Who is working against Nigeria being labeled Countries of Particular Concern?

By Oscar Amaechina, Op-ed Contributor Tuesday, January 16, 2024

This image grab made from an AFPTV video taken in Maiyanga village, in Bokkos local government, on December 27, 2023, shows families burying in a mass grave their relatives killed in deadly attacks conducted by armed groups in Nigeria's central Plateau State. The death toll from a series of attacks on villages in central Nigeria has climbed to almost 200, local authorities said on December 27, 2023, as survivors began to bury the dead. Armed groups launched attacks between December 23, 2023, and December 26, 2023, in Nigeria's Plateau State, a region plagued for several years by religious and ethnic tensions. | KIM MASARA/AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently released lists of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) and Special Watch List (SWL) that designate countries with severe religious freedom violations. Surprisingly, Nigeria failed to make this list. Why this sudden change? If you recall, President Trump in 2020 included Nigeria in the list but President Biden removed it as soon as he assumed office.

What Nigerian Christians and people of goodwill all over the world do not understand is why it has become so difficult for the Biden administration to do the right thing. It is obvious that the religious freedom violations happening in Nigeria are just as bad or worse in some cases than what is happening in Burma, the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, and Pakistan, which are included on the CPC list. Why would Nigeria be excluded when, by all accounts, the horrors happening there are as bad if not worse than the countries listed above?

Christians in Nigeria are beginning to ask questions like, “Who is working against Nigeria’s inclusion in the list of Countries of Particular Concern? Are there high-powered international conspiracies to annihilate Nigerian Christians?”

The Nigerian government has denied any violations of religious rights and has attributed the ongoing killings to herder-farmer conflicts. If this is true, how come priests are slaughtered not in the farms, but in their pastorates? How many of those priests and Christians owned farmlands? The Nigerian government has remained indifferent over the years about the severe violation of religious freedom in the country and has not told the world the truth. Either they are complicit in this persecution or the true powers responsible for these religious freedom violations have become their masters.

The United States government seems to believe the Nigerian government more than its own agencies like the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Recently, Abraham Cooper and Frederick A. Davie, the chairman and the vice chairman of USCIRF, respectively, commented: “There is no justification as to why the State Department did not designate Nigeria or India as a Country of Particular Concern, despite its own reporting and statements. USCIRF calls on Congress to convene a public hearing on the failure of the State Department to follow our recommendations.”

The growing violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief in Nigeria will not cease without international attention, and that is why the enemy has blinded the eyes and deafened the ears of those concerned with this recent scandal. Let all people who are pained by what is happening in Nigeria pray for God to touch the eyes and ears of those in authority in the United States.

Oscar Amaechina is the president of Afri-Mission and Evangelism Network, Abuja, Nigeria. His calling is to take the gospel to where no one has neither preached nor heard about Jesus. He is the author of the book Mystery Of The Cross Revealed.