United States President Donald Trump has announced that Nigeria will be placed on a watchlist for religious freedom, based on vague claims that Christians in the country are being “slaughtered” by Muslims.
In a social media post on Friday, Trump explained that the African nation would be added to a Department of State list of “Countries of Particular Concern”.
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“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,” Trump wrote. “Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN’.”
The Nigerian government has denied such allegations in the past. But critics warn that designating Nigeria a “country of particular concern” could pave the way for future sanctions.
Trump also appears to have bypassed the normal procedure for such matters.
The 1998 International Religious Freedom Act created the category of “country of particular concern” in order to help monitor religious persecution and advocate for its end.
But that label is usually assigned at the recommendation of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom – a bipartisan group established by Congress – and specialists in the State Department.
In Friday’s post, Trump explained that he had asked the House Appropriations Committee and two congressmen, Representatives Riley Moore and Tom Cole, to “immediately look into this matter”. Both are Republican.
Trump’s claims appear to mirror language pushed by right-wing lawmakers, which frames fractious and sometimes violent disputes in Nigeria as a case of radical Islamists attacking Christians.
Experts, however, have called that framing largely inaccurate, explaining that strife in the country is not explained simply by religious differences.
Nigeria is divided between a majority-Muslim north and a largely Christian south. The country has struggled with violent attacks from the group Boko Haram, which has created turmoil and displacement for more than a decade.
Disputes over resources such as water have also exacerbated tensions and sometimes led to violent clashes between largely Christian farmers and largely Muslim shepherds. Nigeria has denied, however, that such clashes are primarily motivated by religious affiliation.
Still, Representative Moore echoed Trump’s assessment in a statement after Friday’s announcement.
“I have been calling for this designation since my first floor speech in April, where I highlighted the plight of Christians in Muslim majority countries,” Moore said.
He added that he planned to “ensure that Nigeria receives the international attention, pressure, and accountability it urgently needs”.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, another Republican, also applauded Trump’s decision. “I am deeply gratified to President Trump for making this determination,” he said in a news release. “I have fought for years to counter the slaughter and persecution of Christians in Nigeria.”
Since returning to office for a second term in January, Trump has sought to bolster his base among the Christian right in the US.
At a prayer breakfast in February, he announced his administration was establishing a task force to root out anti-Christian bias in the federal government.
Later, in July, his administration issued a memo allowing federal employees to evangelise in their workplaces.
While Trump denounced alleged anti-Christian violence in Friday’s post, his administration has also been recently criticised for its policy towards refugees: people fleeing persecution or violence in their homelands.
On Wednesday, Trump announced the lowest-ever cap on refugee admissions in the US, limiting entry to just 7,500 people for all of fiscal year 2026.
In a notice posted to the Federal Register’s website, he explained that most of those spots would “primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa” and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination”.
Critics were quick to point out that refugee status is awarded for fear of systematic persecution, not discrimination.
Still, Trump has continued to ratchet up diplomatic tensions with South Africa, falsely claiming that white Afrikaners are subjected to a “genocide”, an allegation frequently pushed by figures on the far right.