Article

Comment

Development

Politics

25 February 2025

4 min read

Downsizing in DC undercuts the lives of millions in Nigeria

Nigeria’s Christian communities will bear the brunt of USAID’s demise.

Chris Wadibia

Chris Wadibia is an academic advising on faith-based challenges. His research includes political Pentecostalism, global Christianity, and development.

Patient wait in a street clinic beside a sign.

A health project clinic in Lagos, Nigeria.

Christendom, the global community of over 2.5 billion Christians living worldwide, has many geographical capitals. Nigeria, like the United States, is one of them. Upwards of 100 million people living in Nigeria identify as followers of the Christian religion. These Nigerians belong to Christian denominations like Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Baptist Christianity, and Pentecostalism. On 6 February the Trump Administration announced plans to downsize USAID, the US government agency that administers foreign aid. In 2023 it managed over $40 billion, and has played a significant role in delivering aid and development support in Nigeria for decades.

Nigeria has one of the world’s lowest levels when it comes to spending on social issues. Its government’s underspending has trapped tens of millions of Nigerians in horrific, inescapable mazes of poverty. The significant challenges Nigeria faces are well-documented -socioeconomic, geopolitical, and religious ones. The protracted and infamously bloodthirsty Boko Haram insurgency (headquartered in the northeastern corner of the country) has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Nigerians and displaced over two million people, disproportionately affecting vulnerable women and children.

Abandoned by the government, many Nigerians look to their ethnic communities, religious groups, and even other state’s agencies and charities for the support and solutions they require to survive.

In 2021 USAID commemorated 60 years of providing development assistance to Nigeria. Its historical activity has prioritised agriculture and food security, democracy, human rights, and governance, public health, and energy production. In just 2021, USAID provided Nigeria with more than $787 million in development and humanitarian assistance.

Whilst USAID support for Nigeria has historically been blind to religion, the Trump-led downsizing of development and humanitarian assistance for millions of people living in Nigeria will especially impact tens of millions of Christians, They struggle to lead lives in a country rife with Christian suffering that is ignored by powerful global actors with the financial, political, and military resources to intervene in substantive and peace-generating ways.

Southern Nigeria is disproportionately developed compared to the North. Lagos, the economic capital responsible for a third of Nigeria's GDP, sits in the southwestern corner. The south contains a majority of the leading private universities, many of which are owned and funded by Christian churches, and is home to Nigeria's largest international airport. Literacy levels among Christians in Nigeria dwarf literacy levels among Muslims, especially when compared to Muslims living in the religiously archconservative northern states.

The southern region of Nigeria has an appetite for development and the political will needed to implement an inclusive development vision that simply does not exist up north. Downsizing USAID activity in Nigeria will disproportionately affect Christians in Nigeria who for historical and contemporary reasons have been able to benefit from USAID assistance in ways developing themselves to help Nigeria compete in the global economy.

In the current 21st century geopolitical climate US-Nigeria relations are far more likely to become more rather than less relevant.

Muslims in Nigeria, if unbridled by extreme religious dogma, could just as easily undergo the processes of self-development needed to excel in 21st century economic marketplaces. However, as Nigeria's religious landscape stands today, tens of millions of Muslims simply lack access to opportunities to gain the education, training, and work experience that could unleash the full potential of the legendary Nigerian human capital famous globally.

Millions of educationally and professionally ambitious Nigerian Christians view their work in vocational terms. Inspired by scripture and theological resources like Catholic Social Teaching and the Pentecostal Doctrine of Prosperity, these Christians intentionally seek out educational and professional opportunities because they believe their faith in Christ commands them to provide for their households and invest into their communities. They believe contributions to their homes and communities double as offerings to God himself. For over six decades, USAID has administered development and humanitarian assistance in Nigeria in ways hugely benefitting millions of Christians ignored by their government.

Administering USAID aid in Nigeria has never been perfect. Bad actors, many of them government officials exploiting the authority of their offices, have stolen development funds intended for marginalized Nigerians and used it to fund their kleptocratic networks and lavish lifestyles. However, in the current 21st century geopolitical climate US-Nigeria relations are far more likely to become more rather than less relevant. USAID support provides a valuable source of American soft power able to win over the hearts of vulnerable Nigerians whose children might one day seize the reins of state power. It also continues the postcolonial project of assisting in the sociopolitical and economic development of the Giant of Africa.

Downsizing USAID assistance to Nigeria undercuts investment in the lives of millions of Nigerian Christians disproportionately positioned to drive the country in the direction of evolving into just the kind of capable ally in Africa the US wants to work with long term.

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Article

Comment

Freedom of Belief

Politics

19 May 2025

5 min read

No George, Christians aren’t free to worship in Iran

Apologists make a mockery of the real costs of freedom of belief.

Steve Dew-Jones

Steve is news director of Article 18, a human rights organisation documenting Christian persecution in Iran.

A couple stand on the steps of a cathedral in Iran.

On location with George Galloway.

I guess it’s a good job he’s no longer a member of parliament, or George Galloway may be facing the same scrutiny Nigel Farage came under for his trips to the United States.

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the former MP for Rochdale didn’t head to the Land of the Free on his own extracurricular jaunt the other week, but instead to Tehran and Moscow.

And no, George wasn’t there to remind Iran of its obligations to provide human rights for its citizens - as some might expect of a British MP - nor did he go to Russia to put pressure on Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

No, George was simply visiting his comrades - distinct as they may be - and doing his bit for their distinct causes.

Mr Galloway published two videos during his visit to Iran - both published on his X account - and both showing him standing outside the buildings of a recognised religious minority (meaning, in Iran, Jews, Zoroastrians and Assyrian or Armenian Christians. Not converts or Baha’is).

In the first video, the man in the black hat is standing outside a synagogue in Tehran, which he tells his audience doesn’t even have a guard outside “because they don’t need one”, as the “millions” of Jews who live in Iran (actually there are less than 10,000) are so “honoured” and “cherished”.

They even have their own members in the parliament, he tells us (actually it’s just the one), and “you didn’t know any of this, did you? Because they don’t want you to know.”

Well, now you do.

And, thanks again to the former Member for Rochdale, two days later you were also able to discover, much to your surprise, that Iran is also home to “so many Christian churches.” (For the record there are around 300, but none of them open to converts.)

This time, Mr Galloway is speaking to you from outside an Armenian cathedral, still wearing the same outfit and therefore presumably recorded on the same day but published two days later - perhaps to give you enough time to digest your first lesson.

Inside the cathedral, George assures us, there are “many worshippers quietly going about their religious obligations,” which is “quite different from the picture that is painted of Iran in Western countries,” don’t you think?

And what would that picture be, eh, George?

That Christians are routinely arrested and imprisoned for meeting together to worship, and in years past the leaders of their churches - including Armenians - were even murdered on those same Tehran streets on which you are now standing?

But no matter, here at least is clear proof that one church in Iran is still functioning - as well as that synagogue; don’t forget the synagogue! - and as Mr Galloway proudly informed us 24 hours after his first video, nearly one million people (according to X it was closer to 50,000) had watched it.

So, job done. Let’s not worry about the details. They take too much time to research, and can also trip one up when trying to make a point - especially regarding Iran’s treatment of religious minorities or, well, anyone really.

But no matter, one can guarantee that most viewers won’t have bothered to look into it, nor scroll down far enough to reach the dissent.

Now, I don’t know whether it was because George hadn’t quite lived up to his billing, but a few days later some “real journalists” arrived from the Grayzone website to add their own insights.

The Brits had been told; now it was the turn of the Americans.

“Americans may be surprised to know Christians exist in Iran and are allowed to practice their religion freely.”

So wrote Grayzone News’ Anya Parimpil on X, alongside a post showing a short video from inside - wow, they actually let the Americans inside! - another Armenian cathedral, this time in Isfahan.

And alongside a few more pictures of the church, Ms Parimpil posted some photographs of “ancient bibles” - no capital ‘B’ needed, it would seem, nor explanation that today in Iran Bibles are often used as evidence of a “crime” in court cases against Christians.

Meanwhile, Ms Parimpil’s husband, Max Blumenthal, posted a long video interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s favourite interviewee, Mohammad Marandi, as they walked around a Tehran cemetery.

You can watch it on YouTube if you like, but I wouldn’t recommend it; not only is it over an hour long, but in the wake of the axing of Stephen Sackur’s BBC news show HARDtalk, this one is more like an episode of SOFTtalk, in which the presenter asks only two questions of real interest - regarding the nuclear programme and popular support for the regime - to which there is never any danger of a follow-up probe.

To paraphrase, Marandi’s answers were that the regime is wildly popular and well able to make a nuclear weapon if it wanted to but that it doesn’t because such things are “inhumane” and the Islamic Republic of Iran is, of course, renowned for its decency.

Mr Blumenthal also posted videos of an Iranian man singing while embracing him underneath one of Isfahan’s famous bridges - with the message, “Iran is not your enemy” - and of the return of water to the local river, failing to mention, as one responder noted, that “due to the corruption and mismanagement of the horrific mullah regime, the river is basically dry all the time”.

But no matter, one can guarantee that most viewers won’t have bothered to look into it, nor scroll down far enough to reach the dissent.

Certainly, the overwhelming reaction to all the videos and photographs posted over the past week has been positive: essentially, a “thanks for showing us what Iran is really like and not only what the biased mainstream media (MSM!) says about it!”

These are the days of SOFTtalk, it would appear, so I suppose we’d better get used to it.

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