Another US lawmaker has raised an issue with what he alleged is a genocide against Christians in Nigeria, and has officially brought the matter to the attention of President Donald Trump.
In a letter to the US President, Representative Riley M. Moore, who represents West Virginia’s Second District in the US Congress, specifically asked Trump to immediately designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).
Rep Moore belongs to the ruling Republican Party, same as Trump.
His letter is coming on the heels of a bill sponsored by another Republican lawmaker, Senator Ted Cruz (Texas), which seeks targeted sanctions on Nigerian government officials said to have enforced Sharia and blasphemy laws.
Cruz’s bill, titled ‘Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025’ further seeks “powerful sanctions and other tools” by the global superpower to punish government officials for what the American lawmaker called their ignoring or enabling of attacks and mass murder of Christians.
Rep Moore’s letter was dated October 6, 2025, and addressed to US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, according to a report in Daily Post, which said it sighted the letter.
The newspaper reported further that in the letter, the youthful lawmaker urged the US government to immediately halt sales of arms and all associated technical support to Nigeria until the “Nigerian government demonstrates that it is sufficiently committed to ending the reign of persecution and slaughter”.
Moore claimed that from January to September 2025 alone, no fewer than 7,000 Christians have been gruesomely murdered by “Muslim extremist groups”.
He alleged that at least 250 Catholic Priests have been attacked or killed across the country since 2015, stressing that “between Boko Haram uprising in 2009 and 2025, 19,100 churches in Nigeria have been attacked or destroyed”.
President Trump had during his first tenure designated Nigeria as a CPC but his successor, former President Joe Biden (of the Democratic Party) reversed the designation,recalls the paper.
It added that Senator Cruz, television host Bill Maher, and political commentator Van Jones had also alleged that Nigeria is witnessing a “Christian genocide”.
During a recent podcast appearance with American talk show host Maher, Senator Cruz alleged that Christians were being systematically targeted and killed in Nigeria, describing the situation as “genocide”.
But the Federal Government had since dismissed the report, stating that the deteriorating security situation in the country does not target a particular religion.
The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, in a recent statement, described the allegations as false, misleading and capable of inciting division.
According to him, the foreign commentators were “orchestrating wild allegations about unproven ongoing genocide” in Nigeria and urged Nigerians and the international community to reject attempts to “robe the country with a garment that is not hers”.
After Cruz’s post on X, Nigeria’s presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, replied the American lawmaker.
Onanuga wrote thus, also on X: “Senator, stop these malicious, contrived lies against my country. We do not have a religious war in my country.
“The degraded Boko Haram terrorists operating on the fringes of Nigeria’s North east target everyone. They attack farmers, our soldiers. The bandits in the North west kill worshippers in their mosques.
“Christians are not targeted. We have religious harmony in our country. Stop these malicious lies.”
*PHOTO CAPTION: Rep Moore.
