A U.S. activist-led fact‑finding team that visited Abuja in mid-October said the targeting of Christians in parts of Nigeria amounts to “a calculated, long‑running genocide,” a characterization Nigerian officials and several independent analysts reject as a gross misrepresentation of a broader security crisis that kills both Christians and Muslims.
An American delegation led by Mike Arnold, a former mayor of Blanco, Texas, told reporters in Abuja that years of fieldwork and interviews show a systematic campaign against Christians in Nigeria’s North and Middle Belt. Arnold described the violence as “a calculated, current and long‑running genocide,” and said his team would submit its findings to U.S. policymakers. Local outlets reported the visit was arranged with help from Nigerian interlocutors and that the delegation briefed U.S. lawmakers before traveling. Nigerian media and officials have disputed the delegation’s framing and its conclusions.
The backdrop is grim. In June, gunmen attacked the town of Yelwata in Benue State overnight, killing at least 100 people, according to Amnesty International and subsequent reporting by global outlets; some local officials and community leaders later claimed higher tolls. Police confirmed the attack but initially did not publish casualty figures. The assault displaced thousands and reignited debate over the drivers of violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, where long-running land and water disputes often intersect with ethnic and religious identity.
Advocacy groups say Nigeria remains the deadliest country for Christians. Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List assessed that most of the 4,476 Christians it recorded as killed for their faith worldwide in the prior year died in Nigeria, and it has repeatedly ranked the country among the most dangerous places to be a Christian. A separate Nigerian watchdog, Intersociety, claimed that 7,087 Christians were killed nationwide in the first 220 days of 2025, though its methodology and totals are more expansive than those used by many international monitors and news agencies.
Nigerian authorities strongly reject the word genocide. In late September and October statements, officials said casting the country’s security crisis as a targeted campaign against a single faith is “a gross misrepresentation” that overlooks attacks on Muslims and other citizens and risks inflaming sectarian tension. Independent conflict data also complicate sweeping claims: analysts note that the epicenter of insurgency and banditry is in the predominantly Muslim north, where many victims are Muslims, even as Christian communities in the Middle Belt and elsewhere suffer devastating attacks.
U.S. politics helped thrust the issue into the spotlight. Senator Ted Cruz introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025 to require the State Department to redesignate Nigeria a “country of particular concern” and to sanction officials who facilitate abuses. Around the same time, a clip from HBO host Bill Maher alleging a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria went viral, drawing both support and forceful rebuttals. An Al Jazeera opinion piece by a senior aide in Nigeria’s vice president’s office argued that “simplistic genocide claims” ignore the complex mix of insurgency, criminality, and farmer‑herder conflict.
Context matters on the ground. Northern Nigeria is predominantly Muslim, and jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and Islamic State’s West Africa Province have contested parts of the northeast for years, but they do not control northern Nigeria as a whole. Attacks on churches and Christian villages have occurred, particularly in the North Central states, while other incidents—mosque bombings, raids on Muslim communities, and criminal banditry—have struck Muslim populations. Human rights research has also documented dire conditions for many displaced families, and some advocacy reporting alleges discriminatory access to aid for Christian internally displaced people in parts of the northeast—claims Nigerian officials have challenged.
The debate over labels will not resolve the immediate needs of survivors. Rights groups and faith leaders continue to call for impartial protection of all communities, accountability for perpetrators regardless of identity, and better humanitarian support. Whether or not the term genocide applies, the consensus across credible reporting is that Nigerian civilians—Christian and Muslim alike—require sustained security and justice.