Editors at National Review Online praise a recent foreign policy focus from the Trump administration.
For too long, the persecution of Christians in Nigeria has proven social observer Régis Debray a prophet. “Anti-Christian persecution,” he said, “falls squarely into the political blind spot of the West; the victims are ‘too Christian’ to excite the Left, and ‘too foreign’ to excite the Right.”
So it was commendable that President Trump has been speaking out, both on social media and in a speech. “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,” he wrote on Truth Social. Appropriately, he announced Nigeria’s redesignation as a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act. We welcome his tough stance against Islamic terrorists but at the same time caution against significant intervention.
The humanitarian situation in Nigeria has gotten very little attention in American media, with notable exceptions like Bill Maher comparing the actual, genocidal intentions and actions of Islamic extremists in Nigeria with the cynical and misleading coverage of the Israel Defense Forces’ actions in Gaza. “If you don’t know what’s going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck,” he averred. “You are in a bubble.” Over the past 15 years, 19,000 churches have been destroyed. In 2025 alone, 7,000 Christians in Nigeria have been killed, and an equal number have been kidnapped.
The Nigerian government emphasizes that it has constitutional guarantees for religious freedom, and denies that it looks the other way or allows Islamist groups to act with impunity. Instead, it explains its situation as one in which the whole country suffers from instability and the violence of non-state actors. While it is true that the Nigerian state lacks a monopoly on violence, and that non-state actors like Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province prey upon Muslims, too, journalistic organizations and human rights groups have routinely found that the Nigerian government fails to adequately investigate, pursue, and prosecute the persecutors of Christians.
