The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa passed a resolution urging President Donald Trump to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).
U.S. Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, presented House Resolution 220, which expresses “the need to designate Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern,” during a committee hearing on the matter March 12. A CPC is a country designated on a special watch list of countries where citizens face “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom.”
In the hearing, Smith explained the history of Nigeria’s inclusion and removal in the CPC.
“In December 2020, President Trump designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern only to be reversed without justification by Secretary Blinken in November of 2021,” Smith said. “Religious leaders in Nigeria were outraged by Secretary Blinken’s decision.” He referred to Bishop Stephen Dami Mamza, who challenged Nigeria’s removal and stated that Christian persecution is “more intense than ever.”
Nina Shea, senior fellow and director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, described the terror group responsible for most of the persecution in Nigeria.
“Currently, militant groups of nomadic Fulani Muslim herders are reported to be the greatest threat to Nigeria’s Christians, particularly those in Middle Belt farming communities,” Shea said. “That central area is the intersection of Nigeria’s mostly Muslim North with its mostly Christian South.”
In his opening remarks, Smith referred to the Open Doors Watch List released in 2023, which found that 89% of Christian martyrdoms occurred in Nigeria. He also referenced a 2023 Vatican report which states that since 2009, over 18,000 churches were destroyed in northern Nigeria by Islamist militants. Between October 2019 and September 2023, terror groups killed 55,910 people and abducted 21,000, according to an August 2024 report conducted by the Observatory For Religious Freedom in Africa.
Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi, Nigeria, testified alongside Smith.
“A long-term, Islamic agenda to homogenize the population has been implemented, over several presidencies, through a strategy to reduce and eventually eliminate the Christian identity of half of the population,” Anagbe said. “This strategy includes both violent and non-violent actions, such as the exclusion of Christians from positions of power, the abduction of church members, the raping of women, the killing and expulsion of Christians, the destruction of churches and farmlands of Christian farmers, followed by the occupation of such lands by Fulani herders. All of this takes place without government interference or reprisals.”
After the hearing, Smith urged Trump to designate Nigeria as a CPC once again.
“I fully expect President Trump to redesignate Nigeria as a CPC and to take additional steps to support the persecuted church,” Smith said. “Last night, I reintroduced a resolution on this issue, and I hope we will have a robust discussion that leads to real action.”
Photo: Alamy