By Ogala Emmanuel – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44325811
President Donald Trump has weighed in on the ongoing slaughter of Christians in Nigeria. According to Intersociety (the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law), approximately 125,009 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009. In 2024 alone, 3,100 Christians were killed and 2,830 kidnapped.
In 2025, multiple reports indicate that over 7,000 Christians were killed in the first 220 days, an average of about 32 to 35 deaths per day. Open Doors, an organization that tracks violence against Christians, reports that more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than in the rest of the world combined.
Even though nearly every organization tracking the slaughter of Christians, including the Vatican, has labeled these attacks as direct assaults by Islamic extremists, Janjaweed militias, and Boko Haram, liberals and Democrats have suddenly decided the violence is not motivated by religion.
According to testimony, the Biden State Department framed the violence as conflicts between herders “driven by scarcity” and made climate change the centerpiece issue. Critics argue that “they didn’t look at motives—they looked at drivers, and determined the driver was climate change.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken even testified before the House Appropriations Committee that the violent attacks against Nigerian Christians had “nothing to do with religion.”
Critics say he ignored overwhelming evidence, including data from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)—an independent, congressionally mandated body that publishes an annual report documenting global violations of religious freedom and has repeatedly identified Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern due to systematic, faith-based persecution.
In 2021, USCIRF expressed that it was “appalled” and found it “unexplainable” that the State Department did not redesignate Nigeria as a CPC and treated it as a country with no severe religious freedom violations, after it had been “rightfully placed” on the list the previous year.
In December 2020 (under the first Trump administration), the U.S. State Department designated Nigeria as a CPC, but this designation was removed under the Biden administration.
Nigeria’s Foreign Minister agrees with Biden, dismissing any suggestion of genocide, stating “there is no genocide, now or ever, in Nigeria.”
The murders are being committed by a number of Islamist groups and factions, including Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP/ISIS-WA), Fulani militants (also known as the Fulani Ethnic Militia or Jihadist Fulani Herdsmen), as well as various Muslim gangs and bandits. These groups and their affiliates operate in Nigeria and across other African countries.
According to the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, which has painstakingly collected data on civilian violence and deaths in the region, the trends are clear: more Christians are killed by extremists than Muslims, even when accounting for the relative population sizes of the two faiths in the northern states. In fact, if you are a Christian, you are 6.5 times more likely to be killed in religiously motivated violence.
Founded in 2002, Boko Haram is a Salafi Islamist sect whose goal is to eliminate Western influence and establish an Islamic state in Nigeria. Designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. in 2013 and sanctioned by the U.N. the following year, Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
At its peak in the mid-2010s, it was considered the world’s deadliest terrorist group. The insurgency has affected more than 15 million people, causing an estimated 350,000 deaths according to the United Nations Development Programme.
Boko Haram is infamous for mass kidnappings, including the 2014 abduction of 276 Chibok schoolgirls and later attacks in Dapchi and Zamfara. Operating mainly in Nigeria’s northeast but also in Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, the group regularly targets Christians, burning churches and executing civilians who refuse to convert. Its tactics include suicide bombings, armed assaults, and the use of child bombers.
After a 2016 split within Boko Haram, a new faction emerged known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, which remains one of ISIS’s most active and lethal affiliates. The group controls territory around Lake Chad and conducts ambushes, kidnappings, and bombings across Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. ISWAP primarily attacks military and government targets but also executes civilians, aid workers, and Christians.
In one video, its fighters vowed to kill every Christian they captured “in revenge” for Muslims killed elsewhere. The State Department designated ISWAP a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2018, and it was added to the U.N. sanctions list in 2020.
Radicalized members of the Fulani ethnic group, known as Fulani militants or Jihadist Fulani herdsmen, have also carried out deadly attacks against Christian farming communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. While most of the Fulani people are peaceful herders, these armed factions have become one of the world’s deadliest terrorist networks.
According to the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, they were responsible for over half of all recorded Christian deaths between 2019 and 2023, killing more than 9,000 Christians and displacing hundreds of thousands. Their raids often destroy entire villages, burning homes and churches while sparing Muslim settlements.
Adding to the chaos are armed criminal gangs, commonly referred to as bandits, operating across northwestern Nigeria, particularly in Zamfara, Kaduna, and Katsina states. Numbering in the tens of thousands, these groups conduct kidnappings for ransom, cattle rustling, and village raids.
Although primarily motivated by profit, many have forged ties with jihadist factions such as Boko Haram and ISWAP, blurring the line between criminal and ideological violence. Christians are frequently targeted for abduction or extortion, and church leaders in Zamfara have received direct threats demanding church closures. Since 2011, over 12,000 people have been killed and more than 50,000 displaced in bandit-related violence.
President Trump has taken decisive action to address the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. On October 31, 2025, he officially designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act, declaring that “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and that “radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
The designation, which allows for sanctions, aid restrictions, or other diplomatic measures, reinstates Nigeria’s CPC status that had been removed under the Biden administration in 2023. Trump also directed the House Appropriations Committee and several lawmakers to investigate and recommend next steps, including possible sanctions against Nigerian officials.
Earlier in 2025, his administration imposed visa restrictions limiting most Nigerian travel visas to single-entry, three-month validity, signaling a tougher stance on the country’s human rights record. Republican lawmakers have since introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act to support Trump’s actions and ensure continued oversight of Nigeria’s treatment of Christians.
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