Matthew Kukah, the Catholic bishop of the Sokoto diocese, has urged the US government not to redesignate Nigeria as a country of particular concern (CPC).
Kukah spoke on Tuesday at the launch of the Aid to the
Church in Need (ACIN) 2025 report on religious freedom in the world, held at
the Augustinianum hall in Vatican City.
The CPC is a designation by the US government of any country
that engages in “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious
freedom”.
Recently, US lawmakers have increasingly called on President
Donald Trump to impose sanctions on Nigeria as a CPC owing to claims of
Christian genocide in Nigeria.
Ted Cruz, a US senator, had proposed a bill that seeks to
protect “persecuted” Christians in Nigeria.
However, the federal government has repeatedly denied the
claim.
Nigeria was first designated a CPC in 2020, during the last
year of Trump’s first term as president. However, the Joe Biden administration
later reversed the move in 2021.
‘CPC WILL HURT INITIATIVES TO RESOLVE CHALLENGES’
Kukah said the ongoing initiatives to address the challenges
and the alleged “persecution of Christians” would be undermined if Nigeria is
redesignated as a CPC.
The Catholic bishop said Nigerians “feel vulnerable and
unprotected irrespective of their faiths, ethnicity or social classes”.
He alleged that the administration of the late former
President Muhammadu Buhari “marked the worst phase in the history of interfaith
relations in Nigeria, especially relating to violence against Christians and
their exclusion from power”.
Kukah added that the current administration of President
Bola Tinubu has taken steps to inspire confidence in citizens, adding that the
situation is far from perfect.
“I do believe that today, acts of impunity still persist,
but it is my view that redesignating Nigeria a Country of Concern will hurt the
initiatives we are working on with the current government to collectively
resolve the nagging problems of, first, the persecution of Christians and, of
course, the larger issues of ending the mindless killings of our citizens,”
Kukah said.
“Designating my country, Nigeria, a Country of Concern will
only make our work in the area of dialogue among religious leaders in our
country and elsewhere with the Nigerian state even harder.
“It will only increase tensions, sow doubt, open windows of
suspicion and fear and simply allow the criminals and perpetrators of violence
to exploit.
“What Nigeria needs now is more vigilance by the
organisations such as the ACIN and civil society groups to continue to press
for change and to deliberately work to end impunity.
“I believe that the Obama and Biden administrations were
complicit in the way they handled the fight against Boko Haram under the
presidency of Goodluck Jonathan. The country was already making progress.
“The decision to block Nigeria’s access to the required
weapons to end this violence by the Obama administration and their drive to
impose President Buhari on Nigeria pushed back this fight.
“I therefore appeal to President Donald Trump, who is
already working hard to show that a peaceful world is possible with his
historic achievement in the Middle East, to lift the ban and allow Nigeria
access to the military tools it requires to free our country from the
stranglehold of these evil men.
“I believe this will set us on a course to end the violence
that extremist groups and merchants of death have inflicted on us.”
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