Can Christianity Survive Nigerian Unity? By Michael Rubin
posted 3rd April 2025
Can Christianity Survive Nigerian Unity? By Michael Rubin
Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.
During his first trip to Africa, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stopped in Nigeria and met with then-President Muhammadu Buhari. What came next was a betrayal of religious freedom. As Buhari, who came to prominence for his role killing Christians and animists during the 1967-1970 Biafra Genocide again turned to fanning sectarian violence, Blinken removed Nigeria from the State Department’s religious freedom watchlist.
For Blinken, a warm handshake and photo opportunity was more important than defending religious freedom. Not surprisingly, Nigeria then began accelerating its anti-Christian pogroms.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio works not only in President Donald Trump’s but also envoy Steve Witkoff’s shadow. At best, he is the B Team on crafting foreign policy. Still, even if the Trump’s treatment of Ukrainian President Volodyrmyr Zelensky humiliated Rubio, he can still salvage his legacy by returning religious freedom to the central framework with which U.S. diplomats shape policy.
Here, Nigeria should be a case in point. The country is diverse: It is slightly over half Muslim, one-third protestant, and one-tenth Roman Catholic. Over the years, both Christians and Muslims have served as president, although for the last decade, the post has been exclusively Muslim. Religion is not determinative but in the case of both Buhari and his successor Bola Tinubu, their religious embrace is more exclusionary and discriminatory. While Buhari targeted Christians and turned a blind eye both to Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and Fulani militias terrorizing Christians in the country’s southeast, it was Tinubu who crafted the policies and ensured party discipline as the communal violence accelerated.
Blinken’s strategy was to ignore the plight of the Christians and to pretend there was no crisis of religious freedom, despite near daily reports of Boko Haram terrorism or slaughter of Igbo. Nigerian authorities viewed him as a clown and accelerated their repression.
Rubio should take a different tack: If Nigeria is becoming a structure used to target minorities and repress religious freedom, then the policy of the United States should be to question whether Nigeria’s current structure is the solution or the problem. While Nigeria won its independence from the British 65 years ago, decolonization is not complete because it preserved Nigeria itself as a colonial vestige.
Rather than ignore the slow but imminent demise of Nigeria’s Christian under the current regime, Rubio should make clear: If Nigeria is unable to treat its citizens equally and allow them to worship freely, then the United States will approach Nigeria as if it is a colonial power and support its decolonization.
Specifically, the United States should begin direct outreach to Biafra, the breakway region subject to genocide more than a half century ago that again declared its independence in November 2024.
This likely would not be immediate, but the United States could support observer missions to document the safety of Biafrans and also sponsor a plebiscite, not unlike that which confirmed Bahrain’s desire 55 years ago to be an independent country rather than join Iran as the shah at the time demanded.
Trump refuses to allow artificial diplomatic constraints confine him; Rubio should not allow them to be a cause for the eradication of what once was one of Africa’s most vibrant Christian communities but one that is today under threat.
It is time to give Nigeria an ultimatum: End attacks on Christians or lose default support for Nigeria as a unified entity.
This article was first published in 1945 website https://www.19fortyfive.com/
