[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 82 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 82
Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the need to designate
Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in and tolerating
systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, the
need to appoint a Special Envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region,
and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 31, 2023
Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. Cuellar, and Mr. Hill)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the need to designate
Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in and tolerating
systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, the
need to appoint a Special Envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad region,
and for other purposes.
Whereas in 2020, the Department of State designated Nigeria a Country of
Particular Concern (CPC) pursuant to the International Religious Freedom
Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq.), finding that it is ``engaging in
or tolerating'' ``systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious
freedom'';
Whereas, in 2021 and 2022, the Department of State omitted Nigeria from its CPC
list;
Whereas, in 2022, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
(USCIRF) recommended that the Department of State redesignate Nigeria as
a CPC and found the Department of State's decision to delist Nigeria
``inexplicable'', and a result of ``turning a blind eye'' to that
country's ``particularly severe religious freedom violations'';
Whereas USCIRF finds that ``in Nigeria's Middle Belt, nonstate armed groups also
conducted attacks on houses of worship, religious ceremonies, and
religious leaders, with Christian communities and their churches hit
particularly hard'' and that ``the Nigerian Government has often failed
to respond sufficiently to violence against religious leaders and
congregations'';
Whereas, in January 2023, Open Doors reported in Nigeria there were ``5,014
Christians killed in 2022, nearly 90 percent of the total number of
Christians killed worldwide . . . [and] almost 90 percent of kidnappings
carried out against Christians in 2022'';
Whereas according to some experts, the northern-based Miyetti Allah Cattle
Breeders Association, a Fulani herdsmen advocacy group, supports
reestablishing a Fulani empire, modeled upon the caliphate in northern
Nigeria established by Usman dan Fodio, in the early 19th century;
Whereas Nigeria is an ethnically and religiously diverse Federal State, and
traditionally political power has been balanced between Muslims and
Christians, Northerners and Southerners, and among Nigeria's 371
different ethnic groups;
Whereas President Muhammadu Buhari has favored and promoted fellow Fulani and
other northern Muslim ethnic groups, while many of Nigeria's diverse
ethnic and religious groups, including Igbo and Yoruba as well as
Christians and Shia Muslims, report they are denied equal rights;
Whereas, on July 13, 2021, in testimony at a congressional hearing before the
Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission by Bishop Matthew Kukah of Sokoto,
representing the Catholic Church in Nigeria, stated that the ``Muslim
elite'' ``us[es] religion as a tool for political mobilisation'', and
further stated that President Buhari shows a clear preference for
appointing ``men and women of his faith'';
Whereas departures from past conventions aimed at achieving ethnic, religious,
and geographic balance include the forced replacement of then-Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court Walter Onnoghen with a Muslim jurist, and
the selection of Muslims as leaders of both houses of the national
legislature;
Whereas President Buhari's party, the All Progressives Congress, in a departure
from customary practice, nominated two Muslims to its 2023 Presidential
ticket, selecting as vice presidential candidate Kashim Shettima, whose
past tenure as governor of Borno State was criticized for failing to
adequately address jihadi violence perpetrated by Boko Haram;
Whereas the Aid to the Church in Need reports that, since early 2022 alone, 20
Nigerian Catholic priests have been kidnapped, 5 of whom were murdered,
with many of these attacks occurring on church grounds;
Whereas, on January 11, 2023, Bishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, president of the
Nigerian Catholic Bishops' Conference, and four other bishops on the
conference's administrative board met with President Buhari to appeal
for civil protections in Nigeria, stating, ``[o]ur Church personnel have
been frequent victims in terms of kidnapping or outright murder'';
Whereas the Methodist Church reported on May 29, 2022, that eight Fulani
militants abducted and tortured its head, Prelate Samuel Kanu-Uche, a
chaplain, and Bishop Dennis Mark of Owerri, who were released after
paying a $240,000 ransom, while the militants warned, ``We will finish
you people and take over this land'', according to Bishop Kanu, who
added, ``They claimed that Nigeria belonged to Fulani'';
Whereas imams were also abducted in 2022, according to Nigerian media reports,
with the chief imam of Masama-Mudi village, Zamfara, being abducted from
his mosque on December 29, 2022, by unknown assailants, and an imam
being abducted in Zugu, Zamfara State, in a mosque attack on September
2, 2022, reportedly by ``terrorists'';
Whereas in northern and central Nigeria, near-weekly, violent assaults on
churches and their congregations are reportedly carried out by
designated terror groups, Fulani militants and other nonstate actors,
who act with impunity;
Whereas northern Nigeria has seen the destruction of ``over 17,000 churches
since 2009'' in attacks by Boko Haram militants, Fulani herdsmen, and
others, according to a 2020 Vatican report of its interview of a
Nigerian Catholic civil rights expert, and in 2021, the Department of
State reported five attacks on mosques by unidentified gunmen, bandits,
and Boko Haram;
Whereas, for over a decade, Islamic terror organizations have carried out mass
murder, rape, kidnappings, and other atrocities on Nigerians of various
ethnic and religious backgrounds, causing unspeakable suffering and
displacement, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) reports that this has resulted in over 3 million internally
displaced persons (IDPs) in northeastern Nigeria, and 343,000 registered
refugee Nigerians in the Lake Chad region;
Whereas terrorist group Boko Haram, whose name means ``Western education is
forbidden'', kidnapped over 200 mostly Christian schoolgirls in 2014 in
Chibok, Borno State; 100 remain captive and are sexually abused and
pressured to convert to Islam, and Leah Sharibu, a Christian, remains
captive and enslaved following a terrorist raid of her school, in
Dapchi, Yobe State, in 2018;
Whereas the British All Party Parliament Group (APPG) report of 2020 finds that
some Fulani herders ``demonstrated a clear intent to target Christians
and symbols of Christian identity such as churches'', and, during
attacks, shouted ``Allah u Akbar'', ``destroy the infidels'', and ``wipe
out the infidels'', and on January 15, 2023, assailants reportedly
attacked New Life for All Church in Katsina, shooting and wounding the
pastor and kidnapping up to 25 in the congregation, including 5 women
and girls;
Whereas, on June 5, 2022, for the first time in southern Nigeria, a church was
attacked during a Pentecost Sunday Mass, when terrorists massacred 40
worshippers and wounded scores more in a shooting attack on St. Francis
Xavier Catholic Church in Owo City, in Ondo State, and none of the
suspects have been convicted and sentenced;
Whereas the Department of State mischaracterizes or incompletely characterizes
the increasing incidents of large scale violence in Nigeria's northern
and central rural regions as ``communal clashes'' between Muslim herders
and Christian farmers, solely attributable to competition for scarce
natural resources resulting from climate change;
Whereas USCIRF reports that ``Fulani-affiliated armed groups used religious
rhetoric while conducting myriad attacks on predominantly Christian
villages in Kaduna State'', and that ``[k]idnappers also reportedly
deliberately targeted Christians for abduction and execution'';
Whereas USCIRF concludes that the Nigerian Government has ``routinely failed to
investigate these attacks [on Christian communities] and prosecute those
responsible, demonstrating a problematic level of apathy on the part of
state officials'';
Whereas the UNHCR reports that there are over 2.1 million IDPs in northeastern
Nigeria, and 304,562 registered refugee Nigerians in the Lake Chad
region;
Whereas USCIRF cites Nigeria's Islamic blasphemy laws among the reasons it lists
Nigeria as worthy of CPC designation, given that Nigeria is one of only
7 countries with criminal blasphemy laws that carry the death penalty,
with such laws existing in the 12 majority-Muslim northern Nigerian
States;
Whereas, in 2020, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, a Sufi musician, was convicted of
blasphemy after sharing lyrics on WhatsApp and sentenced to death
without legal representation in Kano; Muslim clerics, Abdul and Sheikh
Abduljabbar Nasiru-Kabara, are now on death row for blasphemy in Kano;
and Nigeria's Humanist Association and former Muslim Mubarak Bala
received a 24-year sentence for apostasy in 2022; and
Whereas, on May 12, 2022, Deborah Yakubu, a Christian student, was beaten to
death by a mob on her school's campus in Sokoto for alleged blasphemy
against Islam on WhatsApp, only two suspects were arrested on minor
charges, and for criticizing Yakubu's murder, the Sultan of Sokoto and
Sokoto's Catholic Bishop Matthew Kukah faced serious death threats from
others who acted with impunity: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That--
(1) the Secretary of State should immediately designate
Nigeria a ``country of particular concern'' for engaging in and
tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of
religious freedom, as mandated by the International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq.); and
(2) in order to ensure that the Secretary of State receives
more complete and accurate reporting and analysis, the
President should promptly appoint a person of recognized
distinction in the fields of religious freedom and human rights
as ``Special Envoy for Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region'' with
the rank of Ambassador, who reports directly to the Secretary
of State and coordinates United States Government efforts to
monitor and combat atrocities there.
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