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FIRST ON FOX: A diplomatic battle is being waged between main Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Nigerian authorities officers. The Texas senator has warned he’ll maintain them accountable for the reported “mass slaughter” of tens of hundreds of Christians in Nigeria. The officers say Cruz is mendacity, with one claiming that regardless of even the pope publicly calling out the killings, there may be non secular concord within the nation.
Nigeria is likely one of the most harmful locations on the planet to be a Christian, based on worldwide Christian advocacy group Open Doorways Worldwide’s 2025 World Watch Record (WWL). An estimated 48% of the inhabitants is Christian. However of the 4,476 Christians reported killed worldwide in WWL’s newest reporting interval, 3,100 – 69% – had been in Nigeria.
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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has launched the Nigeria Non secular Freedom Accountability Act, which he mentioned would goal officers “with highly effective sanctions and different instruments.” (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Photographs)
On Saturday, the spokesperson for Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu instructed a Lagos newspaper that Cruz ought to “cease these malicious, contrived lies” over the murders.
In response, Cruz, the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Africa and World Well being Coverage, instructed Fox Information Digital, “Nigeria’s federal authorities and a dozen state governments implement blasphemy legal guidelines of their felony and sharia codes, and so they ignore or facilitate mob violence focusing on Christians.”
On Friday, the Nigerian minister of data, Mohammed Idris, spoke completely to Fox Information Digital, rejecting Cruz’s claims of Christian massacres in his nation. “The Nigerian authorities rejects that. That is actually not true,” he mentioned.
In response, Cruz instructed Fox Information Digital that the killings “are the results of selections made by particular individuals, in particular locations, at particular instances. The USA is aware of who these persons are, and I intend to carry them accountable”.
Pope Leo XIV condemned the killings of as much as 200 individuals in Yelewata group in Nigeria on June 13, 2025. (Related Press)
Cruz mentioned, “Since 2009, over 50,000 Christians in Nigeria have been massacred, and over 20,000 church buildings and Christian faculties have been destroyed. These atrocities are immediately linked to the insurance policies of Nigerian federal and state officers. They’re the results of selections made by particular individuals, in particular locations, at particular instances – and it says an excellent deal about who’s lashing out now {that a} mild is being shone on these points.”
On Friday, Cruz posted on X: “Officers in Nigeria are ignoring and even facilitating the mass homicide of Christians by Islamist jihadists. It’s time to carry these accountable accountable.” He went on to confer with a brand new invoice he has launched within the Senate: “My Nigeria Non secular Freedom Accountability Act would goal these officers with highly effective sanctions and different instruments.”
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This drew a right away response from Nigerian presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga. Interviewed by the Nigerian Each day Put up the following day, Onanuga demanded, “Senator, cease these malicious, contrived lies towards my nation. Christians will not be focused. We’ve non secular concord in our nation.”
Idris instructed Fox Information Digital that Cruz’s feedback are “very deceptive. This isn’t true. This isn’t the reflection of what’s on the bottom. I imply it is false the place you say over 20,000 church buildings have been burned. It is also false when you say 52,000 (Christians killed), the place did he get these numbers from? I believe that is completely absurd. It is not supported by any details in anyway. The Nigerian authorities rejects that. No Nigerian officers will willingly, intentionally indulge within the act of siding with violent extremists to focus on any explicit faith on this nation. That is completely false.”
Idris additionally said, “Nigeria is a multi-faith nation, which means that it is a nation that has a number of religions. We’ve Christians, we’ve got Muslims, we even have those that do not imagine in any of those two religions. Nigeria is a really tolerant nation. The federal government of Nigeria is dedicated to making sure that there’s non secular freedom on this nation, however we do have extremist organizations on this nation.”
Members of St Leo Catholic Church maintain a procession to mark Palm Sunday in Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria, on April 13, 2025. (Adekunle Ajayi/Getty Photographs)
Idris continued, “It is unlucky sadly, that a few of these extremists have killed quite a lot of Christians and quite a lot of Muslims virtually all over the place the place this violent extremism has help. So it is (the accusation by Sen. Cruz) not true. We discover that to be very unlucky. It is despicable, it is not proper. That is completely false to say that there’s a calculated or a deliberate try and kill a specific non secular group, isn’t appropriate and we discover that basically very, very unlucky.
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Open Doorways’ Natalie Blair says unbiased information from Nigeria exhibits “Christians may be focused by radical extremists, and radical extremists can also kill Muslims who don’t conform to their radical ideology.” However Blair, a senior member of Open Doorways Advocacy workforce, instructed Fox Information Digital, “Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) have explicitly and repeatedly declared Christians as targets. And plenty of victims have instructed us that when Fulani militants assault they don’t simply shout ‘Allahu Akbar’, (God is Nice), they yell, ‘We are going to destroy all Christians.’
Blair added: “Based on the Observatory for Non secular Freedom in Africa, information of civilians killed – exempting out the army and terrorist deaths – in northern Nigeria is unequivocal: extra Christians are killed by the extremists than Muslims – if you’re a Christian you might be 6.5 instances extra more likely to be killed than a Muslim. This doesn’t make the struggling of a Muslim much less vital, it simply makes it much less doubtless.”
A spokesman for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu lately instructed a Nigerian newspaper that Sen. Ted Cruz ought to “cease these malicious, contrived lies” over the killings. (Ton Molina/Getty Photographs)
Bishop Wilfred Anagbe’s Makurdi Diocese is nearly completely Christian. However the fixed and escalating assaults by Muslim Fulani militants led him to testify at a congressional hearing in March in Washington, saying there may be “a long-term Islamic agenda (in Nigeria) to homogenize. The inhabitants has been carried out over a number of presidencies via a method to cut back and finally get rid of the Christian identification of half of the inhabitants throughout Nigeria. These terrorists are going about on a jihad and conquering territories and renaming them accordingly.”
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Idris was dismissive of the bishop’s congressional testimony: “Let me say that the bishop’s place is an excessive one. It is not true. The Nigerian authorities has debunked that previously.”
Funerals for some 27 Christians who had been reportedly killed by Islamist Fulani tribesmen within the village of Bindi Ta-hoss, Nigeria on July 25, 2025. (Courtesy: Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSI))
Open Doorways’ Blair, with entry to Nigerian villagers, responded, “We should take heed to the voices of those that have skilled the violence firsthand. Individuals on the bottom don’t belief that anybody can pay for these violent crimes. It is because they’ve seen a whole lot of suspects arrested over time after which most of them launched, having by no means been charged or dropped at trial.”
Blair concluded, “The proper to life, assured beneath Part 33 of the 1999 Nigerian Structure, is meaningless except the state acts decisively to punish those that violate it. The continued tradition of impunity will solely lead to extra bloodshed and proceed to erode public belief within the rule of legislation.”
