US President Donald Trump has ordered the military to prepare for action in nigeria, alleging the government is failing to protect Christians and claiming “Christianity is facing an existential threat” in the country. He posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that “thousands of christians are being killed.”
These claims echo similar assertions circulating in recent weeks,including one by US comedian Bill Maher who stated over 100,000 Christians had been systematically killed in Nigeria since 2009 – a claim previously fact-checked by BBC Verify. Trump specifically cited a figure of 3,100 Christians killed in Nigeria last year, compared to a worldwide total of 4,476.
The figures Trump referenced appear to originate from a report by the advocacy group Open Doors, detailing killings they attribute to last year. BBC Verify has requested clarification from Open Doors regarding their methodology but has not yet received a response.
Nnamdi Obasi from the International Crisis Group cautions that “any figures of the numbers of Christians or Muslims killed are questionable, as such claims are not based on any credible databases of fatalities, disaggregated by religious identity.”
Data from the US-based monitoring group ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data), which tracks civilian deaths in Nigeria using official reports and media sources, presents a different picture.ACLED recorded 29 deaths in 2024 from incidents where the Christian identity of the victim was a reported factor in targeted violence. In contrast, 34 deaths resulted from targeted attacks against Muslims during the same period.
ACLED’s total reported deaths from all attacks across Nigeria in 2024 reached 4,393.Dr.Ladd Serwat,ACLED’s senior Africa analyst,notes that some of these attacks may have included Christian victims whose religious identity was either unclear or not a primary factor in the violence.
