IV 

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’’; 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS
2 

•HRES 82 IH 

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 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS
3 

•HRES 82 IH 

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 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS
4 

•HRES 82 IH 

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 MasamaMudi 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 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS
5 

•HRES 82 IH 

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 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS
6 

•HRES 82 IH 

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; 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS
7 

•HRES 82 IH 

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 

1 Resolved, That— 

2 (1) the Secretary of State should immediately 

3 designate Nigeria a ‘‘country of particular concern’’ 

4 for engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, 

5 and egregious violations of religious freedom, as 

6 mandated by the International Religious Freedom 

7 Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq.); and 

8 (2) in order to ensure that the Secretary of 

9 State receives more complete and accurate reporting 

10 and analysis, the President should promptly appoint 

11 a person of recognized distinction in the fields of re12 ligious freedom and human rights as ‘‘Special Envoy 

13 for Nigeria and the Lake Chad Region’’ with the 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS
8 

•HRES 82 IH 

1 rank of Ambassador, who reports directly to the Sec2 retary of State and coordinates United States Gov3 ernment efforts to monitor and combat atrocities 

4 there. 

Æ 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42PROD with BILLS