WASHINGTON (BP) — A new congressional bill would require the U.S. to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), indicating egregious, systemic and ongoing religious freedom violations in the country that is the deadliest for Christians.
The Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025, introduced by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, echoes a longstanding call by many religious freedom organizations including the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERCL).
While more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world, the U.S. State Department removed Nigeria from the list of CPCs in 2021 after levying the designation for the first time in 2020. The CPC designation carries a host of U.S. sanctions against the nation, including financial restrictions.
ERLC Senior Policy Analyst Katy Roberts welcomed the bill.
“Targeted violence against Christians in Nigeria has only intensified since the Biden administration made the determination to remove Nigeria’s CPC designation in 2021,” Roberts told Baptist Press. “Sen. Cruz’s bill rightly highlights something that the ERLC has consistently articulated: It is past time to reverse this erroneous decision.”
Roberts encouraged the U.S. to defend those persecuted for their faith.
“When our brothers and sisters in Christ run the risk of losing their lives on account of their faith, we should quickly come to their defense,” Roberts said. “Believers in Jesus Christ should abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good, seeking to do justice and righteousness. Restoring Nigeria’s CPC designation would be a clear return to these principles.”
The U.S. State Department has not named CPCs since 2023, when Nigeria was omitted. Consistently since 2009, USCIRF has asked the State Department to designate Nigeria a CPC, including several requests this year.
“The abhorrent violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt and the systematic, ongoing, and egregious attacks throughout Nigeria against Christians and Muslims are indications that government prevention efforts are failing and not protecting vulnerable religious communities,” USCIRF Chair Vicky Hartzler said in June. “U.S. government foreign assistance to Nigeria should efficiently and effectively support efforts to protect religious freedom.”
On Sept. 9, the U.S. Senate referred the 2025 bill to the Foreign Relations Committee after two readings.
The bill targets for sanctions Nigerian federal authorities, state governors, judges, law enforcement officials and certain others who have promoted, enacted or maintained Nigerian blasphemy laws and/or tolerated religiously motivated violence by non-state actors, including foreign terrorists. The bill levies sanctions for actions committed retroactively within 10 years prior to the act’s passage and includes the designation of Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa as Entities of Particular Concern (EPC).
Violence against Christians in Nigeria has mounted in recent months, particularly acts of violence by Fulani militants in the nation’s Middle Belt, although Fulani are predominantly Muslims who do not hold extremist views.
In the first seven months of 2025, Islamist groups killed 7,087 Christians and abducted 7,800 others because of their faith, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, or Intersociety, said in a new report.
The Intersociety numbers mark a sharp increase from previous reports. By comparison, Open Doors, in its 2025 World Watch List of countries where Christians are most persecuted, tabulated 3,100 killings of Christians in Nigeria in all of 2024, ranking the country 7th on its list.
Nigerians and members of the international community have long accused Nigerian law enforcement and national security of not intervening to stop militant and terrorist attacks against Christians and other civilians. Many have called on the international community to exert pressure on Nigeria to uphold international religious freedom laws.
“The international community must recognize that the violence that (has) been unfolding in Nigeria’s Middle Belt for over a decade now bears all the hallmarks of an atrocity crime,” Scot Bower, U.K. CEO of CSW (formerly Christian Solidarity Worldwide) has said.
Nationwide, about 62,000 Christians have been killed for their faith in Nigeria since the year 2000, according to Genocide Watch.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)
