After President Donald Trump on Saturday announced his decision to redesignate Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) for religious freedom, the question turns to how the U.S. government can give teeth to that designation. “A lot of times, these designations are there, but nothing is done about them,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch.” “There’s waivers that are issued. And so, business goes about as usual.”

Implementing the CPC designation is especially tricky with regard to Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, where the government flatly refuses to admit that religious persecution is occurring.

In response to the CPC designation, Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar insisted in Germany on Tuesday that government involvement in religious persecution was “impossible” because of the country’s “constitutional commitment to religious freedom and rule of law,” which it inherited from the British colonial era. The Nigerian Constitution, argued Tuggar, “is what shows that it’s impossible for there to be a religious persecution that can be supported in any way, shape or form by the government of Nigeria at any level.”

“I’m not surprised that the Nigerian government would say, ‘Oh, we didn’t know anything about this,’” argued Perkins Monday. But “they’ve known about this. … They’ve responded to congressional hearings that I’ve testified and others have testified at. They know this is going on. They’re turning a blind eye. They’re complicit.”

Nigeria was previously designated a CPC in December of 2020 by former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the waning days of the first Trump administration. That designation came after the congressionally-authorized U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) had recommended Nigeria’s designation every year since 2009.

And USCIRF wasn’t alone. “I have been calling for it [Nigeria’s designation] for years,” said Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on “Washington Watch.” “Since 2009, more than 50,000 Nigerian Christians have been murdered. 50,000! This year alone, 7,000 Christians [were] murdered in Nigeria.”

However, shortly after Pompeo designated Nigeria, explained Perkins, who formerly chaired USCIRF, the incoming Biden administration removed the designation, as part of their policy of de-emphasizing international religious freedom in favor of promoting LGBT ideology overseas.

“When Secretary Pompeo designated Nigeria back in December of 2020, I was in the room, and I was one of the people who urged it,” said Dr. Bob Destro, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, on “Washington Watch.” “But I knew, as we all know now, that the State Department bureaucracy does not like the idea.”

“So, I really have to hand it to President Trump. He’s a hero, in my view, for making the designation,” Destro declared. “Now I think it’s possible to organize the troops, so to speak … to actually get some things done to help the people of Nigeria.”

Destro quickly elaborated on this metaphor. “It’s now time for the executive branch to look at the question, what do we do about this?” he said. “It’s one thing to highlight the problem, which is what the designation does, but it’s quite another thing from a diplomatic perspective to actually say, ‘Okay, here are the outcomes that we’re looking for.’”

Destro proposed three policy options which are open to the Trump administration, which he believes will have a real effect. “The most important thing I think that we could do right away is to have Secretary [Marco] Rubio or Secretary [Pete] Hegseth, call some of our friends in the Gulf, who are paying for the weaponry that’s being used to slaughter Christians, and tell them to cut it out.”

Islamic terror groups in sub-Saharan Africa receive much of their funding from oil-rich Islamic nations like Qatar and the U.A.E. For example, in 2022, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned six individuals in the U.A.E. who transferred $782,000 to Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Second, Destro continued, the U.S. could provide training to Nigerian police to enable them to protect Christians. “What most people in the United States don’t realize is that Nigeria doesn’t have any armed local police,” he said. This means that, when it comes to stopping gangs of armed marauders, “Nigeria does in fact employ the army,” which often responds slowly and inadequately to localized concerns.

The State Department’s Antiterrorism Assistance Program offers training, mentorships, and equipment grants to foreign law enforcement agencies. Since 1983, it “has delivered counterterrorism training to more than 165,000 law enforcement officials and first responders from more than 150 countries.”

A third and more dramatic option is cut off the flow of foreign aid to Nigeria until its government is compelled to take the problem seriously. “We need to cut off aid to the country,” Hawley insisted. “Why are we sending them U.S. taxpayer money when their government, I believe, is complicit in this attempted decimation of the Christian population?”

This option need not involve the revocation of grants already allocated, suggested Destro. “There is plenty of money in the State Department budget for Africa,” he explained. “They’re looking for places in which it could be ‘valuably spent,’ so to speak.” In other words, Nigeria could be made to understand that it would see fewer new grants from the U.S. State Department until it changed its attitude toward Christian persecution.

These different policy levers give President Trump options as he determines which course is best to pursue in Nigeria. “This is something that desperately needs to be stopped,” Hawley resolved. While there are multiple ways to correct the situation, “it begins with the United States saying, ‘We’re not going to look the other way.’” President Trump has now done so in no uncertain terms.