A faith-based human rights organization, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has flayed the decision by the United States to impose sanctions on some Nigerians as lopsided, unjust and selective.
Recall that that five United States lawmakers recently proposed a bill seeking to impose sanctions, including visa ban and asset freeze, on a former governor of Kano State and the national leader of the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP), Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), and Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, among others.
According to the Executive Director of the group, Professor Ishaq Akintola, who commented on Thursday, 12th February, 2026, government officials in Southern Nigeria who have been persecuting Muslims in the region as well as leaders of Christian militia groups in North Central Nigeria whose terror machines have been killing Muslim residents and Muslim travellers in the zone for decades should be sanctioned by the US to make the exercise balanced, objective and transparent. Akintola condemned selective choice of groups and individuals.
He spoke further: “We take the decision of the US Congress to sanction Muslims alone with a pinch of salt. It amounts to scapegoating, preconceived judgement and crusade-brandishing.
Coming to Nigeria with the avowed aim of protecting Christians carries with it the implications of coming to promote Christianity, coming to deter the prosecution of Christian criminals who are behind the killing of hundreds of Muslim travellers in Plateau State, coming to undermine Islam, coming to persecute Muslims and coming to encourage Muslim haters.
We affirm that there is denial of religious freedom and religious extremism in Nigeria. But we identify the culprits behind this heinous crime as religious fanatics among both Christians and Muslims. In short, we are saying there are Muslim extremists and there are Christian extremists.
Now, if sanctions are to be imposed on certain figures and groups, such sanctions must be comprehensive and unbiased, not selective and lopsided. For an objective sanction exercise, therefore, the US must beam its searchlight on the whole country.
As a Muslim human rights group that has been in operation for 32 years (since 1994) MURIC has records of proven acts of inhumanity, discrimination, marginalization, denial of religious freedom and other acts of violation of rights committed by individual Christian state actors in Southern Nigeria as well as criminal Christian militia groups and we are prepared to present them to the US or the United Nations or any other international audience if given the opportunity.
“For the avoidance of doubts, we assert clearly, unequivocally and emphatically that Christian militia groups of North Central Nigeria who are well known by the state governments have killed thousands of Muslims in the past decades.
“If, therefore, Northern Muslims are being marked for sanctions, present and past governors and government officials of North Central Nigeria who have funded, enabled and protected Christian terrorists in the zone deserve conspicuous spaces on the list.
However, we nurse the suspicion that even US officials have always preferred to listen to Nigerian Christians without seeking to hear from Muslims to balance the stories and for justice, equity and fairness.
This explains why the US Congress has always been anxious to invite Christian activists and clergymen from Nigeria without inviting their Muslim counterparts. This attitude is contrary to the well known principle of justice (audi alteram partem i.e. hear from the other side).
”In the present circumstances, with the US false designation of Nigeria as a country perpetrating genocide against Christians without proper investigation and without hearing from the other side, coupled with the fact that the US has also landed its troops on Nigerian soil ‘to protect Nigerian Christians’ while individual Muslim leaders are being marked for sanctions, Nigerian Muslims have no other option than to cry out to the outside world.
”We therefore wish to alert the global community to these ugly developments in Nigeria. After decades of forceful conversion and failed attempts to turn Nigeria to the land of Jesus (as proclaimed by Christian leaders on several occasions), leaders of the minority Christians in the country have conspired to level false allegations of Christian genocide against us, the majority Muslims, and invited the US military to stem the growth of Islam.
”As at today, the 12th of February, 2026, we nurse the palpable fear of the arrival of the age of conversion to Christianity at gunpoint, aided and abetted by the US military. Muslims have become endangered species in Nigeria.
“For the world to believe the US is not on a recycled crusade, the US needs to sanction the following: Southern Nigeria governors and their government officials who go out of their way to deprive Muslims of their Allah-given fundamental human rights; those who disenfranchise Muslims by denying them voters cards on account of their dressing as Muslims; those who defy court judgements and violate the rights of the Muslim girl child; those who compel Muslim students to attend church services or face expulsion from school on university campuses; those who deny Muslims access to public health, education services, national identity cards, driving licences, international travelling passports, etc by telling women to remove their hijab and the men to remove their caps or turbans; those who deny employment opportunities to eminently qualified Muslim applicants on account of their being Muslims as well as those who marginalise Muslims in political appointments in Nigeria’s Southern states where Muslims are the majority (particularly in four Yoruba states of the South West: Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and Osun).
“The US must not turn its eyes away from all these atrocities committed by Nigerian Christians against their Muslim compatriots on a daily basis, even up till this morning because we receive reports of these human rights abuses against Muslims everyday. Education, health and virtually all vital sectors have been occupied by Nigerian Christians in Southern Nigeria and weaponized to commit grave human rights offences against Muslims.
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“Nigerian Muslims have no reason to antagonize America. Neither has there ever been any declared hostility between the US and Nigerian Muslims. It is also true that apart from millions of Americans who are Muslims, hundreds of Nigerian Muslims make their living in the US. It is therefore in our mutual interest to avoid tension.
“This is why the US needs to do more findings before labeling or sanctioning law-abiding and peace-loving Nigerian Muslims. Boko Haram and ISIS terrorists should not be given the chance to rejoice at having succeeded in killing moderate Muslims and at the same time getting America to sanction them!”
