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 system-
atic, 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) sub-
mitted 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 egre-
gious 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 Nige-
ria 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’’; 
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•HRES 82 IH 
Whereas, in 2021 and 2022, the Department of State omit-
ted Nigeria from its CPC list; 
Whereas, in 2022, the U.S. Commission on International Re-
ligious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that the De-
partment of State redesignate Nigeria as a CPC and 
found the Department of State’s decision to delist Nige-
ria ‘‘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 par-
ticularly hard’’ and that ‘‘the Nigerian Government has 
often failed to respond sufficiently to violence against re-
ligious 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 Fed-
eral State, and traditionally political power has been bal-
anced between Muslims and Christians, Northerners and 
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•HRES 82 IH 
Southerners, and among Nigeria’s 371 different ethnic 
groups; 
Whereas President Muhammadu Buhari has favored and pro-
moted fellow Fulani and other northern Muslim ethnic 
groups, while many of Nigeria’s diverse ethnic and reli-
gious 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 Commis-
sion 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 se-
lection of Muslims as leaders of both houses of the na-
tional legislature; 
Whereas President Buhari’s party, the All Progressives Con-
gress, 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 fail-
ing 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 
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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’ Con-
ference, and four other bishops on the conference’s ad-
ministrative board met with President Buhari to appeal 
for civil protections in Nigeria, stating, ‘‘[o]ur Church 
personnel have been frequent victims in terms of kidnap-
ping 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 be-
longed to Fulani’’; 
Whereas imams were also abducted in 2022, according to Ni-
gerian 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 ‘‘ter-
rorists’’; 
Whereas in northern and central Nigeria, near-weekly, violent 
assaults on churches and their congregations are report-
edly carried out by designated terror groups, Fulani mili-
tants 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 
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2020 Vatican report of its interview of a Nigerian Catho-
lic 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 displace-
ment, and the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Refugees (UNHCR) reports that this has resulted in over 
3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in north-
eastern Nigeria, and 343,000 registered refugee Nige-
rians 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 ter-
rorist raid of her school, in Dapchi, Yobe State, in 2018; 
Whereas the British All Party Parliament Group (APPG) re-
port of 2020 finds that some Fulani herders ‘‘dem-
onstrated a clear intent to target Christians and symbols 
of Christian identity such as churches’’, and, during at-
tacks, 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 kidnap-
ping up to 25 in the congregation, including 5 women 
and girls; 
Whereas, on June 5, 2022, for the first time in southern Ni-
geria, a church was attacked during a Pentecost Sunday 
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