Thousands of Christians peacefully and prayerfully march to a rally in front of the Nigerian Plateau state governor’s office building in protest of the 2023 Christmas massacre that left over 200 Christian Nigerians dead, Jan. 8, 2024. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Rev. Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam, photo by Plateau State Government Media Team
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 7, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
The House Foreign Affairs Committee has advanced a resolution to increase sanctions and pressure on the Nigerian government over the rampant persecution of Christians and other minorities in the country.
Sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, the resolution would call on the Biden administration to designate Nigeria a “country of particular concern” (CPC), a designation that comes with additional sanctions.
The resolution would also urge the administration to appoint a special U.S. envoy to Nigeria to monitor and report on incidents of persecution.
Smith and other proponents of the bill, including Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADF), maintain that adding Nigeria to the State Department’s CPC blacklist would be an effective means to pressure the Nigerian government to address the persecution.
Sean Nelson, a legal counsel for ADF, has previously told CNA that the CPC list is “the most powerful tool the U.S. government has to influence the religious freedom situation in other countries.”
For years now Nigeria has been recognized by religious rights groups as one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a Christian. According to Open Doors International 4,998 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2023, meaning that 82% of all Christians killed for their faith last year were in Nigeria.
In late January, Nigerian Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of the Diocese of Makurdi told CNA that the persecution amounts to a Christian “genocide” in which radical Islamic groups’ goal is to “systematically” eliminate the Christian population from Nigeria.
Despite this, the Biden administration has left Nigeria off the CPC list for the last three years. This year the administration’s decision to leave Nigeria off the list came just weeks after a series of attacks on Christmas left more than 200 Nigerian Christians dead.
“Following the Biden administration’s repeated failure to designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern despite widespread outcry, we are grateful to the members of Congress who are taking these vital steps to increase pressure on Nigeria for its egregious violations of religious freedom,” Nelson said in a Wednesday press release.
“No person should be persecuted for their faith, and it is imperative that the U.S. government condemn the targeted violence, unjust imprisonments, and egregious blasphemy laws that plague Christians and religious minorities in Nigeria,” he added.
Nelson told CNA that the resolution “lays out an undeniable case that Nigeria has engaged in and tolerated egregious, systematic, and ongoing violations of religious freedom, and some of the worst in the world, particularly for Christians in the north.”
If Congress passes the resolution, Nelson said he hopes the Biden administration would “listen and change course.”
“More importantly,” he said, he believes the resolution’s passage “would send an immense signal of support for the victims of persecution in Nigeria themselves, who have asked for the international community to raise their voices and would put pressure on the Nigerian government to take the persecution seriously, hold attackers accountable, and free those who have been imprisoned and charged under blasphemy-related allegations.”
“There has already been a great amount of outcry over the lack of the CPC designation for Nigeria by the USCIRF and civil society organizations that focus on international religious freedom,” he said. “Having the voice of Congress echo those concerns would also give the concerns an international amplification that is sorely needed.”
According to Nelson, the Nigerian resolution will now move forward for a vote in the House. However, no date has been set for when the vote will take place.
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It is not like the Church had not be warned that the atheistic anarchists were coming…..
There are many adversaries against Christ. When we do wrong it emboldens them. When we do what is honouring to Christ, goodness and peace come back towards us. Many sacrificed to build and maintain the church, may their deeds be ascribed to the gift of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. The world does not understand the following verses, yet we who love the Lord, understand that He is on His throne and will reward those who love Him.
This act is against God. Our lives here are fraught, yet Christ has conquered and loves us. That is most important.
Romans 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
1 Corinthians 15:57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 John 4:4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
2 Corinthians 2:14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
A church near me which was not an active church but an historic one in a park was recently vandalized, all the windows broken and the doors kicked in. People are getting away with this because they are not punished when captured.Attacks on houses of worship should be treated like the hate crimes which they are. And the punishment should be serious. While the anti-religion DEMs are in charge, dont count on it.
The remoteness of the church means that the members probably didn’t see the building as a likely target. However, my surmise is that someone locally did this. Regardless, burning the church won’t stop God’s work no matter how hard the abortionists try.