USCIRF Highlights Growing Violence Against Christians In Nigeria
WASHINGTON — Almost daily, news surfaces of Islamic extremists or Fulani militants killing Christians in northern or central Nigeria, with law enforcement either lacking or inadequate to intervene.
Nigeria’s size, population and underdeveloped infrastructure make full and accurate data on such attacks difficult to obtain, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said at a Capitol Hill hearing on religious freedom in Nigeria, but the country is the deadliest in the world for Christians.
Around 62,000 Christians have been killed for their faith in Nigeria since the year 2000, Commissioner Vicky Hartzler said, referencing Genocide Watch’s research.
In April, more than 240 Christians were massacred in attacks on villages in Plateau and Benue states during Lent and Easter, some as they worshiped, news agencies and religious liberty advocates reported.
What is clear, Commissioner Maureen Ferguson told Baptist Press, is that the U.S. can play a role in driving Nigeria to provide the religious freedom protections the African nation’s constitution stipulates.
Consistently since 2009, USCIRF has asked the U.S. State Department to designate Nigeria a County of Particular Concern (CPC) for egregious, systemic and ongoing religious liberty violations, which would carry a host of U.S. sanctions against the nation, including financial restrictions.
Ferguson encourages the U.S. Senate to confirm Mark Walker, a Southern Baptist from North Carolina, as U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, which she believes is a first step in drawing the U.S. State Department’s attention to Nigeria.
“The appointment of former Congressman Mark Walker as the ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom was an excellent appointment,” she said. “We hope the Senate will quickly confirm him because that will help focus things at the State Department on this very important issue.”
Nigeria was last designated a CPC in 2020, but was dropped from the list in 2021. Ferguson believes Secretary of State Marco Rubio might be inclined to revive the designation.
“What I would say is that Secretary Rubio has been a champion of international religious freedom and the protection of religious minority groups from persecution and violence,” she told Baptist Press. “The secretary of state has been an absolute leader on that during his time in the Senate. So I’m confident that he will bring that to the State Department. I just think we’re still kind of in a transitional period because there’s all this reshuffling at the State Department.”
The Biden Administration did not issue a Report on International Religious Freedom his departing year in office, and former Secretary of State Antonin Blinken did not issue a new list of CPCs. Now, there’s no indication of when the new administration will issue its first report.
Ferguson spoke to Baptist Press on the 22nd birthday of Leah Sharibu, the lone schoolgirl who remains captive among 104 kidnapped on Feb. 19, 2018 by the Islamic State-West Africa Province (ISWAP) from a government school in Dapchi, Yobe state. Her captives threatened to hold her as a slave for life because she refused to renounce her faith.
“There is an indication that she’s still alive,” Ferguson said of Sharibu, who was taken at age 14. “I believe she’s borne children in captivity and suffered abuse.”
While Nigeria’s constitution stipulates a respect for religious freedom, the country’s religious landscape defies it. Islamic Shari’a law is enforced in 12 of Nigeria’s northern states, with harsh punishment for blasphemy. The government is unable to protect religious groups from violence, particularly in rural areas, USCIRF said, citing banditry and interreligious violence,
Dangerous to Christians are Islamic terrorists, including ISWAP, Boko Haram, militant Fulani and the newly emerging Lakawara.
Violence against Christians, moderate Muslims and minority religious groups is escalating in Nigeria in the meanwhile, USCIRF highlighted in its hearing May 5 on Capitol Hill, offering testimony from commissioners, scholars and political leaders who have long advocated for religious freedom in Africa’s most populous nation.
“People are dying every day. It is getting worse, and it has been going on for years,” said panelist Frank R. Wolf, former USCIRF commissioner and U.S. congressman. “And I’ll tell you, the Christians you meet there, they are amazing.”
Wolf, who has worked alongside Rubio in Congress, believes as does Ferguson that Rubio has a “deep concern about religious freedom.” The new secretary of state would want to do everything possible, Wolf said, to address religious violence in Nigeria.
“The U.S. needs to do something that actually will help prevent further killings of Nigerian Christians and moderate Muslims,” Wolf said.
This article has been republished with permission from Baptist Press.
Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.