UNITED States President Donald Trump has appointed two members of the House of Representatives to lead an investigation into Christian genocide in Nigeria.
According to the U.S.-based Washington Post, Mr Trump has appointed House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) and Rep. Riley Moore (R-West Virginia) to lead the investigation.
Mr Moore has been one of the most vocal U.S. legislators campaigning against anti-Christian practices in Nigeria. He introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives last Thursday condemning what he called ‘the ongoing persecution of Christians in Nigeria,’ supporting President Trump’s announcement to officially designate Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern.’
The newspaper quoted a White House official, who reiterated the threat of military intervention in Nigeria. The official insisted that Nigeria was facing “a complex array of threats from terrorist groups and violent extremist organisations that is affecting wide portions of the country.”
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Mr Trump, two weekends ago, took two decisive decisions against Nigeria over an alleged genocide against Christians and the government’s inability to contain it. He first redesignated Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ and followed it up with a threat to cut off aid and invade the nation to “wipe out Islamic terrorists,” Economy Post had reported.
Washington Post reported on Sunday that Trump’s threat to go ‘guns-a-blazing’ into Africa’s most populous country was the result of a months-long pressure campaign on behalf of Nigerian Christians by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and American evangelical leaders, but Trump’s threats surprised even those who had been pushing the issue.
“The threat caught many off guard and generated immediate concern within United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), which directs American military operations across the continent. Leaders told the Pentagon they had other priorities, according to three people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations. One of those familiar said AFRICOM also communicated that striking a region with limited U.S. presence and intelligence was unlikely to make a difference,” the newspaper noted.
“In 2018, he stood in the Rose Garden with then-President Muhammadu Buhari and said he was ‘deeply concerned by religious violence … including the burning of churches and the killing and persecution of Christians.’ Two years later, his State Department listed Nigeria as a “country of particular concern,” or CPC, a legal designation that opens to door to sanctions on nations that violate religious freedoms,” the newspaper wrote.
“Under the Biden administration, that designation was dropped without explanation, which “enraged” advocates like Sean Nelson, the senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. When Trump returned to office, Nelson said, ‘people had high hopes that concern for persecuted Christians would come back.'”
Though allegations of religious genocide is not widely accepted in Nigeria, some pastors and missionaries in Nigeria’s North say Christians are persecuted and targeted. A vocal advocate against violence targeting Christians in Plateau State, Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, earlier showed the graves of 501 Christians murdered by terrorists.
Last week, he threatened to drag the Nigerian government before the International Criminal Court over the alleged genocide of Christians in the northern part of the country.
“The world needs to know that what we are saying is not false. I will go to any length to prove that this government is lying. We are also planning to take Nigeria before the International Criminal Court and sue the Miyetti Allah association for their role in these atrocities,” the cleric said, accusing the government and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) of neglecting the alleged killings of Christians.
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In his October 21 speech at the Augustinian Patristic Pontifical Institute in Rome, however, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, had said that it was not just Christians who were being persecuted across the nation, noting that ‘floods of blood in Nigeria’ today “have no boundaries.”
He stressed that terrorist groups who first targeted Church structures, kidnapping priests, seminarians and other pastors invoked the words like ‘allahu akubar,’ noting that they were now also killing Muslims who did not believe in their brand of Islam.
