights groups involved in the country, even if sources on the ground stress that the reality is complex and that Islamist attacks on Christians, while significant, are part of a wider and multifaceted problem.
In a video published on his Truth Social account Nov. 5, President Trump said Christianity is “facing an existential threat” in the West African nation, adding that “thousands and thousands of Christians are being killed” and that “radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.” 
Trump went on to say that the United States “cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria and numerous other countries.” He also threatened to use force and to enter the “now-disgraced country guns-a-blazing,” as well as impose economic sanctions and withhold aid if action is not taken to protect the Christians there. 
On Oct. 31, Trump acted to designate Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), meaning it would henceforth be held responsible for particularly severe violations of religious freedom under the 1998 U.S. International Religious Freedom Act. Trump has also asked U.S. Rep. Riley Moore, R-W. Va., to lead an immediate investigation into the extent and nature of the persecution.
So far this year, according to reports, more than 7,000 Christians have been killed, averaging 30 to 35 deaths daily, mostly attributed to Islamist Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen, as well as militants linked to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). At least 17 Christians were killed hours after Trump announced the CPC designation, murdered overnight by suspected Islamic Fulani militias on the Plateau-Kaduna border, the advocacy group Persecution.org reported.
According to a report published in March by the Vatican’s Fides Agency, a total of 145 priests were kidnapped and 11 were killed in Nigeria between 2015 and 2025. Three had been killed by March this year alone. On Sept. 19, Father Emmanuel Asadu, director of communications for the Nsukka Diocese, was shot while returning to his parish after a pastoral assignment.
Responding to Trump’s remarks, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), a U.K.-based human-rights foundation, said Thursday it believed Trump’s recent words and actions on Nigeria, especially his decision to designate it a CPC, would help tame the ongoing persecution of Christians in the West African nation.
The charity Aid to the Church in Need also welcomed the CPC designation, saying in a statement sent to the Register that the move “underscores the severe challenges” facing Nigeria’s Christians, who, for many years, have “endured profound suffering from religious persecution and targeted criminal violence, which have shattered their lives and communities.”
The charity, however, was at pains not to interfere with the bishops’ own views on the matter, which are mixed. 
Some, such as Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, a focal point of the Islamist violence (although Makurdi itself is 95% Christian), have publicly supported the CPC designation, viewing it as long overdue and hoping it will pressure the Nigerian government to take action. Bishop Anagbe recently visited the U.S. to lobby for such a measure. 
Others, such as Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto, a diocese in a largely persecution-free region, have urged caution, warning that the designation may complicate efforts for interreligious dialogue and create new tensions within Nigeria. ACN-USA spokesman Edward Clancy noted to the Register that many Nigerian bishops are “isolated and so don’t necessarily witness the same thing,” leading them to take different approaches to Trump’s measures. 
Most Nigerian Muslims live in the country’s northern region, making up roughly half the nation’s 230 million people, while Christians, accounting for 35% to 50% of Nigeria’s population, mostly live in the south. 
For its part, Nigeria’s government has responded defensively and critically to Trump’s words and actions. President Bola Tinubu’s administration has insisted that violence in Nigeria is not a campaign targeting Christians, but rather the result of complex security challenges, with both Christians and Muslims suffering attacks. Some analysts contend that the violence in Nigeria is terrorism rather than persecution, perpetrated by militant groups who also attack Muslims and those of other faiths. 
Nigerian authorities have also criticized the CPC designation, arguing that it fails to accurately reflect the situation on the ground and could undermine ongoing efforts to foster interreligious peace and counter insurgency. Officials have said Nigeria welcomes international cooperation against terrorism and violence — provided it respects the country’s sovereignty and is conducted in partnership, not through coercion. 
Clancy stressed that the persecution against Christians can be divided into three main kinds: criminal extortion of the Church; tribal rivalries; and jihadist activity within the country, of which, he said, there is no doubt. Discrimination against Christians is also apparent. 
Despite this, or perhaps due to it, Clancy underscored the resilience of the Nigerian faithful, saying that throughout the persecution, the Church “has not ceased to be active” and that the faithful “have not ceased to profess their faith.” In the face of experiencing the highest level of persecution globally, he observed that Nigeria had the “highest Mass attendance in the world” — 94%, according to a 2023 study.  
In the face of continually increasing violence in Nigeria, calls for the Tinubu government to intervene and end the killing appear to have broad support. The CPC designation will impact Nigeria “for the better,” said Nina Shea, senior fellow and director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute.
“The issue of persecution of Christians in the Middle Belt has for the first time been acknowledged by the U.S. and has gotten the attention of Nigeria’s President Tinubu,” Shea observed to the Register Nov. 6. “The moral opprobrium this represents may pressure him to take action to end it.” 
Shea believes Nigeria’s government “has until now lacked the political will to stop violence by radicalized Fulani herders targeting Middle Belt Christians,” but she gives it credit for being willing to take military action against Islamist terror groups such as Boko Haram, “which attack mostly Muslims in the north.” 
Much of the recent violence against Christians has been carried out by the nomadic Fulani people, and their radicalization is part of a broader trend in Africa’s Sahel, a vast cross-border region stretching across the continent south of the Sahara. 
But what makes Nigeria a particular flashpoint of concern is its rampant corruption and dysfunction, said an informed source within the Christian community in Nigeria.
Speaking to the Register Nov. 5 on condition of anonymity for security reasons, the source said that President Tinubu, unlike his Fulani predecessor Muhammadu Buhari, has been relatively “good on this issue” of persecution of Christians. Tinubu is a Yoruba Muslim who studied accounting at Chicago State University in the 1980s and is not even considered a “real Muslim” by the radical Fulanis.   
“By and large, Christians, and certainly Catholics, feel that Tinubu is a much better partner for them than Buhari was,” the source explained. And although he noted the persecution and discrimination of Christians in the north, the source said he believes a major cause of the violence is the “monstrous level of corruption” that has taken hold of the country. This has led to “complete dysfunction and lawlessness,” he explained, especially in the Middle Belt, which has effectively collapsed. “Some years back, it was more narrowly focused as Islamist violence, but now it’s really morphed into something much more dysfunctional,” he added. 
More significantly, he referred to the influence of the Arab Gulf states, U.S. allies who have been bankrolling the Islamist groups in Nigeria and elsewhere. For these and other reasons, the source told the Register he believes the effect of the CPC designation — imposing sanctions, freezing bank accounts, etc. — could be “really significant and would get tremendous support internally.” 
The CPC process has two steps: The first is designation, and the second, after consultations with Congress and the Nigerian government, is the U.S. policy response. “That second step should be specific and detailed as it is developed by the executive branch in coming months,” said Shea. 
Robert Royal, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Faith and Reason Institute, told the Register Nov. 5 that despite some reducing the persecution to social and economic clashes, it remains “clear beyond all possible doubt” that thousands of Christians in Nigeria are being attacked because they are Christian, and so he welcomed Trump’s pressure to protect Christians from Islamists.
Although he did not think U.S. military action should be used, as he doubted it would accomplish much, given the “difficulties in stopping a widespread Islamist current in Nigeria,” Royal said he agreed with the West African nation being put back on the CPC list, and he believes the U.S., U.N. and all international actors “should pressure the government of Nigeria to do better.” 
He said, “Sometimes a threat can deter bad actors.”
Edward Pentin Edward Pentin is the Register’s Senior Contributor and EWTN News Vatican Analyst. He began reporting on the Pope and the Vatican with Vatican Radio before moving on to become the Rome correspondent for EWTN’s National Catholic Register. He has also reported on the Holy See and the Catholic Church for a number of other publications including Newsweek, Newsmax, Zenit, The Catholic Herald, and The Holy Land Review, a Franciscan publication specializing in the Church and the Middle East. Edward is the author of The Next Pope: The Leading Cardinal Candidates (Sophia Institute Press, 2020) and The Rigging of a Vatican Synod? An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (Ignatius Press, 2015). Follow him on Twitter at @edwardpentin.
The commander in chief, who announced he would designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern on Oct. 31, further revealed he has instructed the Pentagon to ‘prepare for possible action.’
Christian leaders delivered a letter to the president on Oct. 15 that said 52,000 Christians have been killed and over 20,000 churches attacked and destroyed in Nigeria since 2009.
The Vatican Secretary of State’s comment echoes government claims, but many Church leaders and analysts insist religion remains central to the violence.
COMMENTARY: A dire humanitarian crisis demands an American response grounded in both principle and prudence.
The fragile ceasefire in Gaza was briefly broken this week as Israel’s said it carried out heavy airstrikes against Hamas for what the IDF said was a violation of the truce. This week on Register Radio, we talk with Sami El-Yousef, CEO of the LPJ. And then, we have an update on the Louvre heist from Solène Tadié who also tells us about the theological controversy over Wandering Souls.
‘Today’s stay allows the government to require citizens to list their biological sex on their passport,’ Bondi wrote. ‘In other words: There are two sexes, and our attorneys will continue fighting for that simple truth.’
Felix Böllmann, director of advocacy at ADF International, characterized the outcome as ‘a clear commitment to the rule of law.’
Archbishop Nikola Eterović made the appeal during a memorial Mass marking 20 years since the cardinal’s beatification.
Sounding the alarm on the ‘dystopian’ bling.
Rogan starts to ask some serious questions and arrives at some very good answers.
‘It is the happiest day of my life,’ said Martin Lorentz, who worked for three years on the restoration of the cathedral and got married within its walls Oct. 25.
Adults and children alike will appreciate this tale of ‘goosebumps and grace.’
Copyright © 2025 EWTN News, Inc. All rights reserved. EIN 27-4581132
Reproduction of material from this website without written permission, or unlicensed commercial use or monetization of National Catholic Register RSS feeds is strictly prohibited.
Subscriber Service CenterAlready a subscriber? Renew or manage your subscription or gift subscription.
Subscribe for just $49.95 $32.50!Start your Register subscription today.
Give a Gift SubscriptionBless friends, family or clergy with a gift of the Register.
Order Bulk SubscriptionsGet a discount on 6 or more copies sent to your parish, organization or school.
Sign-up for E-NewsletterGet Register Updates sent daily or weeklyto your inbox.

source