Nigeria is suffering complex security crises, but Republicans in US are eager to paint them as purely religious.

United States Senator Ted Cruz has accused Nigeria’s government of enabling a “massacre” against Christians, citing a rising number of attacks against the community in the country’s troubled centre.

In an X post on Tuesday, Cruz said 50,000 Christians have been killed since 2009 with 2,000 schools and 18,000 churches destroyed by what he called “Islamist” armed groups, but he did not cite sources for the information.

Cruz, who counts evangelical Christians among his base, has introduced a bill to sanction Nigerian officials whom he accused of “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians”.

The Republican lawmaker is the most prominent figure among voices from within the Christian political right in the US who are increasingly pushing claims of a Christian genocide in Africa’s most populous country, where 48 percent of people are Christians.

Nigeria’s government, while admitting a security problem, has denied the claims. Responding to Cruz’s claims, the Christian Association of Nigeria said the killings in the country were not targeting Christians alone and foreign groups were looking to exploit domestic crises.

Nigeria is plagued by security problems as the armed group, Boko Haram, wages a deadly rebellion in the northeast and criminal gangs operate in the northwest. The country has also been racked by deadly communal violence.

More than 10,000 people have been killed and hundreds kidnapped since Bola Tinubu was elected president in May 2023. As many as 3 million people remain displaced by the violence.

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So what’s the truth? And why has Nigeria failed to improve its security?

Who has said what?

Cruz blames Nigerian officials for what he calls “Christian massacres”.

“It is the result of decisions made by speci