The Christians of Nigeria – nearly half of the country’s population – have shown “remarkable resilience and faith” in one of the most violent persecution climates in the world, Ryan Brown, the CEO of Open Doors, told Breitbart News this weekend.
Open Doors, a humanitarian organization that specializes in offering spiritual and emergency aid to persecuted Christians around the world, publishes its annual “World Watch List” of the most dangerous places on the planet to practice the faith. Nigeria ranked number seven on the list this year due to targeted jihadist attacks by a variety of actors including Boko Haram, the Fulani terrorists of the Middle Belt, and organizations such as the Islamic State.
“Violence continued unabated in Nigeria, which is why it continues to be ranked in the top ten of the World Watch List. In multiple instances, hundreds of Christians were killed or displaced because of attacks from Islamic militants,” Open Doors explains in its profile of the country for 2025. “Most of these attacks were carried out by militant Fulani herdsmen, who continue to target Christian communities, leading to the displacement of millions of Christians. Attacks are also carried out by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, along with new extremist groups that are emerging.”
Genocidal violence against Christians has persisted in Nigeria for over a decade, even though the country is home to over 100 million Christians. To highlight how unique that situation is in the world, the country with the second highest number of Christians on the top ten list is Pakistan, with an estimated 4.8 million Christians. Christians are believed to represent about 45 percent of the population of Nigeria, most of them in the Middle Belt and south of the country, while the plurality population of Muslims is largely concentrated in the north.
Persecution has persisted despite the large number of vulnerable Christians and through multiple Nigerian presidential administrations. The current president, Bola Tinubu, has vowed to act against growing acts of violence, but for much of 2025 faced criticism that his government had done little to protect Christians. The year culminated with President Donald Trump placing Nigeria on the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) for religious persecution and cooperating with Tinubu on airstrikes against terrorists in the northwest of the country.
Open Doors tracks persecution by monitoring, using its resources on the ground, how much pressure Christians face in their private lives, family, community, national life, and church life. Countries are also ranked by the violence that Christians face as a separate metric.
“Nigeria has been at the maximum violence score (16.7 out of 16.7) for eight consecutive years,” Brown, the Open Doors CEO, explained to Breitbart News in response to questions this weekend. “During our most recent reporting period, 3,490 Nigerian Christians were killed because of their faith—the highest number of any country and an increase from 3,100 the previous year.”
“The violence Christians face in Nigeria is driven by a complex convergence of Islamic militancy, ethnic conflict, weak governance, organized crime, and competition for resources,” Brown noted. “Groups like Boko Haram, ISWA, Fulani militants, and newer groups like Lakurawa continue to target Christian communities.”
The time period covered by the annual World Watch List ends on September 30; President Trump designated Nigeria a CPC on October 31, so that action and its aftermath did not affect the scoring this year, but will in the following reporting period.
“Anecdotally, we have heard from local partners that there were casualties at the US-targeted bases of these groups, but it’s difficult to speculate whether this will have significant, moderate, or no impact on the persecution in the relevant regions,” Brown told Breitbart News, assuring that Open Doors will remain active on the ground offering “trauma care, emergency relief, and persecution preparedness training regardless of what actions external governments take.”
“The Nigerian church has shown remarkable resilience and faith despite years of violence,” he added.
President Trump approved military action against “ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria” in December, announcing the strikes on Christmas Day.
“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” Trump explained in a post on his website, Truth Social. “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing. Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.”
Trump added, “MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”
The move caused some international alarm, but Tinubu’s government clarified that Trump did not approve a strike on Nigeria without communication with Abuja and attempted to frame the strikes as evidence that Tinubu was taking the persecution seriously.
“This … puts to rest any doubt with regards to the Tinubu administration’s resolve to fight terrorism,” Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar told CNN on December 27. “This was coordinated with the U.S., the same way that we’ve been saying we are ready, willing, and able to collaborate, to coordinate with any foreign government that is committed to the fight against terrorism.”
The latest edition of the World Watch List found that 388 million Christians live in countries in which they face significant persecution for their religious identity. The top ranking of worst place in the world for Christians went to North Korea, which regularly takes the highest spot due to extreme violence against suspected Christians and the communist regime’s designation of Christianity as a foreign imperialist weapon. Syria, facing a dramatic regime change after the fall of dictator Bashar Assad in December 2024, rose 12 spots to the number six ranking as jihadist organizations, including some associated with the ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government, target Christians with violence.
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