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A cross-party group of 209 British lawmakers has formally demanded that Prime Minister Keir Starmer raise the persecution and killing of Christians in Nigeria with President Bola Tinubu when the Nigerian leader arrives in Britain on Wednesday for a state visit, the first by a Nigerian president in 37 years and an occasion that both governments have sought to frame around trade, investment, and security cooperation.
Tinubu will be hosted by King Charles III at Windsor Castle on Wednesday, where he and his wife Oluremi Tinubu will attend a state banquet as guests of honor. He will then travel to 10 Downing Street on Thursday for formal talks with Starmer — a schedule that represents the most substantive engagement between the two countries’ governments since Nigeria’s president last visited London in a working capacity. The visit is underpinned by a strategic partnership agreed between the two countries in 2024, which established a framework for closer cooperation on trade, defense, security, migration, and development.
The parliamentary challenge comes from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Freedom of Religion or Belief, which wrote to International Development Minister Baroness Jenny Chapman urging the government to make human rights protections a formal agenda item at Downing Street. Jim Shannon, the Democratic Unionist Party MP who chairs the group, said Nigeria must “take concrete steps to prevent the harassment, persecution and killing of Christians, while ensuring that perpetrators are investigated and prosecuted.” The group has requested a written response from Chapman before the state visit begins.
The 209 signatories also demanded the government shed light on the case of Leah Sharibu, one of 110 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram militants from the Government Girls Secondary School in Dapchi, Yobe State, in February 2018. Unlike most of her classmates, who were released after several weeks, Sharibu has remained in captivity for eight years, reportedly because she refused to convert to Islam. She would now be 21 years old. No credible account of her current condition or location has been publicly confirmed since 2019, when the ISWAP faction holding her released a video message from her that she was in good health.
The APPG’s letter also urged Starmer to ensure human rights obligations are embedded in all future diplomatic, security, and trade discussions with Nigeria — a structural demand that, if accepted, would elevate the human rights dimension of the bilateral relationship beyond a ceremonial talking point.
Nigeria’s security context gives the parliamentary pressure substantial factual grounding. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, thousands of people have been killed in a single Nigerian state since the early 2000s, while the Nigeria Security Tracker estimates more than 60,000 deaths have occurred across the country since 2011 due to communal clashes and insurgent violence. The violence is concentrated heavily in the northeast and the Middle Belt, where ISWAP and Boko Haram have conducted sustained campaigns against both Christian and Muslim communities, as well as against security forces, local officials, and civil society figures. Islamist violence in Nigeria accounted for over 85 percent of all Islamist-related incidents on the continent in 2025, according to ACLED data.
The question of whether Nigeria is failing specifically to protect Christians — as opposed to failing to protect all civilians in conflict-affected regions regardless of religion — has been the subject of significant international disagreement. The Trump administration designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern under its International Religious Freedom Act framework, with Trump saying publicly that “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria.”
Tinubu rejected that characterization, saying it “does not reflect our national reality” and describing religious freedom as “a core tenet of our collective identity.” The US and Nigerian governments subsequently held a working group specifically to address the Country of Particular Concern designation. The Nigerian government’s formal position — consistently maintained across successive administrations — is that the violence in the Middle Belt and northeast is driven by land, water, and resource competition as well as by jihadist extremism, and that it targets communities of all faiths.
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Nigeria ranks among the world’s most dangerous nations for Christians according to Open Doors and Global Christian Relief, which compile annual risk indices for Christian communities. Sharia law operates in 12 northern states, where the practice of Christianity in certain public contexts is subject to legal restriction, and armed groups have conducted kidnappings and church burnings across the Middle Belt and Kaduna State.
The visit carries an additional dimension through the engagements of the First Lady. Oluremi Tinubu, who is a Christian pastor while her husband is Muslim, will be hosted by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, at Lambeth Palace on Thursday for a prayer service where she is expected to preach. She will also meet representatives from the Church of England and faith-based charities operating in Nigeria, including Christian Aid, at a reception at the palace. Mullally is expected to raise human rights concerns during those interactions.
The bilateral agenda for Tinubu’s Downing Street talks with Starmer is expected to prioritize economic issues, including British investment in Nigeria’s energy transition, digital infrastructure, and financial services. The UK-Nigeria Strategic Partnership agreed in 2024 identifies clean energy, defense industrial cooperation, and technology transfer as priority areas. Nigeria is Britain’s largest bilateral trade partner in sub-Saharan Africa, and Tinubu’s government has been seeking to attract British private capital to its infrastructure and manufacturing sectors as part of the broader economic stabilization program that has occupied his administration since the subsidy removal and currency reforms of 2023.
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The visit also takes place against the backdrop of the US-Israeli war on Iran, to which Nigeria’s government has responded by calling for de-escalation and condemning the unilateral use of force outside UN Security Council authorization. The Nigerian government warned of “potentially grave consequences for regional and global stability” following the February 28 strikes on Iran and called for restraint. That position places Nigeria broadly aligned with the UK’s own stated preference for diplomatic resolution, though London has been more cautious than Abuja in its public framing.
Baroness Chapman’s office had not issued a public response to the APPG letter as of Sunday. The Nigerian presidency confirmed the state visit dates but made no public comment on the human rights demands raised by the parliamentary group.
