International Law and Religious Persecution in Nigeria By: Joshua Steinhaus
INTERNATIONAL LAW AND RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN NIGERIA
Joshua Steinhaus
I. INTRODUCTION
Religious persecution in Nigeria presents one of the most urgent and complex human rights crises in contemporary international law. Nigeria sits along the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa and is home to more than 200 million people, making it the largest nation on the continent.[1] Its social landscape is deeply shaped by both religion and ethnicity. Broadly speaking, the country is almost evenly divided between Muslim and Christian populations, and these religious identities often track closely with ethnic heritage. In the norther region, the Hausa-Fulani are predominantly Muslim. In contrast, the Igbo communities in the southeast are largely Christian, while the Yoruba in the southwest include substantial numbers of followers of both religions.[2]
Given the complexity of its religious and ethnic composition, Nigeria’s constitutional framework explicitly protects religious liberty: “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom (either alone or in community with others, and in public or in private) to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”[3]
Nevertheless, violence between the various religions and ethnic groups has increased over the past few decades,[4] and more recently, this year.[5] This is due, in large part, to the rise of religious persecutors. The most prominent are two jihadist groups: Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Alongside these groups, militant factions among Fulani herders have also carried out serious abuses against Christian and Muslim communities, often engaging in kidnapping for ransom and other acts of terror. Much of this activity takes place across the wider Sahel region, where government presence is weak and state authority is limited.[6] Despite the escalating violence, the Nigerian government has been ineffective in its response, at times dismissing concerns as “a gross misrepresentation of reality.”[7]
II. SCOPE OF PERSECUTION IN NIGERIA
According to Nigerian human rights advocacy organization, Intersociety (The International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law), more than 52,000 Christians have been killed since 2009, making Nigeria the deadliest country in the world for Christians.[8] Notably, these persecutions are not isolated or merely a product of economics or politics, but are frequent, systemic, and religiously motivated attacks on Christians and their property.[9]
Boko Haram, meaning “western education is forbidden,” is the most notorious perpetrator.[10] Its mission is explicitly religious: the establishment of an Islamic state through the overthrow of Nigeria’s secular government.[11] Boko Haram has destroyed churches, bombed Christian villages, murdered pastors, and abducted schoolchildren, many of whom are pressured to renounce Christianity under threat of death.[12] ISWAP, an ISIS-affiliated splinter group, maintains the same religious agenda but combines it with governance structures in the territories it controls, further undermining state authority.[13]
III. NIGERIA’S INTERNATIONAL LEGAL OBIGATIONS
Nigeria is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).[14] Article 18 protects the right to freedom of religion, including the right to adopt and manifest one’s beliefs.[15] This includes both internal convictions and external expressions, including worship, teaching, observance, and association.[16] Article 18(2) further prohibits coercion that impairs a person’s freedom to adopt a faith.[17] When individuals are forced to convert before being released from captivity, as occurs regularly in northern Nigeria, this constitutes a textbook violation.
Under international law, persecution is not limited to direct state action. The UNHCR and ICCPR jurisprudence recognize that a government’s failure to protect against serious harm by non-state actors may itself constitute persecution.[18] Thus, where Nigeria tolerates or fails to respond to attacks by Boko Haram, ISWAP, or Fulani militants, it violates its duty to ensure effective protection.
Regionally, Nigeria is bound by the African Charter. Article 8 provides that “Freedom of conscience, the profession and free practice of religion shall be guaranteed. No one may, subject to law and order, be submitted to measures restricting the exercise of these freedoms.”[19] Article 1 obligates states to “adopt legislative or other measures to give effect to these rights,” a duty that includes protecting people from non-state actors who interfere with religious freedom.[20] The African Commission has long held that states cannot escape responsibility simply because the perpetrators are private groups.[21]
IV. CONCLUSION
The persistence of religious persecution in Nigeria reflects a structural problem in the international human rights system: enforcement mechanisms are fundamentally ill-equipped to ensure compliance. At the international level, bodies charged with monitoring religious freedom occupy advisory roles and can issue recommendations but lack any binding authority to compel a state to change course.[22] Regional mechanisms suffer from the same limitations. The African Charter guarantees freedom of conscience and religious practice, yet the court establishes to enforce those rights is constrained by narrow jurisdiction as well as limited access for individuals and nongovernmental organizations. Many states simply do not accept the court’s authority in a way that allows victims to bring claims directly, and even when judgments are issued, enforcement depends entirely on the voluntary cooperation of governments.[23]
Nigeria’s situation remains especially troubling. And until significant reform occurs within international law, Nigeria will continue to exemplify how human rights protections erode when enforcement institutions lack the authority necessary to hold governments accountable for enabling religious persecution.
[1] World Bank, Nigeria, World Development Indicators (2024), https://data.worldbank.org/country/nigeria.
[2] See J.F. Ade Ajayi, Nigeria, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Nov. 23, 2025), https://www.britannica.com/place/Nigeria.
[3] constitution of nigeria (1999), § 38.
[4] Mark Hill & Thomas J. Hellenbrand, Religious Persecution in Africa: Nigeria, Algeria, and Eritrea, 97 notre dame l. rev. reflection 226, 231 (2022).
[5] Press Release, Congressman Riley Moore, Congressman Moore Introduces Resolution Condemning the Persecution of Christians in Nigeria (Nov. 7, 2025), https://rileymoore.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-moore-introduces-resolution-condemning-persecution-christians (“At least 7,000 Christians have been killed this year alone – an average of 35 deaths each day.”).
[6] Hill & Hellenbrand, supra note 4, at 231-32.
[7] Olaronke Alo et al., Are Christians Being Persecuted in Nigeria as Trump Claims?, BBC News (Nov. 6, 2025), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgqlzkdeeqjo.
[8] See 5068 Citizens Massacred for Being Christians in Nigeria in 2022, Intersociety, https://intersociety-ng.org/5068-citizens-massacred-for-being-christians-in-nigeria-in-2022-1041-slaughtered-in-first-100-days-of-2023/.
[9] Hill & Hellenbrand, supra note 4, at 233-34.
[10] Id.
[11] See Michael Nwankpa, The North-South Divide: Nigerian Discourses on Boko Haram, the Fulani, and Islamization, Hudson Inst. (Oct. 26, 2021), https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/the-north-south-divide-nigerian-discourses-on-boko-haram-the-fulani-and-islamization.
[12] Hill & Hellenbrand, supra note 4, at 232.
[13] Id. at 232-33 (noting that “ISWAP builds infrastructure, provides some health care, and runs general government services that are sometimes superior to those provided by the Nigerian government”).
[14] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Dec. 19, 1996, 999 U.N.T.S. 171.
[15] Id. at art. 18.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] See Hill & Hellenbrand, supra note 4, at 228 (explaining that “States and non-state actors can be perpetrators of religious persecution . . . [and that] ‘denial of protection [by a government] may confirm or strengthen the applicant’s fear of persecution, and may indeed be an element of persecution’”).
[19] African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, art. 8, June 27, 1981, 1520 U.N.T.S. 16363.
[20] Id. at art. 1.
[21] Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum v. Zimbabwe, Comm. 245/02, Afr. Comm’n H.P.R., (May 15, 2006), https://achpr.au.int/en/decisions-communications/zimbabwe-human-rights-ngo-forum-v-zimbabwe-24502.
[22] Gerald L. Neuman, The Contributions of Human Rights Committee Members, 16 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 1, 3 (2016) (noting that HRC’s “decisions . . . do not produce legally bidning outcomes” for states).
[23] Jeffrey A. Brauch, Freedom of Religion Under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 28 Gonz. J. Int’l, L. 162, 176 (2921).