Trump says he will designate Nigeria 'country of particular concern'

 https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/267517/breaking-trump-says-he-will-designate-nigeria-country-of-particular-concern

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 31, 2025 / 17:30 pm

President Donald Trump said he is designating Nigeria a "country of particular concern."

In a social media post Oct. 31, Trump said, "Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a 'COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN'".

Under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998, the U.S president must designate countries that engage in or tolerate “particularly severe violations of religious freedom” as CPCs. Violations include torture, prolonged detention without charges, and forced disappearence, according to the State Department.

The last CPC designations were made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in December 2023, when 

Blinken revoked Nigeria’s CPC designation that was put in place by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2020.

Christian leaders delivered a letter to Trump on Oct. 15 that said 52,000 Christians have been killed and over 20,000 churches attacked and destroyed in Nigeria since 2009. In addition, it said, thousands of Christians have been murdered and raped in 2025, and “over 100 Christian pastors and Catholic priests have been taken hostage for ransom.”

Trump said in the social media post, "But that is the least of it. When Christians, or any such group, is slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 Worldwide), something must be done!”

The president said he will charge Rep. Riley Moore, R-WVa., along with Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., “to immediately look into this matter, and report back to me.”

The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria, and numerous other Countries,” Trump stated, adding: “We stand ready, willing, and able to save our Great Christian population around the World!”



Members of Congress and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also had sought to designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced legislation in September that would require the Trump administration to adopt the CPC designation in addition to imposing targeted sanctions against Nigerian government officials who facilitate or permit jihadist attacks against Christians and other religious minorities.

Republican Senators Ted Budd of North Carolina, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and James Lankford of Oklahoma endorsed redesignating Nigeria in a Sept. 12 letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Budd posted on X.

Similarly, the USCIRF also recommended the State Department designate Nigeria as a CPC in its latest update on religious freedom in the country in late July.

USCIRF Chair Vicky Hartzler welcomed the designation on social media: "We applaud @POTUS for making Nigeria a CPC.” Hartzler said, “The Trump admin can now use the various presidential actions outlined in IRFA to incentivize Nigeria to protect its citizens and hold perpetrators accountable."

ADF Senior Counsel Sean Nelson told CNA, "We at Alliance Defending Freedom International are deeply grateful for President Trump's recognition of the grave persecution of Christians ongoing in Nigeria and worldwide.”

Nelson added, “We hope that the Country of Particular Concern designation moves Nigerian officials to stop the denials and work strenuously to end the religious persecution happening in so much of the country.”

Trump’s announcement to move forward with the CPC designation comes amid the ongoing government shutdown that has left legislation on the matter in limbo.

 


Moore, who was a staff member and national security adviser for the House Foreign Affairs Committee before being elected to Congress, celebrated the designation on social media, writing: “Thank you @POTUS for your incredible leadership by designating Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern. You have always been a champion for Christians around the world, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to work with you and Chairman Cole @houseappropsgop to defend our brothers and sisters in Christ who are being slaughtered by radical Islamists in Nigeria.”

This story was updated on Oct. 31, 2025, at 5:35 p.m. ET.

Top U.S. political satirist draws attention to plight of Christians in Nigeria - CNA

 https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/266839/top-us-political-satirist-draws-attention-to-plight-of-christians-in-nigeria

CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2025 / 06:00 am

Political satirist Bill Maher, who has often been a vocal critic of Christianity, recently called attention to the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, calling the ongoing violence a “genocide attempt.”

“I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria,” he said during the Sept. 26 episode of his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

“They’ve killed over 100,000 since 2009. They’ve burned 18,000 churches,” Maher said, referring to violent Islamists in Nigeria such as Boko Haram.

“This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza,” he continued. “They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country.”

“Where are the kids protesting this?” Maher asked.

The violent persecution of Christians in Nigeria “is underreported in Western media,” Religious Freedom Institute President David Trimble told CNA.

Trimble, commending Maher for raising the issue “to his mass audience, which may otherwise have very little exposure to such weighty issues,” noted that the “atrocities committed against Nigerian Christians can rightly be labeled as genocide.” 

“Nigeria is the most dangerous place in the world to be a follower of Jesus,” Trimble said. “Over the last decade, Islamist extremists have killed approximately 4,000 Christians there annually.”

Since July 2009, more than 19,000 Christian churches have been destroyed or looted, while hundreds of clergy, including Catholic priests, have been kidnapped or attacked. Less than two weeks ago, a Catholic priest named Father Matthew Eya was murdered while returning from his ministry.  

Edward Clancy, outreach director of Aid to the Church in Need USA, said that Christian persecution is at its height in Nigeria.

“It’s the area in the world where more Christians are killed for their faith than anywhere else,” Clancy told CNA.

“It’s amazing that it takes Bill Maher to become the voice of Christian persecution in the United States,” Clancy added.

Experts call the persecution a genocide

Christians make up about half of Nigerians, but they live in fear of persecution. 

“Shocking levels of violence have persisted for years,” Trimble said.

Christians experience frequent violent attacks, especially those living on farms in small towns on the outskirts of the north central state of Benue, which is predominantly Christian. Their farms are often burned to the ground during these attacks, destroying their livelihoods.

“They attack small towns and devastate them to the point that people need to abandon their homes, and then they’ll destroy and burn what’s remaining,” Clancy said. “It just demolishes the whole community.” 

Because of the destruction, many parishes have been forced to close. In the Diocese of Makurdi in Benue, at least 16 parishes have been abandoned due to the violence, according to Clancy. As each parish has multiple locations, this translates to roughly 40 churches. 

The violence in Nigeria has “a lot of the elements of a genocide,” Clancy said.

The violence began in 2009 with the Boko Haram insurgency, which aimed to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state. Since then, the group has been orchestrating terrorist attacks on civilians and targeting Christians. 

But militant Fulani herdsmen contribute to a majority of the violence, sowing fear in Nigeria’s Middle Belt communities.  

“These Fulani militants account for more attacks against Christians (and Muslims) than either of the more prominent Boko Haram and ISWAP [Islamic State West Africa Province],” Trimble said.

The violence is now growing in the south, according to Trimble. 

“Violence against Christians, once confined predominantly to the north and Middle Belt, is now also spreading further south, where the majority of Nigerian Christians reside,” Trimble said. 

Persecution is enshrined in Nigerian law, with blasphemy laws, sharia codes, and sharia courts in more than a dozen provinces “that oppose equal rights and due process for religious minorities,” according to Trimble.

“Atrocities committed against Nigerian Christians can rightly be labeled as genocide in terms both of how that term is used in popular discourse as well as its more precise usage in international law,” Trimble added.

Clancy noted that declarations of genocide are often “after the fact.”

“By the time someone says it, it’s history,” Clancy said. “We’ve got to stop it beforehand.”

Vocations thrive amid persecution 

Though priests are being kidnapped and even killed, vocations thrive in Nigeria.

“Believe it or not, it’s inspiring vocations,” Clancy said. “You would think that Tertullian was a lunatic when he said, ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the faith.’ But there’s been so many young men who’ve been emboldened.”

“The seminaries are full,” he said. 

When asked how Catholics can support their fellow Christians in Nigeria, Clancy said that “we should always start with prayer because it guides us, but it also helps to strengthen us.”

But also, Clancy encouraged Christians in the U.S. to “build awareness” as the topic of Christian persecution often “becomes cloistered in the confines of worship space” but “it doesn’t break out.”

“The Church is being very faithful and serving the people around the world in the harshest places,” Clancy said. “Let people know that our brothers and sisters in places like Nigeria are suffering.”