Three things to know about Nigeria, where Trump threatens war over alleged persecution
Christian conservatives have long raised concerns about situation in African nation
The Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine and Taiwan have been among the countries appearing in headlines all year whenever there is talk about potential military conflict involving the United States. But suddenly, beginning at the end of October, there’s a new country where President Donald Trump is raising the possibility of war: Nigeria, an impoverished African nation with some 238 million people.
Trump designated Nigeria as a County of Particular Concern, putting it on a U.S. State Department watchlist of countries where people of faith — often but not always Christian — face severe restrictions on their right of freedom of religion and/or where they are under physical duress, often because of persecution. Countries that already had been on the list included China, Russia, Myanmar1, Saudi Arabia and North Korea.
Trump’s placement of Nigeria on the CPC list came in the aftermath of the 2025 annual report, issued in March, of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. It was unclear why it took Trump seven months to accept the commission’s CPC recommendation. When the report was issued, it was headed by Stephen Schneck2, who was appointed by President Biden in 2022. The commission also recommended the continued designation of the Muslim militant groups Jama’tu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (frequently known as Boko Haram) and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) as Entities of Particular Concern.
In announcing that he was designating Nigeria as a CPC, Trump said on his social network, Truth Social:
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” — 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! I am asking Congressman Riley Moore, together with Chairman Tom Cole and the House Appropriations Committee, 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. We stand ready, willing, and able to save our Great Christian population around the World!
Religious conflict is nothing new to Nigeria, which had been designated as a CPC years ago and later removed from the list as conflicts temporarily eased.
According to the religious freedom commission, Nigeria’s population is almost evenly divided in terms of religion: About 53 percent are Muslim, 10.6 percent are Roman Catholic, and 35.3 percent are belong to other Christian groups. The tiny remainder is made up of other communities including Baha’is, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists.
Here are three things about the Nigerian situation that you should know to help put ongoing news developments in perspective:
1. Evangelical activists have long raised concerns about Nigeria
To some extent, concern by evangelicals about persecution in Nigeria goes as far back as the 1950s. In more modern times, however, evangelical attention to Nigeria accelerated most dramatically around 2009 as the Boko Haram stepped up its violent attacks, in which both Christians and Muslims were targeted. Open Doors USA, one of the organizations that provides humanitarian relief to persecuted Christians worldwide along with political advocacy, in 2016 reported about 2,500 killings of Christians during 2014 and other 4,000 in 2015. Since then, Open Doors and similar organizations have seldom reported fewer than 1,000 deaths each year at the hands of Muslim extremists, and they have consistently called Nigeria the most dangerous country to be a Christian.
“Sadly, Nigeria has become known as the world’s center of Christian martyrs,“ Christian Global Relief said in its most recent persecution report. “In any given year, the number of Christians killed by extremist groups is rarely less than 4,000 — often more than in the rest of the world combined.”
According to the relief organization, more than 50,000 deaths of Christians have been reported since the rise of the Boko Haram.
According to a Nigerian-based pro-democracy organization, the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, the violent deaths of Christians have continued unabated. The group, known as Intersociety, said that 7,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria during the first seven months of this year, and that at least 12 million Christians have been displaced since 2009.
2. The situation is more complex than the activists suggest
There is no question that Nigeria is a dangerous place for Christians to live — but it is also a dangerous place to be a Muslim. The government of Nigeria and some other observers suggest that the problem in Nigeria isn’t so much persecution of Christians per se as it is violence in general. Many of those observers note that much of the religious conflict has involved Muslims vs. Muslims as the more extreme Muslim groups attempt to impose their will on groups they see as weak in the faith.
For his part, Nigerian president Bola Ahmed Tinubu said in a statement recently that his administration “has maintained an open and active engagement with Christian and Muslim leaders alike and continues to address security challenges which affect citizens across faiths and regions.” He said he is willing to work with the United States and others to address ongoing conflicts.
In its report, the Commission on International Religious Freedom focused as much attention on violence against Muslims as it did against Christians. Part of the situation is that Christians tend to be concentrated in agricultural communities where farms and the food industry is targeted, making it unclear how much of what looks like persecution can be attributed to violent banditry rather than anti-Christian animus per se.
Bulama Bukarti, a human-rights advocate based in Nigeria, told CNN recently that Trump’s claims about persecution of Christians “reflect a dangerous oversimplification of Nigeria’s complex security crisis.” And he said that “the claim that there is a ‘mass slaughter of Christians’ by ‘Islamic radicals’ distorts the reality on the ground and risks deepening divisions in a country already under immense strain.”
“Yes, these (extremist) groups have sadly killed many Christians,” he also said. ”However, they have also massacred tens of thousands of Muslims.”
3. Hegseth could be itching for an anti-Muslim conflict in support of Christians
In his response to Trump’s statements on social media, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth almost seemed to be looking for an opportunity to send troops to Nigeria to counter Muslim militants.
Reacting to a Trump post that said, “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!” Hegseth responded:
Yes sir.
The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria — and anywhere — must end immediately. The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.
The use of such militaristic language is not unusual for Hegseth, but it comes across as chilling in light of the views he has expressed toward Islam. He stated those views most defiantly and most clearly — and has not since publicly backed away from them — in his 2020 book American Crusade: Our Right to Stay Free. Adopting a position best seen as a particularly aggressive form of Christian nationalism, Hegseth pictured the United States as a key defender of Christianity in a war against what he calls Islamism.
Hegseth wrote that book partly in support of Trump’s 2020 presidential candidacy.
Hegseth, who sports a tattoo with the inscription “Deus vult” or ”God wills it,” used by war-waging Christians during the Crusades against Muslims, wrote:
Next to the communist Chinese and their global ambitions, Islamism is the most dangerous threat to freedom in the world. It cannot be negotiated with, coexisted with, or understood; it must be exposed, marginalized, and crushed. Just like the Christian crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes in the twelfth century, American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against Islamists today.
How those views will play out in U.S. policy toward Nigeria remains to be seen. But it is clear that Hegseth sees the Nigerian situation as more than a tragedy whose impact is limited by Nigeria’s border, or even Africa’s.
Also called Burma.
Schenk, who is still on the commission, has been replaced as chair by Trump appointee Vicky Hartzler.