A United States lawmaker, Rep. Riley M. Moore, representing West Virginia’s Second District, has called on President Donald Trump to immediately designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) over alleged mass killings of Christians.
In a letter dated October 6, 2025, and addressed to Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, Moore urged Washington to halt all arms sales and related technical support to Nigeria until the “Nigerian government demonstrates that it is sufficiently committed to ending the reign of persecution and slaughter.”
The letter, as sighted on Tuesday, accused “Muslim extremist groups” of orchestrating widespread violence against Christians in Nigeria.
Moore claimed that from January to September 2025 alone, more than 7,000 Christians were “gruesomely murdered,” adding that at least 250 Catholic priests have been attacked or killed since 2015.
He further alleged that “between the Boko Haram uprising in 2009 and 2025, 19,100 churches in Nigeria have been attacked or destroyed.”
Recalls that during his first term, President Trump designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, a decision later reversed by his successor, former President Joe Biden.
US Senator Ted Cruz, talk show host Bill Maher, and political commentator Van Jones have also alleged that Nigeria is witnessing a “Christian genocide.”
In a recent podcast with Maher, Senator Cruz claimed that Christians were being systematically targeted and killed in Nigeria, describing the situation as “genocide.”
However, the Federal Government of Nigeria has dismissed the allegations as false and misleading.
The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, in a recent statement, said the claims were “orchestrating wild allegations about unproven ongoing genocide” in Nigeria.
He stressed that the security challenges confronting the country were not religiously motivated and warned against attempts to “robe the country with a garment that is not hers.”
