By Adedeji Abiola Adeleye
When the Trump administration in December 2019 announced that Nigeria had been placed on the U.S. Special Watch List for “severe violations of religious freedom,” the world took notice. It was the first time in history that a democratically elected African nation had been singled out under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) — a designation usually reserved for notorious authoritarian regimes such as North Korea, Iran, and China.
The decision sparked diplomatic unease in Abuja and confusion among Nigerians. Why would the world’s largest democracy and Africa’s most populous country — with its centuries-old interfaith coexistence — be branded as a violator of religious freedom?
To understand the move, one must look beyond Nigeria’s borders — into the inner workings of Washington politics, faith-based lobbying, and the strategic calculations of Donald Trump’s White House.
The Political Genesis of a “Concern”
At the heart of the matter lay Nigeria’s worsening security crisis — the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast, communal clashes in the Middle Belt, and frequent reprisal killings that often took on religious hues.
By 2018 and 2019, the U.S. State Department and international advocacy groups had become increasingly alarmed by reports of attacks on Christian communities, the abduction of clergy, and the burning of churches. These incidents were amplified by American Christian organizations, many of whom described the situation as a “Christian genocide” or a deliberate campaign of persecution.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a congressionally mandated body that advises the State Department, released successive reports accusing Nigerian authorities of “tolerating” or “failing to prevent” religiously motivated violence.
That phrase — “tolerating” — would become Washington’s legal and diplomatic justification for the designation.
Evangelical Lobbying and Trump’s Faith Politics
Donald Trump’s administration maintained an unusually close relationship with American evangelical groups, who viewed the protection of Christians worldwide as a moral and political mission.
Organizations such as the Family Research Council (FRC), Save the Persecuted Christians, and Christian Solidarity International lobbied aggressively for Nigeria’s inclusion on the Country of Particular Concern (CPC) list — the highest category under U.S. law for religious freedom violators.
These groups found sympathetic ears in Trump’s inner circle. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and several senior White House advisers were committed evangelical Christians who shared concerns about the plight of believers abroad.
In closed-door meetings, prominent American pastors and conservative faith leaders reportedly told Trump that Nigeria was the “most dangerous place to be a Christian.” Some even accused the Buhari administration of complicity by inaction.
For a president who often measured policy through the lens of domestic political loyalty, this was an easy win. By acting on the issue, Trump could energize his conservative Christian base and portray himself as a global defender of Christianity — a narrative that dovetailed neatly with his re-election campaign rhetoric.
Religious Freedom Meets Political Theatre
In reality, Nigeria’s crisis was far more complex than the simplistic “Christian persecution” narrative suggested.
The violence that gripped parts of the country was driven by a tangled web of terrorism, banditry, herder-farmer conflicts, poverty, and state failure, not a coordinated government policy of persecution.
Yet in Washington, nuance often drowns under the roar of politics. The Trump administration’s declaration — couched in the lofty language of human rights — was as much political theatre as it was a moral statement.
It was meant to signal to African governments that the U.S. was watching — that religious freedom would henceforth be a litmus test for diplomatic favor. Nigeria, being the continent’s largest democracy and an influential voice in African and global affairs, became the symbolic target to make that point.
Nigeria’s Reaction: Shock, Denial, and Diplomacy
The Nigerian government reacted with disbelief and irritation.
Officials insisted that the violence in the Middle Belt and Northeast was not religious but rather socio-economic, driven by competition for land, water, and survival in a changing climate.
Then Foreign Affairs Minister Geoffrey Onyeama dismissed the classification as “misleading and unfair”, arguing that Nigeria’s constitution guarantees religious freedom and that millions of Christians and Muslims live side by side in peace across the country.
Privately, diplomats expressed frustration that the U.S. had accepted the advocacy reports of faith-based lobbies without sufficient verification from local or multilateral agencies.
They saw it as an act of condescension — a Western misreading of African realities, filtered through religious politics.
Strategic Frustration and Security Failures
Still, Washington’s skepticism of Nigeria’s leadership was not entirely unfounded. By 2019, the Nigerian state had shown repeated failure to protect its citizens — regardless of faith — from terrorists and armed groups.
Boko Haram and its splinter faction ISWAP had carried out massacres for years with little accountability. In many rural areas, Fulani herders clashed violently with farming communities, leaving thousands dead and displaced.
To U.S. policymakers, the Buhari administration’s inability to prosecute perpetrators or stem the bloodshed looked like tacit tolerance. That perception, more than any direct evidence of discrimination, justified Nigeria’s listing under the International Religious Freedom Act, which allows the U.S. to penalize governments that “engage in or tolerate” severe violations.
A Warning Shot to Africa
Trump’s action was also a diplomatic warning shot. At the time, U.S. influence in Africa was waning as China and Russia expanded their economic and military footprints across the continent.
By invoking religious freedom — a theme deeply resonant in American moral diplomacy — Washington sought to reclaim the narrative of global values.
Placing Nigeria on the CPC list was a way of reminding African leaders that America still policed the moral boundaries of governance, even if its motives were entangled with domestic politics.
Biden’s Reversal and the Politics of Continuity
In 2021, less than a year after Trump left office, the Biden administration quietly removed Nigeria from the CPC list, citing “improvements in interfaith engagement” and a need for reassessment.
The move was widely welcomed in Abuja and interpreted as a diplomatic reset. But the episode left a lasting impression — exposing how quickly international narratives can shift when filtered through political lenses.
A Lesson in Perception and Power
Trump’s classification of Nigeria as a country of “particular concern” was not purely an act of policy — it was an exercise in political symbolism.
It spoke less about Nigeria’s internal realities and more about America’s own domestic politics — where religious freedom issues serve as rallying cries for conservative voters.
It also underscored how easily complex African crises can be oversimplified into moral binaries that serve foreign agendas.
Nigeria’s religious and ethnic diversity is both its strength and its perpetual test. The danger lies not in being misunderstood abroad but in allowing that misunderstanding to define the national narrative.
The Trump-era episode remains a cautionary tale: that in global politics, perception often trumps (no pun intended) complexity — and that Africa’s stories are safest when told by Africans themselves.
| Dr Adeleye is a communications and policy analyst