Two American lawmakers have accused major international media organisations of giving insufficient attention to killings, church burnings and the displacement of Christian communities in Nigeria.
US Representative Nancy Mace and former congressman Matt Gaetz made the allegations in separate social media posts on Thursday, October 29, citing figures on religious violence and questioning why attacks against Christians in the country receive limited international coverage.
Gaetz, a former representative for Florida’s 1st Congressional District, claimed that 52,000 Christians had been killed in Nigeria, arguing that major media organisations had largely ignored the scale of the violence.
“Fifty-two thousand Christians have been murdered in Nigeria, and almost no one in the media wants to talk about it,” he said in a post referencing the 2026 report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
He further accused major news networks of failing to adequately highlight the religious identities of victims in attacks on Christian communities.
“The attacks keep hitting Christian villages and churches while headlines bury the religion of the victims,” Gaetz said.
Similarly, Mace, who represents South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, accused mainstream media outlets of dismissing reports of violence against Christians as propaganda.
In a video published on her official Facebook page on October 29, she said churches were being burned, families driven from their homes and Christian communities targeted by attacks.
“When Christians are murdered in Nigeria, the media goes silent. Churches are being burned. Families are being driven from their homes,” she said.
Mace claimed that more than 100,000 Christians had been killed, maimed or otherwise affected over the past two decades, while more than five million had been forced to flee their homes.
“If you ask the mainstream media, they’ll tell you that it’s propaganda. That it’s lies. It’s true,” she said, insisting that the violence was ongoing and should not be dismissed.
Their comments come amid renewed attention to Nigeria’s religious freedom situation following the release of USCIRF’s 2026 annual report.
The commission described Nigeria as facing “a terrifying crisis of religious violence”, estimating that at least 53,000 people had been killed in targeted violence since 2009, when it first recommended that the country be designated a Country of Particular Concern (CPC).
However, the commission’s estimate does not establish that all the victims were Christians.
USCIRF has continued to recommend that the US government designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern over persistent violations of religious freedom.
