United States officials have said attacks against Christian communities in Nigeria have continued, one year after the administration of President Donald Trump designated the country a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) over religious freedom violations.
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Frank Garcia, disclosed this on Thursday while appearing before the US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa during a congressional hearing on Nigeria’s efforts to protect Christians and secure the Middle Belt.
Garcia said the US government had been working with Nigerian authorities to address violence against Christian communities and ensure that those responsible were brought to justice.
“Unfortunately, the violence has not stopped,” he said.
He noted that Washington expected the Nigerian government to improve security deployments in vulnerable communities, respond more effectively to early warnings of attacks and strengthen efforts to prosecute those responsible.
Garcia also said the US was supporting Nigeria through security capacity-building, biometric information sharing and measures to disrupt terrorist financing networks.
Another State Department official, Riley Barnes, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, said Nigeria had taken some steps since the CPC designation.
According to him, the government had made leadership changes, deployed military personnel strategically and increased arrests and prosecutions.
He added that Nigeria had also agreed to provide more transparent information on spending for displaced persons and develop a plan for their safe return to their communities.
However, Barnes said the measures had not yet produced sufficient results, stressing that the US would assess progress based on a reduction in attacks and improved accountability.
Meanwhile, US Congressman Riley Moore called for Nigeria to remain on the CPC list, arguing that the government had not done enough to protect Christian communities, particularly in Plateau State.
He questioned the effectiveness of security measures introduced by the Nigerian government and called for stronger action against armed groups responsible for attacks.
However, Oge Onubogu, director and senior fellow of the African Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, cautioned against presenting Nigeria’s insecurity as exclusively a Christian persecution crisis.
She said both Christian and Muslim communities had suffered devastating attacks, adding that the violence was also linked to ethnic tensions, land disputes, criminality, political competition and governance failures.
The hearing came amid continued security challenges across Nigeria, including insurgency, banditry, farmer-herder clashes and kidnappings.
Nigeria had rejected the CPC designation, maintaining that the country was battling terrorism and wider security challenges rather than religious persecution.
