The United States House of Representatives Committees on Appropriations and Foreign Affairs have formally submitted a report to the White House detailing findings on alleged persecution of Christians in Nigeria, with recommendations that include sanctions and possible funding restrictions.
US Congressman Riley Moore confirmed the submission on Monday, stating that the document outlines “concrete actions to end the persecution of Christians in Nigeria and counter growing extremist violence in the region.”
The report follows President Donald Trump’s decision to redesignate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) and his directive mandating Moore and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole to lead a detailed congressional investigation.
Months of Investigation
According to Moore, the report was the product of months of hearings, consultations with religious leaders, expert testimonies and bipartisan fact-finding visits to Nigeria.
During one of the visits, the delegation toured Internally Displaced Persons camps in Benue State, met victims of terrorism and held discussions with senior Nigerian officials, including the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.
Moore said the investigative team gained deeper insight into Nigeria’s security challenges and threats facing Christian communities.
Sanctions, Security Pact Proposed
The report recommends a bilateral US–Nigeria security agreement aimed at protecting vulnerable Christian communities and dismantling jihadist networks.
It also proposes withholding certain US funds pending measurable steps by the Nigerian government to curb violence.
Other recommendations include imposing sanctions and visa restrictions on individuals and groups allegedly responsible for religious persecution, providing technical support to address violence linked to armed Fulani militias, demanding repeal of Sharia and blasphemy laws, and strengthening collaboration with international partners such as France, Hungary and the United Kingdom.
Moore urged Nigerian authorities to view the recommendations as an opportunity to deepen ties with the United States, describing enhanced cooperation as mutually beneficial.
He thanked President Trump for redesignating Nigeria as a CPC and acknowledged the roles played by congressional leaders, including Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, Vice Chair Mario Diaz-Balart, and Congressman Chris Smith, in producing the report.
The Nigerian government has yet to issue an official response to the submission at the time of filing this report.
US Congress Submits Nigeria ‘Christian Persecution’ Report, Recommends Sanctions
Tinubu Directs IGP Egbetokun to Resign, Appoints Tunji Disu as Successor
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed the resignation of the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, paving the way for the appointment of Tunji Disu as his replacement.
A Presidency source disclosed on Tuesday that Egbetokun was asked to step down during a meeting with the President at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday.
Disu, an Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of the Force Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Annex, Lagos, is expected to take over leadership of the Nigeria Police Force.
Egbetokun was appointed as the 22nd indigenous Inspector-General of Police on June 19, 2023, with his position later confirmed by the Police Council on October 31, 2023.
Though he was due for retirement on September 4, 2024, upon attaining the mandatory age of 60, the National Assembly amended the Police Act, enabling him to complete a four-year tenure unless removed by the President.
Following the amendment, Egbetokun was projected to remain in office until October 31, 2027, before the latest development cut short his tenure.
As of press time, there was no official statement from the Presidency detailing the reasons for the change in leadership at the nation’s police hierarchy.
Court Fixes March 24 to Decide Suit Seeking Deregistration of ADC, Accord, ZLP, AA
The Federal High Court in Abuja has fixed March 24 to rule on a joinder application in a suit seeking to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister four political parties over alleged constitutional violations.
Justice Peter Lifu adjourned the matter after hearing arguments from parties in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2637/25.
The case was instituted by the Incorporated Trustees of the National Forum of Former Legislators against INEC, the Attorney-General of the Federation and the affected political parties — African Democratic Congress, Accord Party, Zenith Labour Party and Action Alliance.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to compel INEC to enforce constitutional thresholds for political parties and to restrain the commission from recognising or giving effect to the activities of the affected parties pending full compliance.
They argued that allowing the parties to participate in the 2027 general elections would overcrowd ballot papers, waste public resources and undermine electoral integrity.
Originally filed against ADC alone, the suit was later amended to include the three other parties.
Drama Over Legal Representation
At the resumed hearing, a mild drama unfolded when Action Alliance appeared to have two separate legal representatives — Ibrahim Yakubu and Bello Lukman — both claiming legitimacy.
Justice Lifu directed the lawyers to reconcile their positions, warning that the court would “do the needful” if they failed to resolve the issue.
Applications and Counter-Affidavits
Counsel to Accord Party, Musibau Adetunbi (SAN), moved an application seeking leave to file a further counter-affidavit, arguing that vital facts omitted in the earlier process needed to be placed before the court in the interest of justice.
However, counsel to the plaintiffs opposed the request, contending that no new facts were introduced in the amended originating summons to warrant a further counter-affidavit. He described the application as incompetent and unknown to law.
In a related development, the plaintiffs’ counsel informed the court of an application to amend the originating summons, dated January 28, which had been served on all parties.
Some respondents, including S.E. Aruwa (SAN), sought an extension of time to regularise their processes and also filed a motion challenging the jurisdiction of the court.
Despite opposition from the plaintiffs, Justice Lifu granted the request for extension of time and deemed the necessary processes properly filed.
The court subsequently adjourned to March 24 for ruling on the joinder application and other pending motions.
Fubara Hails APC’s Ukalikpe, Bulabari on Rivers Bye-Election Wins
Governor Siminalayi Fubara has congratulated All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates Ukalikpe Napoleon and Loolo Bulabari Henrietta on their victory in Saturday’s bye-elections into the Rivers State House of Assembly.
The Independent National Electoral Commission conducted the polls on February 21, 2026, to fill vacant seats in Ahoada East State Constituency and Khana State Constituency II.
At the end of the exercise, Ukalikpe emerged winner in Ahoada East, while Bulabari clinched victory in Khana II, defeating candidates of other political parties.
Reacting to the outcome in a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Onwuka Nzeshi, Governor Fubara described the victories as well deserved.
“It is the beauty of democracy. When the people believe in your capacity, they will give you their votes. I look forward to working with them and their colleagues in the State House of Assembly,” the governor said.
Fubara also commended residents of the affected constituencies for maintaining peace and order before, during and after the elections, noting that their conduct reflected growing democratic maturity in the state.
The Ocular Confusion of a Dishonest Hack
*The Ocular Confusion of a Dishonest Hack*
By Kehinde Bamigbetan
Despite his pernicious campaign of calumny, Biliyaminu Suraj’s discovery that his hands cannot cover the current effervescence of Nigeria’s miraculous bounce back into the limelight of the global mining industry has inflicted ocular confusion and resulted in selective hyperthropia. How could the spider’s web of innuendoes, falsehoods and deliberate misinformation spawned by this discredited malcontent disturb the humongous march of the elephantine achievements of the Minister of Solid Minerals Development from London to Cape Town, Washington DC to Riyadh and Tokyo to Perth?
In the last year, home and abroad, it has been a bountiful harvest of the seeds of the Seven Point Agenda. Sown in September 2023, as the vision inspired by the Renewed Hope Manifesto of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it has achieved unprecedented milestones, pioneering initiatives, groundbreaking projects, and miraculous breakthroughs.
In the most recent act of economic sabotage and reckless espionage, titled “Faking Finance: Alake’s Minerals Mirage” published in the National Accord newspaper of February 22, 2026, Suraj plays the puppet of his imperialist paymasters who failed to use the Ministry to fight proxy wars against their Chinese competitors, stop the Ministry from revoking their titles for non-payment of annual service fees and frustrate the introduction of new policies which are entrenching the rule of law and international best practices in the Nigerian solid minerals sector.
The author is unable to counter the concrete statistics and the factual declarations of the Honourable Minister on the increase in revenue from N6 billion in 2023 to N38 billion in 2024 and over N70 billion in 2025. This 79 per cent year-on-year growth occurred as a result of the minister’s reforms, focused on the stringent application of the rule of law, transparency, and investor confidence.
It also led to the performance of the Mining Cadastral Office, which recorded N6.9 billion, and the Directorate of Mines Inspectorate, which also recorded N7 billion in the first quarter of 2025. The author did not provide any data to counter the minister’s assertion that the Mining Marshals arrested 300 illegal miners, prosecuted 150 and secured nine convictions as of 2025.
In fact, in several instances, Suraj could not refute the policies of the Seven Point Agenda, such as Value Addition to promote domestic beneficiation, acquisition of geological data to promote investor confidence, introduction of Mining Marshals to combat illegal mining and the formalisation of artisanal miners through co-operatives. In his own words, value addition is “a fine ideal”; the minister is “right about” the acquisition of geological data, and he concedes that “interest has been expressed” by investors, indicating the minister’s marketing strategy is working.
Everything works well until Suraj decides to hire the eyes of his paymasters to analyse the unassailable facts of the reforms in the sector to achieve three things: defend his Western imperialist employers against Chinese rivals, discredit the policies of the minister on licence administration and security, which penalised his paymasters and engage in scaremongering to exaggerate the challenges of the solid minerals sector.
Take the anti-Chinese propaganda. On value addition, Suraj does not offer any contrary facts, yet misinforms his readers that “the value of China’s downstream processing efforts in Nigeria’s lithium sector is highly exaggerated by the Minister and very inefficient. To date, no major Western mining company has invested in Nigeria’s mining sector.” While it is totally false that Western mining companies are not investing in Nigeria’s solid minerals sector, when did it become a criterion for determining investor confidence?
At the last count, over 303 European firms are holding active licences. And he needs to know that his perception of this administration’s bias is ignorant and mischievous. Where was he when the Minister arrested and ensured that a Chinese firm paid over N2.8 billion to the Federal government for illegally extracted minerals?
Suraj carries his ocular confusion to the history and trajectory of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group, AMSG, set up in January 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by ministers of mining of African countries, with Dr Dele Alake as the pioneer chairman and re-elected in January this year for another two-year term.
Read his Master’s narrative: “This is China’s Trojan Horse to have access to Africa’s mineral wealth in terms favourable to China and the African elite who control and facilitate that access.” This blatant falsehood is the mirage Suraj deliberately conjured to disinform his readers, as there is no iota of fact linking AMSG, a pan-African industrialisation pressure group, to any continental power outside the African region.
Since 2024, the AMSG has opened its doors to all partners worldwide and has held events on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States. It has no formal relations with China at this time.
Suraj has a job to discredit the Minister’s reforms in licence administration because his sponsors are still nursing a bloody nose from the beating they took when they tried to play fast and loose by violating the Minerals and Mining Law.
They owed annual service fees running into billions of naira, and when their licences were revoked under the law, they failed to use their high-level network of who’s who to reverse the penalty. They are still debtors, and legal procedures to compel them to pay are still in process. A thousand Surajs writing millions of tomes of propaganda against the Minister will not stop their arraignment in the courts, much sooner than they imagine.
Thus, when he concedes that “interest has been expressed by investors” but blunts it by alleging that “the elephant in the room is the lack of security of title, the dysfunctional MCO cadastre, the continuous illegal grant of licenses, the lack of access to tenements due to armed illegal miners in occupation”, we in the Ministry, understand that the weeping is the result of our whipping!
And finally, the Goebbelian strategy of scaremongering. The aim of Suraj and his sponsors is to scare investors, reverse the minister’s reforms, and plunge the sector into the kind of chaos that enabled them to cheat the Nigerian people of the dividends from their mineral resources. That, stated, is sabotage. Celebrating the insurrectional and terrorist activities of bandits in mineral-rich areas to portray them as succeeding against the Nigerian State is espionage. To suggest that a civil unit, such as the Mining Marshals or officers of the MCO, should go into the war zones where soldiers are repelling terrorists is collaborating with the enemy.
These nationalistic and state security concerns don’t concern Suraj and his gang of saboteurs, as long as they can bring down the Minister of Solid Minerals and take over control of the sector.
This will never happen under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. What is likely to happen is that Suraj and his co-conspirators will face the wrath of the law and smell the coffee much sooner than they expect.
_*Bamigbetan* is the Special Adviser to the Minister of Solid Minerals Development_
Wike Wields Big Stick, Cancels 485 Fake Abuja Land Titles
FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, has approved the cancellation of 485 land documents in Abuja after they failed authenticity checks.
The affected titles were nullified following a joint review by the Department of Land Administration and the Abuja Geographic Information Systems, which found that many of the documents were fake and did not meet verification standards.
In a public notice tagged Batch I, the Federal Capital Territory Administration confirmed that the invalid applications had been removed from the regularisation database.
The cancelled documents cut across several Area Councils, including Bwari, Abuja Municipal and Kuje, with locations such as Ushafa, Dawaki, Kurudu, Jikwoyi, Nyanya, Sabon Lugbe and Kuchiyako One layout affected.
Authorities said the move is part of ongoing land reforms aimed at sanitising the system, tackling forgery, double allocations and irregular grants.
Under the law, all land in the FCT belongs to the Federal Government, and valid titles must be processed and formalised through the office of the FCT Minister.
FCT POLL: We’ve Shown Who’s Boss, Real Opposition Exposed – Wike Salutes Tinubu
FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, has declared that the just-concluded Area Council elections have exposed the true ruling party and the real opposition in Nigeria.
In a fiery broadcast after Saturday’s polls, Wike showered praises on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for what he described as the peaceful and credible conduct of the election in the nation’s capital.
According to him, the outcome has silenced critics and proved that residents of the FCT cannot be deceived by what he called “emergency democrats” who stage roadside photo-ops just to win sympathy.
“The people have spoken clearly. Nigerians now know the ruling party and the real opposition,” the minister said.
Wike maintained that the calm atmosphere during the exercise showed that democracy is gaining ground under Tinubu’s leadership, adding that the Renewed Hope Agenda is already boosting confidence among residents.
He hailed the Independent National Electoral Commission for delivering a free and fair contest, while also applauding security agencies for keeping the peace.
Congratulating winners of the polls, particularly the APC and PDP, Wike urged them to justify the mandate given to them by working tirelessly for the people.
He assured FCT residents that his administration would continue to roll out development projects, especially in satellite towns, insisting that the capital city will remain a model of growth and progress under Tinubu’s watch.
APC Floors Rivals in Abaji! Umar Abdullahi Wins Big in FCT Council Poll
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has tightened its grip on the Federal Capital Territory as its candidate, Umar Abdullahi Abubakar, coasted to victory in the Abaji Area Council chairmanship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Abdullahi winner after he polled a commanding 15,535 votes in Saturday’s council poll.
His closest challenger from the Young Progressives Party (YPP) trailed far behind with 5,357 votes, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate managed 4,547 votes. The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) scored 53 votes and the African Democratic Congress (ADC) got 37 votes.
Announcing the result, the presiding officer said Abdullahi, having satisfied all legal requirements, was duly returned elected.
The Abaji victory adds to APC’s strong showing in the FCT council elections, with the party also clinching AMAC, Bwari and Kwali. The PDP secured victory only in Gwagwalada.
Saturday’s poll was held across the six area councils of the nation’s capital, as political parties battled for control at the grassroots level.
APC Floors PDP in Kwali as Nuhu Cruises to Victory
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has tightened its hold on the FCT as Daniel Nuhu emerged winner of the Kwali Area Council chairmanship election in emphatic fashion.
Nuhu polled 16,656 votes to comfortably defeat his closest rival, Haruna Pai of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who garnered 8,467 votes.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the result at the council’s final collation centre on Sunday morning, confirming the APC candidate as duly elected.
Saturday’s poll was conducted across all ten wards in Kwali, with APC supporters erupting in celebration after the declaration.
With the Kwali triumph, APC has now secured three of the four area councils declared so far in the FCT elections, further strengthening its dominance in the territory.
APC Ishaku Wins Bwari Chairmanship in Grand Style
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has tightened its grip on the Federal Capital Territory as Joshua Ishaku cruised to victory in the Bwari Area Council chairmanship election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Ishaku winner after he polled 18,466 votes in the keenly contested poll held across the 10 wards of the council.
Returning Officer, Mohammed Nurudeen, announced that the APC candidate satisfied all legal requirements and was duly returned elected.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) came a distant second with 4,254 votes, while the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) secured 3,515 votes.
The election was conducted in Igu, Shere, Dutse, Ushafa, Byazhin, Kuduru, Kubwa, Usuma, Bwari Central and Kawu wards.
With this victory, APC supporters in Bwari erupted in celebration, hailing the outcome as a clear endorsement of the party’s leadership in the council.