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Ted Cruz, a US senator, has alleged that Nigerian officials are complicit in facilitating “the mass murder” of Christians in the West African nation.
Cruz spoke on Tuesday during a senate foreign relations subcommittee hearing titled ‘The US approach to counterterrorism in Africa’.
In his submission, the lawmaker claimed that “more Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world”.
“Since 2009, Islamic jihadists have murdered more than 50,000 Christians in Nigeria and more than 20,000 churches, schools, and religious institutions have been destroyed, most burned to the ground,” he said.
“Nigerian officials had been, unfortunately, complicit in facilitating these atrocities.”
He blamed the implementation of Sharia law, applied in a dozen northern Nigerian states, as a driver of violence.
The senator added that the US government has identified complicit Nigerian officials at local and federal levels, and would hold them accountable.
Cruz also accused Nigerian authorities of slow-paced response to tackling the country’s security challenges.
“Last year, I met with a delegation of top Nigerian defence and security officials. They said they were committed to ending the violence,” he said.
“I told them I would judge their commitment by the results.
“Those results have yet to materialise.”
In October, Cruz proposed the ‘Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025’, a legislation he said would hold Nigerian government officials accountable for “facilitating the mass murder of Christians”.
‘NIGERIA COOPERATING WITH US’
Posing a question to Nick Checker, head of the state department’s bureau of African affairs, Cruz asked if meetings between Nigerian and American officials have yielded results since President Donald Trump’s redesignation of the country in response to allegations of a Christian genocide.
Checker said Nigeria has been broadly responsive to US requests since the designation took effect.
“We’ve seen some positive movements to include leadership changes in Nigerian security services, security deployments, including the recruitment of 50,000 additional troops and the deployment of forest guards to the middle belt area where we’ve seen a lot of this anti-Christian violence as well as increased prosecution for folks accused of terrorism as well,” Checker said.
“So the United States does welcome Nigeria’s initial response.”
Checker also pointed to the bilateral high level working group formed earlier this year after a meeting between a Nigerian delegation led by Nuhu Ribadu, national security adviser (NSA), and a US delegation led by Allison Hooker, under-secretary of state.
The state department official said US recent support of Nigerian forces was also proof of cooperation between both countries.
“We’ve seen positive steps by the Nigerians, but certainly more can be done,” he said.
Checker said the US would continue to hold Nigeria’s feet to the fire to make sure more changes are effected.
