United States State Department officials say Nigeria has become more committed to tackling religious violence since Washington designated the country a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).
President Donald Trump redesignated Nigeria as a CPC over allegations of Christian genocide before ordering a missile strike in Sokoto on Christmas Day.
Nigeria and the US have since established a military partnership targeting terrorists across the country’s northern region, alongside a joint working group to address Washington’s concerns about religious violence.
On Thursday, Chris Smith, chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee, led a congressional hearing examining Nigeria’s response to attacks on vulnerable communities since the CPC designation.
Giving an assessment at the hearing, Frank Garcia, assistant secretary for African affairs at the State Department, said the department had been working closely with Nigerian officials to address the persecution of Christian communities and ensure those responsible were held accountable.
Garcia acknowledged that the violence had continued despite ongoing diplomatic engagements with the Nigerian government.
“We are expecting results — protection for Christian communities in the Middle Belt through increased Nigerian security and law enforcement deployments, more timely and effective responses to early warnings of impending attacks, accountability for perpetrators through stronger courts and security services, and deeper military-to-military cooperation,” he said.
He said Washington was pursuing a coordinated approach to strengthening Nigeria’s security through capacity building, increased use of biometric data to identify perpetrators and financial action plans to disrupt terrorist financing networks.
“Though Nigeria has reported progress, under Secretary Hooker made it clear in the joint working group second session that this pace is insufficient,” he said.
Riley Barnes, assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labour at the State Department, said US officials had been urging the Nigerian government to repeal its blasphemy laws or, at the very least, stop enforcing them.
Barnes said Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria as a CPC had prompted the country to take “these issues more seriously”.
“The government has reported leadership changes, strategically deployed military forces, and increased arrests and prosecutions,” Barnes said.
“They’ve agreed to report more transparently on spending for displaced people and to develop a plan and timeline for returning internally displaced persons safely and securely to their ancestral lands.
“But our chief goal remains an end to attacks and violence. The US has been clear that the measure of success will be simply fewer attacks and less violence, and importantly, demonstrable progress in holding the individuals who carry out attacks accountable. Abuja carries the burden of proof, and there is still more work to be done.”
Oge Onubogu, director and senior fellow of the Africa programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said attacks in Nigeria must be addressed “honestly and unequivocally”.
“The evidence does not support treating Christians as the sole victims of Nigeria’s violence or reducing the complex insecurity of the middle belt to a single explanation based on religion,” Onubogu said.
“Muslim communities have also suffered devastating attacks. Religious identity can intersect with ethnicity, land, and resource disputes, political competition, livelihoods, criminality, governance failures, and longstanding local grievances.”
Onubogu said the CPC designation should function as a policy instrument rather than replace the policies needed to address insecurity.
Smith, however, opposed removing Nigeria from the CPC list, arguing that the designation should remain until Washington observes concrete progress from the Nigerian government.