US Senator Ted Cruz has alleged that some Nigerian officials are complicit in enabling violence against Christians in the country.
Cruz made the claims on Tuesday during a Senate foreign relations subcommittee hearing titled ‘The US approach to counterterrorism in Africa’, where he raised concerns over religious killings in Nigeria.
According to the lawmaker, “more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world”.
“Since 2009, Islamic jihadists have murdered more than 50,000 Christians in Nigeria and more than 20,000 churches, schools, and religious institutions have been destroyed, most burned to the ground,” Cruz said.
“Nigerian officials had been, unfortunately, complicit in facilitating these atrocities.”
He also linked the violence to the implementation of Sharia law in several northern states and criticised Nigerian authorities for what he described as a slow response to insecurity.
“Last year, I met with a delegation of top Nigerian defence and security officials. They said they were committed to ending the violence,” he said.
“I told them I would judge their commitment by the results. Those results have yet to materialise.”
Cruz referenced his proposed Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025, which he said is aimed at holding Nigerian officials accountable for “facilitating the mass murder of Christians”.
Responding at the hearing, Nick Checker, head of the US State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, said Nigeria has shown some level of cooperation with Washington since its designation over religious freedom concerns.
“We’ve seen some positive movements to include leadership changes in Nigerian security services, security deployments, including the recruitment of 50,000 additional troops and the deployment of forest guards to the middle belt area where we’ve seen a lot of this anti-Christian violence as well as increased prosecution for folks accused of terrorism as well,” Checker said.
“So the United States does welcome Nigeria’s initial response.”
He added that a bilateral high-level working group was established following engagements between Nigerian officials led by National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu and a US delegation headed by Allison Hooker.
“We’ve seen positive steps by the Nigerians, but certainly more can be done,” Checker said, noting that Washington would continue to pressure Nigeria to strengthen its response to security challenges.
