An American senator, Ted Cruz, has introduced a bill in the United States Senate seeking to protect Christians and other religious minorities from persecution in Nigeria.
Titled, “Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025,” the proposed legislation seeks to enlist Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern (CPC).
The Republican lawmaker from Texas, in the bill introduced on September 9, wants officials of the Nigerian government held accountable for facilitating Islamic jihadist violence or enforcing harsh blasphemy laws, which have led to the death and imprisonment of innocent citizens.
The bill will:
- Impose targeted sanctions against Nigerian officials who facilitate violence against Christians and other religious minorities, including by Islamist terrorist groups.
- Impose targeted sanctions against Nigerian officials who enforce sharia and blasphemy laws.
- Require the Secretary of State to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.
- Require the Secretary of State to ensure that Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa remain designated as Entities of Particular Concern.
Nigerian Christians are being targeted and executed for their faith by Islamist terrorist groups and are being forced to submit to sharia law and blasphemy laws across Nigeria.
“It is long past time to impose real costs on the Nigerian officials who facilitate these activities, and my Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act uses new and existing tools to do exactly that. I urge my colleagues to advance this critical legislation expeditiously,” Cruz said.
Nigeria’s security challenges
For over a decade, virtually all parts of Nigeria have battled one form of security challenge or another unabated.
The Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) insurgency has held the North East region down for about 16 years, while the North West region is being overrun by rampaging bandits, who kidnap for ransom and kill victims who cannot pay for freedom.
The North Central region, with a large Christian population, is plagued by bandits and criminal herders who operate in parts of Niger, Kogi, Benue, Nasarawa, and Plateau States.
In Christmas Eve attacks in 2024, suspected armed terrorists invaded Christian-dominated communities in Plateau State, slaughtering about 200 locals and injuring nearly 300 others.
In what was described as “well-coordinated” attacks, the terrorists invaded several communities in Bokkos and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas as the residents were preparing to attend programmes lined up by their pastors to mark the birth of Jesus Christ.
Some of the affected Christian communities were Butura Kampani, Chirang, Maiyanga, NTV, Tamiso, Darawat, Meyenga, Ruku, Yelwa, Dares, Tahore, Gawarba, Hurum, Makundary, Murfet, Ngyong, Ndun, and Ruwi.
In the South West, criminals under the guise of herders are also posing security problems, while the South East region and some parts of the South South region have become volatile because of secessionist agitation.
Kidnappings for ransom in virtually all parts of the West African country have become a daily occurrence.
Although the Nigerian government under the immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, claimed the insurgents had largely been “degraded” and are now “focusing more on soft targets and solitary military formations”, Boko-Haram still carries out attacks in many parts of the North East, including on military posts and formations.
Incumbent Nigerian leader, President Bola, and officials of his government, have repeatedly claimed that the nation’s security challenges have reduced tremendously.
Nigeria in the eyes of the world
In its report released earlier in January this year, Christian watchdog, Open Doors, ranked Nigeria 7th among 50 countries of the world where Christians face the most persecution.
The US-based organisation said Jihadist violence continued to escalate in Nigeria, while Christians are particularly at risk from targeted attacks from Islamic militants such as Fulani fighters, Boko Haram, and ISWAP.
“Jihadist violence continues to escalate in Nigeria, and Christians are particularly at risk from targeted attacks by Islamist militants, including Fulani fighters, Boko Haram, and ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province).
“While Christians used to be vulnerable only in the Muslim-majority northern states, this violence continues to spread into the Middle Belt and even further south. The attacks are shockingly brutal. Many believers are killed, particularly men, while women are often kidnapped and targeted for sexual violence.
“More believers are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world. These militants also destroy homes, churches, and livelihoods. More than 16.2 million Christians in sub-Saharan Africa, including high numbers from Nigeria, have been driven from their homes by violence and conflict. Millions now live in displacement camps,” the report said.
Open Doors’ annual report mirrors persecution in 50 countries of the world in the previous year.
Nigeria was ranked sixth in the organisation’s 2024 World Watch list.
That year, it said a conservative estimate of 4,998 Christians was killed worldwide in 2023, Christian watchdog, Open Doors, said in its 2024 World Watch list.
It also said 14,766 churches and Christian properties were attacked, while 295,120 Christians were displaced and 4,125 others detained across the world in the same year.
It said the number of Christians beaten or threatened increased from 29,411 reported cases to 42,849, while attacks on homes rose from 4,547 to 21,431.
A report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), in 2023, said no fewer than 700 Christians were killed in Nigeria in May of that year.
The group said Plateau State in the North Central region of the country witnessed the bloodiest killings, especially in the Mangu area. It said that about 300 Christians were slaughtered in three days between May 15 and 17 in the state.
In April 2025, the Catholic-inspired human rights organisation, in a report, said more than 20,000 Christians were brutally killed over the past decade across South East Nigeria.
The report accuses various jihadist factions, such as Fulani bandits, Muslim vigilantes and jihadist herdsmen, Niger Delta militants, and even Nigerian military forces of carrying out the killings, largely targeting Christian and ethnic communities in the region.
In March this year, the US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa recommended sanctions on Nigeria in response to the alleged endless killings of Christians in the country.
The recommendation was sequel to a congressional hearing, where the lawmakers frowned at the Nigerian government for failing to protect Christian communities from increasing violence.
They referred to the report of the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa released in 2024, which said Nigeria accounted for 90 per cent of Christians killed worldwide every year.
According to the report, a total of 55,910 people were killed between October 2019 and September 2023, while 21,000 others were abducted by terrorist groups operating in the region.
Chris Smith, the committee chair, referred to the testimony of Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi, Benue State, North Central Nigeria.
In November 2022, 15 members of the British Parliament condemned the growing persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
The parliamentarians, who spoke in support of a petition by Catholic Charity, asked the Nigerian government and lawmakers to take action in bringing to justice terrorists and other criminals attacking and killing Christians in the Middle Belt and North East regions of the West African country.
The MPs are Patrick Grady, Brendan O’ Hara, Cat Smith, Jim Shannon, Tommy Sheppard, Marie Rimmer, Julian Lewis, David Linden, Chris Green, and Sammy Wilson.
The members of the House of Lords in support of the petition are Lord Singh of Wimbledon, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, Lord Hylton, Bishop Cocksworth of Coventry, and Lord Alton of Liverpool.
Earlier in June 2020, some parliamentarians under the aegis of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion and Belief (APPG), alleged that the Nigerian government was allowing armed Islamist groups to kill, maim, and displace Christians, through a systematic cleansing.
The report, titled “Nigeria – Unfolding Genocide?”, painted a picture of an ongoing religious/ethnic cleansing in Nigeria, with the government doing almost nothing to end it.
It said the cleansing was particularly targeted at northern Christians.
In April 2023, a member of the British Parliament, Nick Fletcher, warned against moves to obliterate the influence of Christianity from the country’s history.
Nigeria’s CPC status
Nigeria was included in the “Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)” list for the first time in 2019 after an indictment by the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
“Religious freedom conditions in Nigeria trended negatively in 2018. The Nigerian government at the national and state levels continued to tolerate violence and discrimination on the basis of religion or belief, and suppressed the freedom to manifest religion or belief,” the Commission’s report said at the time.
Again, in December 2020, Nigeria, alongside nine other countries, was designated as a CPC for being guilty of violations of religious freedom.
The other countries are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, the DPRK, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
In a statement on December 7, the then U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said the countries had been re-designated for the second time as Countries of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, as amended.
Nigeria was, however, removed from the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) on November 17, 2021, a day before then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the country on a visit. He was on a tour of some African countries. The exclusion provoked outrage among some Nigerians.
On June 29, 2022, five American senators, including the current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, requested that the country’s government redesignate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) due to the declining state of religious freedom in the country.
They made the demand in a memo to Blinken.
The other senators, all Republican, are Josh Hawley (Missouri), Mike Braun (Indiana), Tom Cotton (Arkansas), and James Inhofe (Oklahoma).
