A persecution watchdog is speaking out about President Donald Trump’s decision to designate Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern, a label that could help put pressure on the Nigerian government to help protect Christians under duress.
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Joel Veldkamp, head of international communications at Christian Solidarity International, told CBN News that Nigeria was previously placed on the U.S. State Department’s Countries of Particular Concern list and was later removed by the Biden administration.
The nation’s redesignation is welcomed by Veldkamp, who explained its significance.
“There’s a law from 1998 called the International Religious Freedom Act that requires the U.S. government to maintain a list of countries that commit or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom,” he said. “And, once a country is on that list, the U.S. government is required to address those violations of religious freedom, including by economic sanctions, if necessary. Sadly, this list is quite political.”
Veldkamp said there are nations that deserve to be on the list that aren’t and that Nigeria was one such country.
“More Christians are killed in Nigeria for their faith every year than in the rest of the world combined,” he said. “And, yet, somehow Nigeria is not on this list. As the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said, ‘This is unexplainable.’ So it’s a long-overdue step that the president has put it back on the list.”
Veldkamp said experts are waiting to see what Trump will do next. The president released a statement Nov. 1 on his Truth Social account threatening to take action if Nigeria doesn’t take steps to protect Christians.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” he said. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”
Trump implored the Nigerian government to move fast. Veldkamp said he was fascinated to see the statement from the president and wondered what policy process was behind it. Already, he said, the issue is making waves in Nigeria.
“I was just talking to my Nigerian colleague about an hour ago, and he said, ‘People in Nigeria are very upset about this. The government is on its toes. They’re looking for a way out,’” Veldkamp said. “That’s a positive situation. That’s a situation in which there’s a potential for good change.”
He said there needs to be follow-through on the part of the U.S., though, and questioned whether military force would be an effective solution to the problem. He said this isn’t a problem America and others can solve with mere bombs and weapons.
Veldkamp also addressed claims by some media that it’s unclear whether more Christians than Muslims are actually being slaughtered — something CSI and other groups have closely tracked.
“The real groups that are actually destroying Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt regions are Fulani militias that are conducting a slow-motion ethnic cleansing campaign, attacking Christian village after Christian village, killing whoever they find, driving people out, burning the village or occupying it,” he said. “Slowly, with time, we’re seeing the map transform, and all these hundreds of old Christian villages are now gone and occupied by new people.”
On one hand, he said Boko Haram jihadists are targeting Christians with the goal of setting up an Islamic state. On the flip side, he said Fulani militias are attacking believers, with the Nigerian government reportedly not doing much to stop the carnage.
Veldkamp hopes Trump appoints someone to monitor what’s happening in Nigeria so that the U.S. can enact policies that help curb these issues.
He said it would be smart for the U.S. to affirm that, if “the attacks continue, there are going to be penalties, there are going to be aid cutoffs, there are going to be fewer invitations to security conferences,” among other punishments.
