Nigeria Christians: Persecution & Trump’s Intervention?

However, officials expressed that “terrorists attack all who reject their murderous ideology: Muslims, Christians and those without faith alike.”

Other organizations that monitor political violence in Nigeria indicate that the number of Christians murdered is much lower, and they assure that the majority of victims of jihadist groups are Muslims.

Nigerian security analyst Christian Ani said that although Christians have been attacked as part of a broader strategy to create terror, claims that Christians are deliberately targeted cannot be justified.

Furthermore, Nigeria faces several security crises across the country, not just violence from jihadist groups, and these have different causes so should not be confused.

The country’s population of 220 million is roughly evenly divided between followers of the two major religions, with Muslims being the majority in the north, where most of the attacks occur.

In a video posted on his Truth Social platform, Trump promised to “do things against Nigeria that they are not going to like” and “enter that now discredited country with all the artillery.”

Well-known Republican Senator from Texas Ted Cruz has long drawn attention to the situation in Nigeria and, citing figures similar to those mentioned by Maher on October 7, wrote in

In an email sent to the BBC, his office made it clear that, unlike Maher, the senator does not call this a “genocide” but describes it as “persecution.”

But Cruz accused Nigerian officials of “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamic jihadists.”

Trump, echoing those words, describes Nigeria as a “discredited country” and notes that the government “continues to allow the killing of Christians.”

The Nigerian government has rejected the accusations, saying it is doing everything it can to confront the jihadists.

Some officials have welcomed the possibility of the US helping them fight the insurgents, as long as it is not done unilaterally.

Authorities have definitely had difficulty containing jihadist groups and violent criminal networks; Most weeks are filled with reports of new attacks or kidnappings.

Other jihadist groups have also emerged, including the Islamic State West Africa Province, but they also operate in the northeast.

The Christian death figures cited by some in the US are alarming, but their accuracy is difficult to verify.

When it comes to the source of the data, in a September podcast, Senator Cruz directly referred to a 2023 report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (InterSociety), an NGO that monitors and tracks human rights abuses in Nigeria.

His office also sent the BBC a series of links to articles online on the topic, most of which redirect to InterSociety.

Maher did not respond to BBC requests for a source for the figures he cited, but given the similarities to those given by Cruz, it seems highly likely that he relied on InterSociety’s work.

As for data that could be shaping US policy toward Nigeria, InterSociety’s work is opaque.

In a report they published in August, which is an amalgamation of previous research and updated figures from 2025, they claim that jihadist groups killed more than 100,000 Christians in the 16 years since 2009.

They also note that 60,000 “moderate Muslims” died during that period.

InterSociety did not share a breakdown of its sources, making it difficult to verify the total number of deaths it reports.

In response to this criticism, the organization stated that “it is almost impossible to reproduce all of our reports with their references going back to 2010. Our simple method is to take the summary statistics and add them to our recent discoveries or findings to put together our new reports.”

But the data sources cited by InterSociety in its reports do not reflect the published figures.

Looking at this year’s deaths alone, InterSociety concluded that between January and August, just over 7,000 Christians were murdered.

This is another figure that has been widely shared on social media, for example by Republican Congressman Riley M. Moore, one of the most vocal legislators on the issue in the House of Representatives.

InterSociety includes a list of 70 media reports as some of the sources for its investigations into attacks against Christians in 2025. But in almost half of those cases, the original stories did not mention the religious identity of the victims.

For example, InterSociety cited a report by Al Jazeera about an attack in northeastern Nigeria and indicated that, according to this news outlet, “no less than 40 mainly Christian farmers were kidnapped by Boko Haram in the Damboa region of Borno state.”

But the report of Al Jazeera It did not mention that the victims were “primarily Christians,” as cited by InterSociety.

InterSociety told the BBC that they carry out further analysis to identify the victims’ backgrounds, without explaining exactly how they did it in this case, but they mentioned that they have knowledge of local populations and that they use “Christian media reports.”

When adding the number of deaths referred to in these reports cited by InterSociety, the total result is not the 7,000 they declare.

The BBC added up the number of deaths across the 70 reports and found the total to be around 3,000. Some of the attacks appear to be reported more than once.

To explain the discrepancy, InterSociety says it estimates the number of people it believes have died in captivity and includes witness statements that it cannot make public.

Included in their list of perpetrators are Islamic militant groups such as Boko Haram, but also Fulani herdsmen.

The Fulani are a primarily Muslim ethnic group living throughout West Africa who have traditionally made their living by raising cattle and sheep.

However, the inclusion of Fulani herdsmen, who InterSociety describes as “jihadists” in all its reports, is a source of controversy in Nigeria over how these killings should be categorized.

Although pastoralists tend to be Muslim, many researchers in this field reject the description of the conflict as religious, pointing out that it is often over access to land and water.

Fulani herdsmen have come into conflict with both Muslim and Christian communities across Nigeria.

Security analyst Ani argues that “saying they are jihadists is a huge exaggeration. It has nothing to do with that. It has much more to do with corrupt and criminal elements.”

Confidence McHarry, principal security analyst at SBM Intelligence, an Africa consulting firm, explains that clashes are often due to ethnic tensions and competition for resources.

“It could be ethnic in nature, they’re trying to take over land, they’re looking to expand their territory, but the more they displace communities and the more they attack centers of worship, the more these things tend to be seen in that light.”

InterSociety also mentions those known as bandits in Nigeria, saying they are mostly of the Fulani ethnic group in the northwest of the country, are involved in kidnappings, and have a history of killing both Christians and Muslims.

Concerns about the threats facing Christian Nigerians have long been discussed by politicians in the United States and by international Christian groups.

In previous years, the issue was raised in the US by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a group banned in Nigeria fighting for an independent state in the southeast, which is primarily Christian.

InterSociety has been accused by the Nigerian military of being linked to IPOB, but the NGO denies any connection.

Another Biafran separatist group also claims to have played a key role in promoting the “Christian genocide” narrative in the US Congress.

The Government of the Republic of Biafra in Exile (Brgie) described it as a “highly orchestrated effort”, adding that it hired lobbying firms and met with US officials, including Ted Cruz.

The senator declined to comment on the matter.

InterSociety’s figures are much higher than other sources of data on Christians murdered in Nigeria.

Acled, a US nonprofit that closely monitors violence in West Africa, has come up with very different figures.

The sources of your published reports can be easily traced and verified.

Its senior analyst, Ladd Serwat, did not directly refer to the InterSociety reports, but told the BBC that the figure of 100,000 deaths, publicized on social media, would include all acts of political violence in Nigeria, so it would not be true to say that it corresponds to the number of Christians killed since 2009.

Acled has found that just under 53,000 civilians – Muslims and Christians – have been reported killed in cases of deliberate political violence since 2009.

Analyzing only the period from 2020 to September 2025, Acled states that some 21,000 civilians died in kidnappings, attacks, sexual violence and the use of explosives.

It identified 384 incidents in which Christians were directly targeted from 2020 to September 2025, in which 317 people died, meaning they are only a small proportion of those killed.

As sources, Acled relies on traditional media, social networks where reports can be verified, human rights groups as well as local partners.

On his Truth Social platform last Friday, Trump cited a figure of 3,100 Christians murdered. He was referring to an Open Doors report on deaths in 12 months starting in October 2023, a White House official stated.

Open Doors is an international Christian organization that investigates the persecution of Christians around the world.

In its reports it says that, while 3,100 Christians died, 2,320 Muslims were also killed in that 12-month period.

Open Doors also includes what it calls Fulani Terror Groups on its list of perpetrators and accuses them of being responsible for almost a third of the murders of Christians during those 12 months.

Frans Veerman, senior research associate at Open Doors, said: “What we see now is that Christians are still a target, but more and more Muslims are being targeted by Fulani militiamen.”

Analysts say there are many violent attacks against mosques and Muslim communities in the northwest of the country.

“One could say this is part of a more general insecurity,” McHarry said.

“The reason they are not supposed to have a religious dimension is due to the fact that the identities of the people who carry out these attacks against Muslims are Muslims too.”

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