When Nicki Minaj stepped up to the podium at the United Nations on November 18th, wearing a somber black suit instead of her usual bubblegum pink, one of the world’s most influential rap artists became one of the most unexpected voices to join the fight against Christian persecution in Nigeria.
“In Nigeria, hundreds of communities live in fear simply because of how they worship,” she said. “Protecting Christians is not about taking sides, and it is not about dividing people. It is about uniting humanity.”
Her appearance was arranged by United Nations Ambassador Michael Waltz, who has spent the past several months pushing world leaders to acknowledge the religious genocide in Africa’s most populous and economically successful nation. “We are witnessing atrocities,” Waltz declared earlier in the session. “One bullet at a time, one torched Bible at a time.”
The unlikely partnership between the superstar and former counterterrorism officer came at a moment when the mass Christian killings in Nigeria have triggered the most direct American criticism of Nigeria’s government in decades. President Donald Trump recently reinstated Nigeria’s designation as a “Country of Particular Concern,” a formal label that opens the door to sanctions, aid restrictions, and military pressure.
A Crisis Long in the Making
Violence in Nigeria’s central and northern regions is not new, and the perpetrators come from a variety of Muslim groups, from Fulani herder militias in the Middle Belt to Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province jihadis in the North. Leery of seeming critical of Islam, legacy media outlets have for years regurgitated the narrative of the Nigerian government, shying away from characterizing the attacks as religious persecution. Instead, they’ve cited secondary causes — land disputes, ethnic tensions, weather-related displacement — that sometimes overlap with religious motives.
But in several recent congressional hearings, press briefings, and policy papers, consistent evidence has emerged that Christian communities, particularly in rural regions, are being disproportionately targeted specifically because they are Christians. The numbers vary, depending on the source, but even the most conservative estimates are grim. Advocacy organizations report 7,000 Christians killed and 7,900 abducted this year alone, with more than 19,000 churches destroyed. In a resolution condemning the religious violence, Texas Congressman Riley Moore noted that as many as 100,000 Christians have been killed since 2009.
Humanitarian groups like Open Doors stress that more Christians are killed every year in Nigeria than the rest of the world combined, making it the most dangerous nation on earth for Christ followers. Yet under the Obama and Biden administrations, the federal government refused to classify the violence as persecution, with Biden reversing the first Trump administration’s designation of Nigeria as a “country of particular concern.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz has spent years trying to convince his fellow lawmakers to adopt a clearer, more confrontational response to the Nigerian government’s ongoing refusal to address the violence. He told The Daily Wire the Nigerian government has not simply turned a blind eye to the situation but in some cases are complicit in the persecution and murder of Christians.
Cruz’s advocacy has helped initiate a wave of renewed interest in the crisis that was further amplified once Minaj and Ambassador Waltz moved the conversation to the global stage.
Cruz recounted that when Senate Republicans were invited to breakfast at the White House shortly before the Country of Particular Concern designation was reinstated, he pulled the president aside and personally thanked him.
“This unlocks targeted sanctions,” he explained. “It unlocks the ability to use deep economic leverage. It allows the administration to say enough is enough.” He added that Nigeria has 12 states enforcing Sharia-based laws and maintains a federal blasphemy statute. According to Cruz, these legal structures “are used to persecute Christians” and create an environment where extremist groups can operate with impunity.
The senator takes particular issue with outlets like the Associated Press reporting that the data does not support a Christian genocide.
“I think you could actually teach [the AP report] in a journalism class as an example of pure political hackery and dishonest reporting,” he said. Cruz believes the media reluctance stems from a worldview that downplays religious persecution when the victims are Christian. He compared it to coverage of the war in Gaza, alleging that some outlets report atrocities selectively depending on who commits them.
To bolster the strength of the Country of Particular Concern designation, Cruz has introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025, which will place targeted sanctions on Nigerian officials who enforce Sharia law and facilitate violence against Christians and other minority groups.
The View from the Ground
In Abuja, officials maintain that the crisis cannot be reduced to persecution and accuse some in Washington of using Nigeria as a “political football.” Government spokesmen insist the country’s constitution forbids religious discrimination and that Muslim communities also sometimes suffer violence at the hands of more extreme Muslims. These are the claims regularly echoed by major American media.
But those on the ground in Nigeria say that while it’s true other Muslims are sometimes targeted for not being “Muslim enough,” there’s no question that Christians are disproportionately targeted.
Judd Saul, founder of Equipping the Persecuted, ministers on the ground in Nigeria, and he told The Daily Wire that the Nigerian government regularly fails to act to protect Christians, even with ample forewarning. Yet outlets like the AP and Reuters are content to echo their talking points.
“The mainstream media never shows up. They just take the government’s word for it, and every time Christians are killed, it’s always ‘unknown gunmen.’ But we know who’s doing it,” Saul said. He added that legacy reporters need to visit Nigeria to see the situation on the ground for themselves. “They need to see the dead bodies, hug the wounded, hug the survivors, be there feeding them when they’re starving, like I have,” he added.
Other Americans ministering in Nigeria echo Saul’s sentiment.
“Let’s not forget, [Nigerian] Christians are second class citizens,” Pastor Brad Brandon, who leads a Christian relief organization Across Nigeria, told The Daily Wire. “Oftentimes, they have trouble even buying food at the market or getting medical care or education for their children simply because they’re Christians.” He further pointed out that of the 3.5 million people in Nigeria’s displaced persons camps, eighty percent are Christians who are there because their homes and their villages have been destroyed by Muslim attackers.
“When somebody denies that this is a genocide or Christians are being targeted, like the AP has done, if it wasn’t so serious and horrific, it would be laughable,” Brandon said, citing the Yelwata massacre where 250 Christians were slaughtered in a single night. “Entire villages were razed, houses burned, women and children shot as they fled the flames,” he said. Brandon himself witnessed the violence close up in 2021 when a Nigerian colleague was hacked to death in his bed by extremists after they torched his church and home during a ministry tour. “We’ve lost friends, scouts, partners. We’re constantly in and out of massacre sites,” Brandon added.
It’s a reality that has led some Nigerian pastors to carry weapons during worship services, prepared to protect their flocks physically if need be.
A Growing Movement
As recognition of the crisis in Nigeria has grown, American churches have begun organizing prayer vigils, fundraising campaigns, and policy petitions. Ambassador Waltz is preparing for closed-door consultations with his UN counterparts in hopes of securing a multilateral fact-finding mission. Lawmakers in the United Kingdom have called for a parliamentary inquiry into Nigeria’s security situation, while several members of the European Parliament have urged the European Union to reassess its aid strategy.
Yet for survivors and displaced families in Nigeria, the long-awaited international response can feel distant and lack urgency. Viral videos circulating online show Nigerian pastors standing in mass graves pleading for help, describing ruined congregations and inaccessible hospitals. One recent clip showed a rural priest surrounded by makeshift wooden crosses, mourning dozens of victims buried less than a day earlier.
Whether Minaj’s intervention will translate into sustainable policy outcomes remains unclear. Celebrity involvement has, historically, produced mixed results for international crises. But for now, what she has undeniably done is thrust Nigeria’s crisis into headlines it had rarely reached. Her UN appearance led to days of debate across cable news and radio programs. Editorial boards that had not covered Nigeria’s rural violence in months published opinion pieces after her social media posts praising President Trump for his action. Lawmakers previously unfamiliar with the issue requested briefings.
As Waltz put it afterward, “Sometimes the world pays attention only when someone unexpected steps forward.”
In the wake of the UN event, the Trump administration is reportedly considering targeted sanctions on specific Nigerian officials accused of failing to prevent extremist violence. The State Department is preparing a report on blasphemy laws and religious-freedom restrictions in Nigeria’s northern states. Ambassador Waltz has indicated that he hopes to formalize new security conditions for future arms sales.
Nigeria, facing diplomatic and economic pressure, is weighing how to respond. Officials have hinted that they will accept additional counterterrorism support but will resist any effort to frame the conflict primarily as religious.
Meanwhile, advocates like Saul say the crisis cannot wait for geopolitical negotiations. He argues that international pressure must intensify immediately, before more villages are burned and more families displaced.
International Stakes and China’s Influence
One complicating factor, though, is China’s expanding presence on the African continent. China is Nigeria’s largest bilateral lender and a key investor in infrastructure, energy, and mining, and it benefits from the status quo. Cruz believes that economic relationship gives the United States further geopolitical incentive to put pressure on Nigerian officials to stop the violence.
“Communist China is the single largest geopolitical threat facing the United States for the next hundred years,” Cruz said. “Their objective is unequivocal. They’re not shy about it. It is global domination. It is economic domination. It is military domination. And Africa is one of the major battlegrounds where China is trying to exert its influence.”
According to Cruz, China benefits from a weakened or destabilized Nigeria because radical Islamist factions tend to resent Western influence more than Chinese investment.
“Chinese communists are perfectly fine with persecuting Christians,” he said. “The Chinese communist government persecutes Christians in China. They also recognize that the more influence radical Islamists have in Nigeria, the less likely Nigeria is to align with America because radical Islam hates America. And so, from China’s perspective, if they want Nigeria to side with the communists, one of the ways of doing so is trying to strengthen the forces that hate Americans, that hate Christians, that hate the West. And sadly, that’s exactly what China is doing.”
For Cruz, Waltz, and scores of humanitarian workers, the moment to stake a clear position on Nigerian persecution feels long overdue. And for the families living through nightly attacks, fleeing burned homes, or burying loved ones in village clearings, it is simply another chapter in a long struggle for survival — one they hope the world, finally, has begun to see.
.png)
.png)
