US lawmaker, others canvass for Nigeria’s re-enlistment for its ‘slow-motion genocide’
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Representative Chris Smith, a leading human rights fighter in the United States Congress, and several other top religious freedom agitators are pressing the Joe Biden administration to re-add Nigeria, India, Vietnam, and Afghanistan to its blacklist of worst violators of citizens’ freedom to practice their faith of choice.
Smith and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who chairs a government-created independent body that monitors religious freedom violations around the world, questioned the decision of Washington against placing those countries on the State Department’s list of “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPCs), citing years of well-documented evidence of “particularly severe” violations.
The report was forwarded to The Niche by Emmanual Ogebe, a Nigerian-American who is Managing Partner at US Nigeria Law Group (USNLG) in Washington, a regular commentator on Nigerian affairs.
The omission of those countries, especially Nigeria, from the official U.S. religious freedom blacklist has spurred controversy among many human rights groups.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken removed Nigeria from the in 2021, reversing a decision by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in December 2020 to designate Africa’s most populous nation as a CPC.
Earlier this year, Smith introduced legislation that calls on the Biden administration to designate Nigeria as a CPC and appoint a special envoy to the country and the Lake Chad region to monitor and combat atrocities there.
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Related articles:
Activists in US, UK rail against Nigeria’s week of bloodbath
US lawmakers want Nigeria relisted as religious persecutor
CSW wants Nigeria back on religious freedom violators’ list
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Nigeria, the world’s most dangerous place to be a Christian
Nigeria is the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian, particularly in the North, even though Christians make up nearly half of its population of 200 million.
Islamist radicals – including terror groups such as Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province, and radicalised Faluni tribesmen – regularly attack entire Christian communities, torching churches and villages, and kidnapping and killing Pastors and their congregations.
The violence against Christians has taken place for decades but has escalated in recent years in what Cooper described as a “slow-motion genocide.”
Open Doors International, areligious freedom watchdog, said more than 5,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2022 alone, accounting for nearly 90 per cent of Christian deaths worldwide.
The Biden administration attributes the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria not to religious persecution but to a conflict over resources exacerbated by climate change.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which Cooper chairs, and other leading human rights organisations disagree.
