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Violence against Nigerian Christians remains a primary concern for the US State Department, officials testified on Thursday, one year after the Trump administration designated Nigeria as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) over religious freedom violations.
Testifying before a congressional panel, Assistant Secretary of State Frank Garcia confirmed that Washington treats the crisis as a top priority and collaborates closely with Nigerian authorities to protect Christian communities and hold perpetrators accountable.
“Unfortunately, the violence has not stopped,” Garcia said.
The designation followed threats of military action from President Donald Trump last November, a move Abuja rejected as rooted in misinformation and faulty data.
While US Assistant Secretary of State Riley Barnes acknowledged that Nigerian authorities have recruited police, deployed forest guards, and increased arrests since the CPC listing, he noted that these measures have failed to improve security for Christians in the Middle Belt region.
Pointing to surging attacks in central Plateau State, West Virginia Republican Representative Riley Moore pressed officials on how Washington is pushing Abuja to confront deadly militias.
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“And before you answer that, we cannot take this CPC designation off this country. They have not done enough,” Moore added.
Nigeria’s Information Minister Mohammed Idris did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though Nigerian leaders have previously maintained that the nation faces terrorism rather than targeted religious persecution and would welcome US counterinsurgency support that respects its territorial integrity.
As Africa’s most populous nation prepares for presidential and parliamentary elections on January 16, 2027, widespread insecurity—spanning Islamist insurgencies, banditry, and farmer-herder clashes in the north alongside ransom kidnappings in the south—dominates the campaign agenda across a country where more than 200 ethnic groups navigate both longstanding coexistence and resource-driven conflict.
