Despite Adviser’s Earlier Rebuttal of Genocide Claims, Trump Declares Nigeria ‘Country of Particular Concern’

Eshiorameh Sebastian in Abuja

United States President, Donald Trump, has formally declared Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) over allegations of religious persecution, just one week after one of his senior advisers publicly dismissed the very notion of a Christian genocide in the West African nation.

The announcement, made via a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, places Nigeria among the world’s most severe violators of religious freedom and threatens a significant diplomatic rift, coming directly after efforts by his envoy to foster closer security cooperation.

President Trump’s statement was unequivocal in its condemnation. “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter,” he wrote. Asserting that the United States “cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening,” President Trump directed Congressman Riley Moore and House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole to investigate the matter. “I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘country of particular concern.’ But that is the least of it,” he added, claiming that the scale of killing in Nigeria warranted immediate action.

This declaration stands in direct opposition to the assessment delivered days earlier by Massad Boulos, a senior adviser to President Trump on Arab and African affairs.

Following a meeting with President Bola Tinubu on the sidelines of the 2025 Aqaba Process Summit in Rome, Boulos explicitly addressed the claims of targeted religious violence. “Those who know the terrain well know that terrorism has no colour and no religion and no tribe,” Boulos stated in an interview.

He provided a direct counter to the genocide narrative, noting, “We even know that Boko Haram and ISIS are killing more Muslims than Christians. People are suffering from all sorts of backgrounds. This is not specifically targeted about one group or the other.”

Boulos, while acknowledging the tragic loss of life in Nigeria’s North Central region, emphasised that the crisis should not be framed in sectarian terms. He described Nigeria as a diverse melting pot and praised recent security efforts by the Tinubu administration, which he said were beginning to show results.

His comments, which advocated for a “unified, holistic approach” to combating terrorism, were seen as an effort to strengthen US-Nigeria ties and deepen collaboration on regional security, making President Trump’s subsequent announcement all the more unexpected.

The Nigerian Federal Government has consistently and vehemently rejected allegations of a systematic genocide against Christians.

In September, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, labelled such claims as “false, baseless, despicable, and divisive.” He argued that portraying Nigeria’s complex security challenges, which include banditry, kidnapping, and insurgency, as a religious conflict was a gross misrepresentation of reality.

“The federal government strongly condemns and categorically refutes recent allegations by certain international platforms and online influencers suggesting that terrorists operating in Nigeria are engaged in a systematic genocide against Christians,” Idris stated.

He stressed that extremists have attacked citizens of all faiths, and that Muslims, Christians, and non-religious Nigerians have suffered alike.

To bolster its case, the government has pointed to its military gains, noting that between May 2023 and February 2025, security forces killed over 13,500 terrorists and rescued nearly 10,000 hostages. The recent capture of top Ansaru leaders and over 700 convictions of Boko Haram suspects were cited as evidence of Nigeria’s progress in the fight against terrorism.

“These criminals target all who reject their murderous ideology, regardless of faith,” the minister asserted, calling on international observers and media platforms to act responsibly and avoid sensationalism.

Meanwhile, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has maintained a different perspective, asserting that Christian communities have disproportionately suffered from repeated attacks leading to significant loss of life and property.

CAN President, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, has repeatedly urged the government to take stronger action to protect citizens and ensure perpetrators are brought to justice. “Our concern remains that these cries for justice and protection are too often met with delay or denial,” he has stated.

The association has documented religiously motivated attacks and appealed to the International Criminal Court for intervention, arguing that “the pain of Christian families torn apart by violence must never be treated as mere statistics.”

Caught in the middle of this international dispute, the Nigerian Senate has taken steps to formulate an official response. In October, it formed a 12-member ad-hoc committee to scrutinise the international concerns about the alleged persecution of Christians. Senate President Godswill Akpabio directed the committee to produce a fact-based position paper to guide Nigeria’s diplomatic response, insisting that “our findings must be backed with verifiable facts and statistics.” The Senate also resolved to engage directly with the U.S. Congress to correct what it termed misleading narratives about the nation’s security challenges.

The timing of President Trump’s declaration is particularly sensitive, as it risks undermining the very security partnership that his adviser, Boulos, sought to reinforce. During his meeting with President Tinubu, Boulos had emphasised the “importance of deeper U.S.-Nigeria collaboration to confront terrorism and protect civilian lives” and had assured continued American support for Nigeria’s counterterrorism efforts. The CPC designation, with its potential for sanctions, now casts a shadow over that collaborative spirit and threatens to introduce a new element of strain into the bilateral relationship.

This internal contradiction within the US administration leaves observers to question the underlying motivation for the policy. Is it based on intelligence assessments not shared with the public or the adviser? Or is it a political move aimed at a specific domestic constituency? The situation presents a complex picture of a long-standing ally being publicly censured by the US president, even as his own representative on the ground offers a different view and seeks closer ties.

The Nigerian government, for its part, is now tasked with navigating this diplomatic challenge while continuing its fight against multifaceted security threats that, by all accounts from within its borders, spare no religious group.