'A target any moment'

Nigerian Christian leader tells ‘Post’ Trump admin forcing authorities to intervene in Islamist killings

- By DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD

'YOU CAN talk about the physical violence, killing, raping, maiming, displacement of communities.... And when [the Nigerian authorities] say this is not Islamic, we say, 'Why do they enforce the Sharia legal system?' Here, an example of the Nigeria Evangelical Fellowship food relief and medical outreach for Christian Internally Displaced Persons in Adamawa, northeast Nigeria. (Advocacy and Media Desk, Nigeria Evangelical Fellowship)

The United States’ recent statements and warnings have pushed the Nigerian government to intervene more in the ongoing genocide against Christians in the country, Rev. Akinyele Abiodun James, a Christian leader of the Evangelical Fellowship and a district overseer of Foursquare Church in Nigeria, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

James spoke with the Post by Zoom from Nigeria, where he described the constant assaults on the Christian community, which has seen Islamist terrorists from Boko Haram and affiliated groups commit acts of rape, abduction, and murder with impunity. The discussion came only days after the murder of at least 50 people and the abduction of several women and children in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara state, and the brutal killing of at least 34 people by Lakurawa Islamist terrorists in the northwestern Kebbi state.

On Monday, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs commended US President Donald Trump for redesignating Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, noting that decades of violence have left the African nation the most dangerous place to be a Christian. The committee found that jihadist networks were exploiting weak enforcement and limited accountability to carry out sustained and coordinated violence against Christians and other religious minorities.

Trump had designated Nigeria a country of concern during his first term in the White House, though former president Joe Biden removed it from the US State Department list in 2021.