CV NEWS FEED // An international advocacy group is urging the U.S. government to formally recognize Nigeria as a country under siege, citing the ongoing persecution of Christians at the hands of Islamic extremists.
The U.S.-based coalition ICAC-GEN submitted a petition dated Jan. 18 to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, urging the administration to acknowledge the coordinated campaign of religious persecution against Nigeria’s Christian population, Today’s Challenge reported.
Nigeria has been ranked as the deadliest place in the world for Christians. Reports indicate that thousands of Nigerian Christians have been murdered by extremist groups, including Boko Haram and Fulani militants. Many more have faced kidnappings, church burnings, and forced displacement.
According to ICAC-GEN President Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, the petition builds on the organization’s previous appeals to U.S. leadership, particularly their protest against the Biden administration’s decision to remove Nigeria from the State Department’s “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) list — a designation for nations engaged in severe religious freedom violations.
The group asserted that the U.S. government’s exclusion of Nigeria from the CPC list indicated that the Biden administration was complicit in the genocide against Nigerian Christians.
According to Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List, Nigeria ranks seventh among countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution, CatholicVote reported. In 2024 alone, nearly 5,000 Christians were killed due to their faith, with radicalized groups continuing to target Christian communities.
ICAC-GEN’s petition praised President Trump’s leadership in addressing Christian persecution, citing his 2018 meeting with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, during which he directly confronted the Nigerian government about the violence.
“We’ve had very serious problems with Christians who have been murdered in Nigeria,” Trump said at the time. “We’re going to be working on that problem very hard because we can’t allow that to happen.”
The coalition voiced appreciation for President Donald Trump’s commitment to persecuted Christians in Nigeria and around the world.
“President Trump has demonstrated both the moral capacity and political will to guide the United States back to its greatness as a nation that stands for God’s principles,” they said, adding that they prayed for the President from when he announced his candidacy to Election Day. “Much like the walls of Jericho,” they said, “we hope to see the barriers against Christians in Nigeria fall.”
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