As Nigeria continues to experience unparalleled levels of murder, kidnappings, and rape at the hands of radical Islamist terrorists targeting Christians and other religious minorities, a House subcommittee hearing held Wednesday concluded that the most populous country in Africa must be redesignated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) by the U.S. Department of State in order to pressure the Nigerian government to take more forceful action to quell the violence.

According to the World Watch List 2025, the country where the most Christians were killed in 2024 was Nigeria, with 3,100 murdered and 2,830 kidnapped. These are only the latest acts of brutal violence that have plagued the West African nation since at least 2009, when Islamist terrorist groups like Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsman began a concerted and widespread campaign of violence. In all, over 50,000 Christians have been slaughtered by various Islamist terrorist groups since then, mostly in the rural areas of central and northern Nigeria. Some estimates say the number killed is as high as 62,000 since the year 2000. Approximately 48% of Nigeria’s 236 million people are Christian, and 50% are Muslim.

There appears to be no end in sight to the ongoing brutal violence. As noted by Committee Chairman Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the violence has claimed “at least 58 lives this past weekend and hundreds of others in recent weeks.” In addition, at least 50 Christians were killed and dozens kidnapped in January, and a Catholic priest was murdered last week on Ash Wednesday.

In response to the unparalleled level of violence occurring in Nigeria, the first Trump administration placed the country on the State Department’s CPC list in 2020, which was designed to be accompanied by economic and other sanctions to encourage the government to crack down on the violence. But in 2021, the Biden administration removed Nigeria from the CPC list, which notably happened “one day before [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken went to Nigeria to visit with state leaders, including President Muhammadu Buhari,” according to Family Research Council’s Arielle Del Turco.

International religious freedom experts and religious leaders decried the decision and have been advocating for Nigeria to be included on the list once again. On Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa held a hearing entitled, “Conflict and Persecution in Nigeria: The Case for a CPC Designation” to explore the issue.

FRC President Tony Perkins, who formerly served as a commissioner, vice chair, and chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) from 2018-2022, testified before the subcommittee on the need for the designation.

“I can tell you with certainty that the world is not paying enough attention to the growing humanitarian disaster in Nigeria, despite its strategic importance as Africa’s most populous country,” he remarked. “These warning lights are flashing because of this systematic religious persecution driven primarily by Islamists, and it’s going unaddressed. … More than 4,000 believers have been forced to flee for their lives in recent weeks alone.”

After pointing out that over 3,000 Christians were killed in 2024, Perkins observed, “These are not just numbers. These are fathers, they’re mothers, they’re children, they’re families. The case of Leah Sharibu underscores the horror of this crisis. Leah was just 14 years old when Boko Haram kidnapped her and 108 other girls from their school in 2018. The terrorists eventually released all the girls except Leah. Why? Because she refused to renounce her Christian faith. Reports suggest she is still alive and now held as a prize by her captors, as she has been forced to bear children in captivity.”

Perkins went on to relate how former Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to explain why Nigeria was removed from the CPC list, suggesting in a meeting with USCIRF members “that these massacres were caused by climate change, that desperate Fulani herders were simply looking for pasture land. Let me be clear. This is not about climate change. It’s about a violent extremist ideology that seeks to eliminate Christianity from Nigeria’s northern and central regions.”

Perkins further detailed how a country being designated with a CPC status can drive crucial reforms to protect religious minorities from persecution.

“The evidence [of religious persecution in Nigeria] overwhelmingly meets the legal threshold under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which requires CPC status for governments that engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom,” he explained. “That’s exactly what Nigeria’s government has done. It has failed to protect all of its citizens from religious violence. The … president has the authority to take action against CPC designated nations, including economic penalties. The U.S. should apply targeted sanctions against Nigerian officials who are complicit in religious persecution, as well as suspend certain trade benefits until concrete actions are taken to protect all Nigerians. Religious freedom protection must be tied to U.S.-Nigerian relations. The administration should make it clear that Nigeria’s treatment of religious minorities will directly impact diplomatic and economic relations, including trade agreements and security assistance.”

Perkins also argued that “the U.S. must reappoint a strong, high-profile ambassador for international religious freedom. During the first Trump administration, this role was used effectively under the leadership of Ambassador Sam Brownback to apply global pressure on persecuting nations. The momentum for that must be regained.”

Another panelist included Nigerian Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Catholic Diocese of Makurdi, who Chairman Smith noted traveled to the U.S. to testify before the committee “at great risk.” Smith also observed that Anagbe’s diocese “is where the worst of the violent persecution in Nigeria is occurring by militant Fulani, causing the highest number of displaced people living in internally displaced camps [which] are the source of daily attacks by the militant Islamic extremists.”

During his testimony, Anagbe revealed that a “long term Islamic agenda to homogenize the population has been implemented over several presidencies, through a strategic strategy to reduce and eventually eliminate the Christian identity, or of half of the population. This strategy includes both violent and non-violent actions, such as the exclusion of Christians from positions of power and adoption of such church members, the raping of women, the killing and expulsion of Christians, the destruction of churches and farmlands of Christian farmers, followed by the occupation of such lands by the Fulani herders, and also changing the names of these villages.”

Anagbe went on to relate how there is virtually no law enforcement in his diocese. “When we call for help to the police and the army, they do not come. At the end of 2024, several villages were burned by the attackers … and the leaders called the police for defense ahead of time. But they did not come, and the Christian massacres, almost customary, took place, killing hundreds in Plateau [State] and Benue [State], with the worst massacre claiming 47 people. The militants also burned down the eight Catholic churches of Saint Mary’s parish in the Diocese of Gboko and in Benue State, as well as the parish house, clinic, schools and other houses.”

Anagbe further described how millions of Christians have fled to nine different refugee camps in his diocese, where they still remain under constant threat. “We live in fear, because at any point it can be our turn to be killed. But to remain silent is to die twice. So I have chosen to speak.”

“We have to talk for the defenseless,” he continued. “We have to talk about the weak and those who cannot talk about themselves. … I speak on behalf of those whose loved ones have been killed, but no one has even offered a word of consolation to them. I speak on behalf of the thousands of young girls who have been abducted and raped because no one, not even the media, mentions them. Foremost, I speak on behalf of my flock, who are unable to worship freely and unable to return to their ancestral farms and homes because that land has been ruthlessly taken from them by the armed herdsmen.”