US hearing verdict: Washington says Tinubu's government is taking Christian persecution “extra seriously” — but the pace is “inadequate”

Photo: Rep. Chris Smith chairing the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Nigeria, Washington DC, 12 Nov 2026 · Photo: U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs (VIDEO STILL, public domain)

Washington's verdict is in: trying hard, moving too slowly — and a congressman says Nigeria's Attorney General called a bishop a liar.

The outcome of Thursday's House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa hearing — “One Year Later: Assessing Nigeria's Efforts to Protect Christians and Secure the Middle Belt”, chaired by Rep. Chris Smith — is now reported. State Department officials told the hearing that President Tinubu's administration has taken religious violence “extra seriously” since President Trump redesignated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) on 31 October 2025, but that the pace of progress is inadequate.

Frank Garcia, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, said the US expects “measurable improvements” — safety for Christian communities in the Middle Belt, faster responses to early warnings, accountability for perpetrators and deeper military cooperation — and that Under Secretary Hooker had made clear in the US–Nigeria Joint Working Group that “this tempo is inadequate”.

Smith said Nigeria's own Attorney General had personally dismissed Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi — who has testified to the subcommittee before — as “a liar”, and called Nigeria “one of the deadliest places in the world to be a Christian”. Smith pressed for passage of H.R. 7457, the Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026, and opposed lifting the CPC designation without evidence of considerable improvements.

The hearing produced no vote and no new law; the record passes to the new Congress taking office in January, when Smith gives up the subcommittee gavel. A full transcript had not been published at filing. Witnesses included Garcia, Riley Barnes (Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour), Oge Onubogu (CSIS), Nina Shea (Hudson Institute) and Bishop Anagbe (via Zoom), who testified that 278 people were killed in the 13 June 2025 Yelwata massacre. The casualty figures cited by witnesses are their claims, not verified findings.

Update, 13 Nov 2026 (morning): this article was updated with the outcome of the hearing — Garcia's “inadequate” pace, Smith's lines on the Attorney General and Bishop Anagbe, and the H.R. 7457 push. The hearing produced no vote, no law and no sanctions.

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