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Nigeria (International Christian Concern) — For once, Bill Maher is right. One of the most horrifying yet underreported crises of our time is unfolding in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and home to one of the largest
Christian communities on the continent.
A new report by the Nigeria-based International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, known as Intersociety, reveals a campaign of destruction so relentless it demands immediate action. According to their findings, jihadist groups are destroying roughly 100 churches every month. Since Boko Haram launched its bloody insurgency in 2009, an estimated 19,100 churches have been attacked, burned, or shut down at gunpoint.
Meanwhile, antisemitic pro-Gaza protesters receive wall-to-wall media coverage. Yet the media cannot be bothered to cover a real genocide occurring against Nigerian Christians.
The violence is not merely the byproduct of “land disputes” or “local feuds.” It is a systematic assault designed to completely erase Christianity from Nigeria. Intersociety reports that since 2009, a staggering 185,000 Nigerians lost their lives to jihadist violence — and more than two-thirds of that total were Christians. More than 7,000 Christians were massacred in the first 220 days of this year alone, an average of 32 per day. Thousands more have been abducted, including many pastors and young women who are targeted for ransom, forced conversion, or sexual slavery. All while the Nigerian government does nothing to end the violence.
The perpetrators are well-known: Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa, and heavily armed Fulani militants. Together they have turned entire regions into blood-soaked killing fields, scattering the faithful and hollowing out once-thriving Christian communities. Unless something dramatic is done quickly, Christianity in Nigeria could disappear within the next half-century.
History offers painful precedents. In modern-day Turkey, once the heart of Byzantine Christendom, centuries of jihad erased one of the world’s great Christian civilizations. Churches became ruins or mosques. In Egypt, waves of persecution and forced conversions reduced thriving Coptic communities to shadows of their former selves. What happened in these ancient lands can happen again in Nigeria in the 21st century.
Why should Americans care? The United States is the leader of the free world. By virtue of our outsized economic and foreign policy power, we should isolate countries, like Nigeria, that enable genocide by withholding trade, benefits, or any other privileges of partnership with the United States of America. Ultimately, propping up a regime that is conducting genocide, or looking the other way while it takes place, is immoral and fundamentally un-American.
To disregard the eradication of Christianity in Nigeria would embolden jihadists everywhere and signal that the blood of the martyrs means nothing to us.
To his credit, President Trump, during his first administration, labelled Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern. Frustratingly, less than a year later, President Biden inexplicably reversed that designation even as attacks against Christians were intensifying. Today, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has legislation that would right this historic wrong.
His bill, the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025, would impose real costs on Nigerian officials who enable or ignore this persecution — through sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and the public shaming that comes with international accountability. It would also require the State Department to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern and maintain the Entities of Particular Concern designations for Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa.
For millions of believers in Nigeria, every Sunday is an act of defiance. They gather knowing their church service could become the scene of a massacre, yet they worship anyway. They are sustained by a faith far stronger than bombs or bullets. The least we can do is match their courage with action.
Today, the blood of thousands of Nigerian martyrs cries out for justice. The Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act is a strong first step toward answering that cry. Although there may be political division, religious liberty must transcend political parties. Congress should come together despite these divisions to protect the persecuted without
delay.
The survival of Christianity in Africa’s most populous nation may depend on it.
Article by Paul Teller, senior advisor at Advancing American Freedom, and Shawn Wright, International Christian Concern’s incoming president
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