U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday sharply contradicted the Nigerian government’s position on the ongoing massacres in the country, describing the violence as escalating and targeted at Christians during a rare joint congressional briefing in Washington.
The session, part of a Trump-ordered investigation, was convened by House Appropriations Vice Chair, Mario Díaz-Balart, to examine recent killings and what lawmakers described as Abuja’s deeply inadequate response.
President Donald Trump had directed a multi-committee panel led by Reps. Riley Moore and Tom Cole to compile a report on the alleged persecution of Nigerian Christians, and floated the possibility of U.S. military action against Islamist groups linked to the violence.
Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Vicky Hartzler, told lawmakers that religious freedom is under siege in Nigeria, citing mass abductions of schoolchildren and attacks where, as she alleged, radical Muslims kill entire Christian villages and burn churches.
She added that abuses were rampant, violent, and claimed Christians are attacked at a 2.2 to 1 rate compared to Muslims.
While she acknowledged Nigeria’s redeployment of 100,000 police officers from VIP protection, a security move welcomed but not debated, she warned that Nigeria has entered a coordinated and deeply troubling period of escalated violence.
Hartzler urged oversight measures for U.S. aid, pushing for sanctions tools, including visa restrictions, asset freezes, and tougher conditionalities on U.S. security support.
She also demanded that Abuja must retake villages seized from Christian communities so displaced widows and children can return home, stating these recommendations were central to the already-flagged investigation and not personal opinion.
Dr Ebenezer Obadare of the Council on Foreign Relations, forcefully dismissed the Nigerian government’s narrative that the killings are not religiously motivated. Obadare said claims that extremists attack Christians and Muslims equally are built on fiction.
He added that Boko Haram is fundamentally anti-democratic and accused the Nigerian security architecture of failing to disrupt jihadist networks due to systemic rot, saying the sector has been too corrupt and incompetent to defeat militants without outside pressure.
Sean Nelson of ADF International told Congress that Nigeria is the deadliest country in the world for Christians, claiming Christians are killed at a rate five times higher than Muslims when adjusted for population.
He added that militants also kill Muslims who reject violent ideologies, undermining Abuja’s argument that the crisis is driven mainly by crime or communal disputes.
He urged tighter auditing on U.S. support, recommending that some assistance be routed through faith-based groups to mitigate corruption within security-sector lanes.
Mario Díaz-Balart also criticised the Biden administration’s 2021 reversal of President Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a country of particular concern, saying the policy shift had clearly deadly consequences.
Committee members said the upcoming Congress-compiled report, already mandated by President Trump, would not tolerate sugar-coating from Nigeria’s political corridors or disclaimers about the security restructuring.
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