When South African president Cyril Ramaphosa traveled to the White House this year with his big grin and large entourage, he did not seem to understand the nature of the visit. He seemed to believe he was there to wine and dine with President Trump, as he had done with Joe Biden on multiple occasions, and that American money would flow from the encounter as it always had.
South Africa had become so accustomed to easy US cash they felt entitled to it. What Ramaphosa did not understand, however, was that he was in Washington DC to be interviewed and tested. He failed miserably. His denials of mass murders and government oppression specifically targeting white farmers were exposed in real time. The man was crushed like a bug in front of the very western liberal media that had protected his government from scrutiny.
A similar tone is being taken by the leaders of Nigeria. With Trump threatening potential US intervention in the region due to ongoing attacks on Christians by Muslim militants, the Nigerian government is resorting to the same denials. A Nigerian presidential adviser has made a statement to the press, asserting that the country refutes reports of Christian persecution, but is willing to have a 'sit down' with Washington to find a common front in fighting insurgency.
Sources cited by the adviser do not have any regular observers on the ground in Nigeria, except for Amnesty International. The left leaning organization is notorious for glossing over religious violence aimed at Christians in the country, designating it as a byproduct of non-religious civil unrest and crime, instead.
It's a similar tactic used by South Africa to dismiss targeted violence and oppression of the white minority, along with crime data rigging to under-report murders or mislabel race motivated killings and politically motivated killings as simple "robberies gone wrong." The problem is, the citizens and observers on the ground in these countries cannot be gaslit. They see the tragedies unfold every day.
The data relies on how the attacks are categorized vs perceived motives of the culprits. Some organizations post raw data on total Christians killed during these incidents while avoiding interpretations of motive. Others specify motives and take a nuanced approach. All of these groups, however, agree that Christians are vastly more likely to be killed due to militant violence than anyone else in Nigeria.
Islamic militants of various terror groups do kill each other at times, often because of internal politics. Christians are targeted specifically for their beliefs, while the Nigerian government attempts to partially blame them as if they are involved in the sectarian warfare.
The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), a Nigeria-based NGO that produces detailed investigative reports on religious violence, estimates 125,000+ Christian deaths since 2009 (part of 185,000+ total civilian killings), with 7,087 killed in the first 220 days of 2025 alone, alongside 19,100 churches destroyed and thousands abducted.
Open Doors, an international Christian persecution watchdog, ranks Nigeria as the deadliest country for Christians in its annual World Watch List. It reports a more conservative 3,100–4,118 Christians killed for their faith in recent tracking periods (e.g., Oct. 2022–Sept. 2023), accounting for 70–82% of global faith-related Christian deaths.
International Christian Concern (ICC), a U.S.-based persecution monitor that tracks specific incidents via on-ground partners, documents attacks like the June 2025 Middle Belt killings (85+ Christians in one week) and Boko Haram raids.
Global Christian Relief estimate at least 4000 religiously motivated killings of Christians in Nigeria every year.
To be clear, there are no organized Christian militant or terrorist groups in Nigeria equivalent to Boko Haram, ISWAP, or radical Fulani militias that initiate systematic attacks on Muslims or others for religious reasons. There are also no widespread attacks on Muslim Mosques in Nigeria, and there are no specific incidents of state officials singling out Muslim communities or religious buildings for demolition.
For Christians it's a different story. For example, in 2021 in Kaduna State (under Sharia Law), authorities demolished 263 buildings in the predominantly Christian Gracelands community in Zaria, including 6 churches, a school, and homes. Officials claimed the land belonged to an aviation college, despite residents holding certificates of occupancy.
Events involving the government destruction of Christian properties are common across Nigeria. The Nigerian government, though it boasts of being secular and balanced, has only had one Christian president in the past 50 years. The rest have been Muslim, including the current president (Bola Ahmed Tinubu) and vice president in control of the country since 2023. Tinubu's wife is a Christian, but the base of power in Nigeria is with Muslim groups, primarily because they are willing and able to project violence at will.
This is why 12 of the 36 Nigerian states are under total Sharia Law. The Nigerian government will be hard-pressed to convince Trump that Christians are not being singled out and targeted. Too much evidence exists to the contrary, and simply categorizing political violence as average crime did not work for the South Africans, so it's unlikely to work for the Nigerians.
Solutions will probably focus in financial cuts at first. Nigeria receives over $1 billion annually from the US along with around $6.5 billion in FDI inflows. Much of this cash can be frozen by Trump within days using sanctions and tariffs. A kinetic response, though improbable, is currently on the table.
