Kukah to US: Don’t redesignate Nigeria as country of concern — it’ll increase tensions

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.”