Trump’s watchlist warning puts Nigeria under global spotlight — Ejiofor

…Urges Government to Address Alleged Christian Killings

By Nwabueze Okonkwo

ONITSHA — Social critic and legal practitioner, Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, has urged the Nigerian government to confront what he described as the growing threat of attacks on Christian communities across the country, following the decision of U.S. President Donald Trump to place Nigeria on a watchlist over alleged Christian persecution.

Ejiofor, in a strongly worded statement on Sunday, said the U.S. action should serve as a wake-up call for Nigerian authorities to “set aside domestic politics, propaganda, and misleading narratives” and address the situation head-on.

He said Christian communities in Nigeria were no longer merely under threat but were facing “existential assaults that bear the unmistakable hallmarks of systematic elimination.”

Quoting multiple independent reports, Ejiofor said thousands of Christians are killed annually, churches burnt, villages emptied, and ancestral farmlands seized across the country. He blamed the violence on jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and ISWAP in the North, as well as farmer-herder conflicts in the Middle Belt, where Fulani-linked militias have repeatedly targeted Christian farming communities.

“These are not random or collateral tragedies,” he noted. “They reflect a pattern of deliberate targeting — of faith, of identity, and of land.”

Ejiofor said the U.S. watchlist designation carries “profound implications” for Nigeria, stressing that it brings renewed international attention to the crisis and increases diplomatic pressure on the government to act.

According to him, the designation signals potential diplomatic or economic consequences if the alleged persecution persists, while also offering moral recognition to victims who have long been “treated as statistics rather than martyrs of conscience.”

He urged the Federal Government to hold perpetrators accountable, insisting that “those who have systematically executed this extermination agenda must be identified, arrested, and prosecuted under the full weight of the law.”

“There must be no secret trials, no political negotiations. Justice must be visible and uncompromising,” he said.

Ejiofor warned that continued denial or silence by the government “risks exposing the state’s complicity or indifference,” noting that the U.S. would only have taken such a position based on verified facts and credible intelligence.

He described the attacks — from church bombings to village raids and land seizures — as a “scar upon the conscience of the nation and the global Church.”

“Every village razed, every child orphaned, every altar desecrated sends a chilling reminder that faith and life must never again be bartered for silence,” he added.

As he marked the beginning of a new month, Ejiofor offered words of comfort to victims of the violence, wishing them resilience, hope and “the promise of justice.”

“May the coming days bring renewal, peace, and accountability,” he concluded.

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