Nigeria remains on Washington's most serious religious-freedom watchlist after the second session of the US-Nigeria Joint Working Group concluded on August 12 without any change to the country's "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) status, according to Nairametrics.
The designation was originally imposed by President Donald Trump on October 31, 2025, under the International Religious Freedom Act — a statute reserved for governments the US determines have "engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom." Nigeria now sits alongside a short list of countries that includes Eritrea, the only other African nation on the blacklist.
The August 12 session brought together senior officials on both sides. Under Secretary of State Allison Hooker led the American delegation; National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu led Nigeria's. Foreign Affairs Minister Bianca Ojukwu said the meeting covered intelligence-sharing cooperation, protection of communities at risk of religiously motivated violence, and counterterrorism coordination, according to Business Insider Africa. The US State Department confirmed the same broad agenda: counterterrorism cooperation, security, and the protection of vulnerable communities and fundamental freedoms.
The working group was not designed to adjudicate the designation in a single meeting — it is a structured mechanism to track Nigeria's progress against the specific concerns that triggered the CPC label. Washington has acknowledged steps Abuja has taken, including counterterrorism prosecutions and expanded security cooperation, but has continued to press for stronger accountability and more consistent protection of religious minorities.
The scale of the underlying problem explains why the US is holding firm. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) describes religious-freedom conditions in Nigeria as "particularly severe." Non-state actors — Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in the northeast, armed Fulani militants and bandit groups across the North-Central region — regularly kill, kidnap and attack Christians, Muslims and traditionalist believers. Schools, missions and houses of worship are among the documented targets. Separately, 12 northern states enforce blasphemy laws that USCIRF says have been applied against people from multiple religious backgrounds, adding a legal dimension to the violence.
For Nigerian businesses and investors, the CPC designation carries real-world risk beyond the diplomatic friction. A prolonged listing creates a reputational overhang that shapes how US institutional investors, development-finance institutions and multilateral lenders assess Nigeria-linked exposure. It also complicates defence and intelligence procurement: Washington has already signalled that Nigeria's weapons sourcing — the US has urged Abuja to move away from Russian military hardware — is linked to the broader security and values alignment the CPC process is meant to measure. A stalled working group makes those conversations harder.
On the security-cooperation side, the talks do offer Abuja a lever. Nigeria has been expanding its counterterrorism infrastructure, and the joint working group gives the government a formal channel to demonstrate measurable progress — prosecutions concluded, perpetrators held accountable, community-protection frameworks extended — rather than relying on diplomatic statements alone. Ribadu's direct involvement signals that Abuja is treating the designation as a national-security problem, not merely a foreign-affairs irritant.
The next session of the working group has not been publicly scheduled, meaning the CPC designation will remain in place for an indeterminate period. For the Nigerian government, the calculus is straightforward: the designation will not lift through rhetoric. USCIRF and the State Department are watching for concrete accountability — arrests, prosecutions, convictions — against both non-state perpetrators and officials who have failed to act. Until that record is built, the blacklist stands.
Why it matters: Nigeria is Africa's largest economy, and sustained friction with Washington over a designation as grave as CPC creates a drag on US-Nigeria trade negotiations, defence partnerships, and the confidence of US-linked capital allocators — costs that compound the longer the listing remains unresolved.