US congress schedules hearing on violence in Nigeria

President Bola Tinubu and President Donald Trump

The United States House of Representatives will on Thursday hold a congressional hearing on the Nigerian government’s efforts to protect Christians and address insecurity in the country’s Middle Belt.

The hearing will be chaired by Republican lawmaker Chris Smith, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa.

Smith’s office announced the hearing in a statement published on his website on Monday and cited by PUNCH Online on Tuesday.

Titled “One Year Later: Assessing Nigeria’s Efforts to Protect Christians and Secure the Middle Belt”, the session will examine religious violence by extremist groups, the Nigerian government’s response and measures to protect vulnerable communities.

According to the statement, the hearing will assess “the current state of religious violence perpetrated by radical Islamists, such as Boko Haram and Fulani terrorists, against Christians in Nigeria”.

It will also examine “the Nigerian government’s efforts to curb the persecution and punish those responsible for committing atrocities against Christian and non-radical Muslim communities; and the steps the United States can take to ensure that Nigerian officials are addressing and preventing the systemic violence against Christians and non-radical Muslims by Islamist extremists.”

The hearing, which will begin at 11 am local time, will take place at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC, and will be streamed live on YouTube.

The first panel will feature two US State Department officials: Frank Garcia, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Riley Barnes, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour.

The second panel will comprise Nina Shea, Senior Fellow and Director of the Centre for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute; Ryan Brown, Chief Executive Officer of Open Doors US; and Oge Onubogu, Director and Senior Fellow of the Africa Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

Smith’s office described the upcoming session as his 14th congressional hearing on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.

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The hearing comes amid scrutiny of Nigeria’s security situation by US lawmakers and the administration of President Donald Trump.

In November 2025, Trump redesignated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern over alleged severe violations of religious freedom, following accusations that the Nigerian government had failed to adequately protect Christians from attacks.

Nigeria was first designated a CPC in December 2020 during Trump’s first administration.

However, the Joe Biden administration removed the country from the list in November 2021, saying it no longer met the criteria for the designation.

The designation is made under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 and applies to countries the US government considers to have engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

The Nigerian government has consistently rejected characterisations of the violence as primarily religious persecution.

It described insecurity in the country as complex and multi-factorial, involving banditry, farmer-herder conflicts, and terrorism affecting multiple communities, both Muslims and Christians.

In a cooperative counter-terrorism initiative between both countries, the US military carried out strikes against Islamic State targets in northwestern Nigeria on December 25, 2025.

Trump said the operation was aimed at militants responsible for attacks on Christians.

According to studies, the causes of violence include Islamist insurgency, farmer-herder conflict, banditry and other forms of criminal violence.