The U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa held a hearing Thursday on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria in what subcommittee Chairman Chris Smith, R-N.J., described as the “systematic and accelerating violence against predominantly Christian communities in Nigeria.”

Members from both parties questioned administration officials and outside experts as witness after witness described the collapse of security, mass killings, kidnappings and the impunity that has turned Africa’s most populous country into what one lawmaker called “the deadliest place on Earth to be a Christian.”

Smith, who has long been sounding the alarm about the persecution of Christians in the country, described the situation in vivid terms.

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“Nigeria is ground zero, the focal point of the most brutal and murderous anti-Christian persecution in the world today,” he said.

He called the session “a very critical hearing,” noting it was his 12th such hearing and that he has led three human rights trips to the country.

Quoting earlier testimony from Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Makurdi Diocese, Smith cited militants who “kill and boast about it …  kidnap and rape and enjoy total impunity from elected officials.”

He highlighted a June 13 attack in Yola, saying reports showed “278 people — men, women and children — were killed in a manner too gory to describe by people shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ while slaughtering their victims.”

“This is not random violence. It is deliberate persecution,” Smith said. “There may be other factors, but religion is driving this.”

Smith also noted that moderate Muslims who speak out against extremists are often murdered as well, underscoring the scope of Nigeria’s “culture of denial.”

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Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., the panel’s ranking member, agreed Nigeria faces devastating insecurity but warned against “oversimplistic narratives.”

She cited overlapping drivers — extremist insurgencies, farmer-herder conflict and organized banditry — and said the 25 girls recently kidnapped in Kebbi state were all Muslim.

“Violence affects everyone,” she said. “False narratives erase the real drivers of violence and make it harder to find solutions.”

She condemned President Trump’s remarks about “going into Nigeria guns blazing,” calling such rhetoric reckless and illegal and said unilateral U.S. military action would be “counterproductive.”

Jacobs claimed the Trump administration cut peace-building and conflict-prevention tools that once helped reduce violence, programs, she said, “that proactively prevented and directly addressed the violence this administration is now concerned about.”

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Rep. John James, R-Mich., described Nigeria’s crisis in stark terms. 

“This is one of the gravest religious freedom crises in the world,” he said. “The deadliest place on earth to be a Christian.”

He cited estimates that nearly 17,000 Christians have been killed since 2019, calling the murders “a sustained pattern of religiously motivated violence, often ignored or even enabled by the Nigerian government.”

Appearing on video from Benue state, Bishop Wilfred Anagbe detailed church burnings, mass displacement and priests targeted for abduction.

“Nigeria remains the deadliest place on earth to be a Christian,” Anagbe said. “More believers are killed there annually than in the rest of the world combined.”

He thanked the administration for putting Nigeria as a  Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for religious freedom violations but urged that it be backed with sanctions and greater humanitarian support for displaced civilians.

Two senior state department officials, Jonathan Pratt and Jacob McGee, defended the administration’s approach while acknowledging the horror of the attacks.

Pratt called the situation “a very serious security problem,” saying the U.S. seeks to “raise the protection of Christians to the top of the Nigerian government’s priorities.”

McGee added, “The levels of violence and atrocities committed against Christians are appalling. … Nigerians are being attacked and killed because of their faith.”

He pointed to blasphemy laws in 12 northern states that can carry the death penalty, calling them “unacceptable in a free and democratic society.”

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Both officials said the U.S. is developing a plan to “incentivize and compel” the Nigerian government to protect religious communities.

In one exchange between Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., and an expert on Nigeria, he asked bluntly, “Ma’am, are we frenemies? Are we — what are we?”

Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, replied, “We’re friends.”

She added that U.S.–Nigeria engagement must be “from a place of honesty” and that Nigerians “acknowledge something must be done quickly about the levels of insecurity.”

Onubogu warned, however, that a “narrow narrative that reduces Nigeria’s security situation to a single story” could deepen divisions.

Stutzman pressed her further, noting, “If Nigeria’s government cannot stop the violence, they should be willing to ask the international community for help.”

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As the hearing came to a close, Smith warned, “The Nigerian government has a constitutional obligation to protect its citizens. If it cannot stop the slaughter, then America — and the world — must not look away.”