Senior State Department officials told Congress that Nigeria had announced new security measures but had not produced sufficient improvement in the safety of Christian communities, particularly in the country’s Middle Belt.
Washington wants faster responses to warnings of impending attacks, increased security deployments, stronger prosecutions and the dismantling of armed groups operating in vulnerable communities.
The hearing comes as insecurity becomes a central issue ahead of Nigeria’s national election scheduled for January 16, 2027.
US says announced measures have not improved safety
Frank Garcia, the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said the Trump administration had treated the protection of Christian communities as a priority since the designation was announced on October 31, 2025.
“Unfortunately, the violence has not stopped,” Garcia said in his written testimony.
“The July 27 attack on a Christian community in Kaduna and the dozens of people killed in Plateau State in August and September, respectively, show that violence continues to plague Christian communities.”
Garcia said the United States and Nigeria had established a joint working group that met in Abuja in January and Washington in August.
The discussions have focused on deploying more Nigerian security and law-enforcement personnel to vulnerable communities, improving responses to early warnings, prosecuting perpetrators and expanding security cooperation.
The United States has provided training and equipment to Nigerian police units protecting communities in the Middle Belt. It has also expanded biometric-information sharing and worked with financial institutions to disrupt the movement of money to armed groups.
Riley Barnes, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, acknowledged that Nigeria had taken some steps, including recruiting police officers and creating forest guards.
However, he said those measures had not produced “actual on-the-ground greater safety and security for these Christians in the Middle Belt”.
“There are still rising death tolls and kidnappings,” Barnes said. “So, I think we have this posture of trust but verify.”
US lawmakers seek to retain the designation
Republican lawmaker Riley Moore argued that Nigeria had not done enough to justify removing the country-of-particular-concern designation.
“We cannot take this CPC designation off this country. They have not done enough,” Moore said.
He also called for close US scrutiny of Nigeria’s forthcoming election. “We need to be watching these presidential elections like a hawk,” Moore said.
Congressional concerns include delayed deployments in Plateau State and the exclusion of Plateau and Benue from parts of Nigeria’s forest-guard programme despite repeated attacks in both states.
Subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith said Congress would consider what additional measures could be taken to protect religious communities and hold perpetrators accountable.
Lawmakers have introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026, which seeks to place greater emphasis on religious freedom and civilian protection in Washington’s engagement with Abuja.
US law currently restricts access to 50% of certain bilateral economic and security assistance allocated to the Nigerian government until the secretary of state certifies that Nigeria is taking effective action against violence and holding perpetrators accountable.
The restriction does not apply automatically to every form of US assistance, and the administration retains discretion over several measures available under American religious-freedom law.
Nigeria disputes Washington’s characterisation
Nigeria has rejected the suggestion that its government tolerates or ignores religious persecution.
The federal government says the country is confronting terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and communal conflicts that kill Christians and Muslims.
Information Minister Mohammed Idris said violence in Nigeria did not “exclusively target any religious or ethnic group”.
“Extremism is mindless, blind to religion, tribe, or class,” he said in the government’s response to the designation.
Nigeria described claims that the state had failed to act as based on “misinformation or faulty data”, although it welcomed international assistance that respects the country’s territorial integrity.
The causes of violence in Nigeria vary by region. The country faces an Islamist insurgency in the northeast, armed kidnapping networks in the northwest and north-central regions, and conflicts involving land, grazing routes and access to resources in the Middle Belt.
Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province have attacked Christians, Muslims, security personnel and government institutions.
Some attacks in central Nigeria also have ethnic, economic and territorial dimensions, making their causes and motivations difficult to reduce to religion alone.
The US designation reflects Washington’s assessment that Nigeria has engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom. It does not, by itself, establish that every attack is religiously motivated or automatically trigger sanctions.
Source: africa.businessinsider.com
