*Radical Islamists Responsible For Slaughter, He Says
Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria, President Donald Trump has said.
On this basis, the US President today, 31 October, redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) in reaction to allegations of widespread persecution and genocide against Christians.
Trump disclosed these while writing on his Truth Social account.
Aside these, Trump added Nigeria to the US State Department watch list.
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter,” Trump wrote.
According to the US President, he was placing Nigeria on a CPC list of nations the US deems to have engaged in religious freedom violations.
According to the State Department’s website, the list includes China, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, and Pakistan, among others.
Trump said he had asked US Representatives Riley Moore and Tom Cole, as well as the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, to look into the matter and report back to him.
Nigeria’s History On CPC List
The CPC list, which identifies nations that either partake in or allow ongoing severe violations of religious freedom, is a designation for a country that has seen a good number of Christians killed for their faith worldwide each year.
Although the CPC list has existed since 1999, Nigeria did not appear until 2020 during the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Then, in 2021, Nigeria was taken off the list -until the current Trump presidency.
Implications Of Being Tagged CPC
With Nigeria now officially redesignated as CPC under the US International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), she may face diplomatic and economic consequences, such as sanctions and restrictions on US foreign aid.
Fresh Pressure To Redesignate Nigeria CPC
Not quite long after Nigeria under the Buhari administration was yanked off the CPC status, new campaigns to return the country to the label emerged.
For instance, five American senators, in July 2022, during the Joe Biden administration, asked the then-Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to redesignate Nigeria as a CPC country, citing what they said was her deteriorating state of religious freedom.
In early October, 2025, respected US Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas) claimed that there is an ongoing genocide against Nigerian Christians –but the Federal Government denounced the claim as false, insisting that the country enjoys religious harmony.
The US accusation and government’s reaction split many Nigerian Christian leaders with some backing the American lawmaker and others supporting government’s denial.
Another ranking lawmaker, Rep. Chris Smith, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Human Rights and Global Health, and other legislators held hearings and introduced resolutions throughout 2025 on the alleged genocide matter, pointing to reports that claim a disproportionate number of Christians killed worldwide are in Nigeria, often at the hands of groups like Boko Haram and militant Fulani herdsmen.
While these transpired, on 15 October this year, a letter signed by some 30 U.S. Christian leaders was delivered to the White House.
This letter urged President Trump to have the State Department redesignate Nigeria as a CPC for its ongoing incidents of alleged anti-Christian violence.
Among other things, the church leaders stressed what they described as heightened and persistent violence and carnage on Nigerian Christians which they stated made people like Bill Maher — the thoroughly secular US comedian and TV host — to speak out about the “systematic killing of Christians in Nigeria” and the Nigerian mainstream media’s inadequate coverage of the issue.
As the letter pointed out, if someone like Maher — who, it noted, clearly has no use for religion — was bringing attention to Nigeria’s alleged anti-Christian violence, then things have clearly gotten out of control.
“I think designating Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ would be an important first step symbolically,” Professor of Dogmatic Theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan, Robert Fastiggi, who signed the letter delivered to the White House, had said.
“It would show that the USA is opposed to terrorism in the name of religion,” he added.
According to persecution.org, the letter stated that Nigeria’s main problem is alleged official lukewarm attitude to relentless attacks “against Christian farming families by militant Fulani Muslim herders, who appear intent on forcibly Islamizing the Middle Belt.”
The website added: “In that Middle Belt region is Benue state, one of the country’s 36 states. There, almost 1,000 Christians have been murdered this year alone, the letter reported.
“Technically, Nigeria has strict gun laws, but they are not enforced against the Fulani, leaving them far more well-armed than whoever they wish to victimize.
“Even in cases when authorities are alerted to impending attacks, ‘government security forces are typically unresponsive or ineffective,’ remarked the letter, which added that, because of such circumstances, Fulani militants enjoy “complete impunity.” ‘
The Federal Government has constantly dismissed such accusations.
“Muslim leaders in Nigeria should condemn the attacks against Christians in their country,” canvassedFastiggi, who added that, on an international level, “many Muslim leaders oppose the type of religious violence in the name of Islam that is taking place” in Nigeria.
As the Fastiggi-led clerics’ letter alleged, more than 50,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed by Islamic extremists since 2009, adding that such violence has displaced millions of others, drastically lowering their quality of life while the geographical range of the violence continues to expand, reaching further into majority-Christian areas.
Recall too that at a March 2025 U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa forum, a Nigerian Catholic bishop, Wilfred Anagbe, stated that: “The experience of Christians in Nigeria can be summed up as a church under Islamist extermination.”
His presentation attracted mixed reactions along religious lines in Nigeria with some Muslim groups calling for his arrest when he returned to Nigeria –a call the President Bola Tinubu government did not heed.
However, barely a few months after his presentation, suspected Fulani terrorists “ransacked the bishop’s home village, slaughtering 12 of his relatives and dozens of other villagers,” persecution.org reported.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Trump.
