Following what was considered as deliberate attacks on by radical Islamists against Christians leading to their existential threat in Nigeria, President Donald Trump of the United States on Friday, October 31, 2025, redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).
The position of President Trump was in reaction to allegations of widespread persecution and genocide against Christians.
Trump stated these while writing on his Truth Social account during which he added Nigeria to the US State Department watch list.
Trump wrote; “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter”.
The US President particularly said that 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 also 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 administration of late President Muhammadu Buhari, but it was taken off the list in 2021 until the present Trump presidency.
Implications Of Being Tagged CPC
With Nigeria now officially redesignated as CPC under the US International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), it 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 as five American senators, in July 2022, during the Joe Biden administration, requested the then-Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to redesignate Nigeria as a CPC country. They cited what they described as “deteriorating state of religious freedom”.
In early October 2025, US Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas) claimed that there was an ongoing genocide against Nigerian Christians, a claim the Federal Government denounced as false, insisting that Nigeria 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.
However, another lawmaker, Rep. Chris Smith, who is the 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, precisely on October 15, 2025, a letter signed by some 30 U.S. Christian leaders was delivered to the White House urging 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 noted 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 also pointed at the Nigerian mainstream media’s inadequate coverage of the issue.
The letter noted that if someone like Maher, who clearly has no use for religion was bringing attention to Nigeria’s alleged anti-Christian violence, then things have clearly gotten out of control.
According to Professor of Dogmatic Theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan, Robert Fastiggi, who signed the letter delivered to the White House; “I think designating Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ would be an important first step symbolically. It would show that the USA is opposed to terrorism in the name of religion”.
This was as persecution.org noted that 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”.
According to persecution.org; “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.
“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,’ the letter stated, adding that because of such circumstances, Fulani militants enjoy “complete impunity.”
However, the Federal Government has constantly dismissed such accusations.
At a March 2025 U.S. House Sub-committee on Africa forum, a Nigerian Catholic bishop, Wilfred Anagbe, said; “The experience of Christians in Nigeria can be summed up as a church under Islamist extermination”.
Anagbe’s presentation attracted mixed reactions along religious lines in Nigeria with some Muslim groups calling for his arrest when he returned to Nigeria.
Persecution.org reported that barely eight months after Anagbe’ presentation, suspected Fulani terrorists ransacked his village and slaughtered 12 of his relatives and dozens of other villagers.
