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Nigeria could face a complete freeze on US economic and security assistance under a bill approved by the US House of Representatives, despite Abuja’s recent progress in strengthening ties with the Trump administration.
The vote comes days after Frank Garcia, the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs made Nigeria the first stop on his debut official trip to Africa. He described the visit as “successful” after meetings with security chiefs and senior government officials in Abuja. The contrasting signals highlight a divide between the White House’s approach, which has sought to deepen security cooperation with Africa’s most populous nation, and Republican members of the House, who want to take an even harder line over anti-Christian violence.
The House voted to require the secretary of State to certify that Nigeria is making progress in tackling anti-Christian violence before any US economic or security assistance can be released, tightening an earlier provision that would have withheld only half the funding. The measure, part of the annual State Department appropriations bill, now heads to the Senate.
Senator Ted Cruz, chairman of the Africa subcommittee, applauded the amendment in a statement to Semafor, arguing Nigerian officials “created an environment that facilitates mass violence against Christians and religious minorities.”
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Republican Congressman Greg Steube, who introduced the amendment, argued that releasing even partial assistance would amount to “rewarding” Nigeria despite persistent insecurity. “If the aid conditions included in the bill are important enough to withhold half of all the funding to the Nigerian government, then they are important enough to withhold all of the funding,” he said.
Abuja has repeatedly denied that Christians are being targeted more than other communities in Nigeria’s overlapping security crises, hiring the lobbying firm DCI Group to push that message in Washington.
Cruz dismissed the efforts: “Instead of responding to American concerns, Nigerian officials waged a public relations campaign against critics,” he said. “They were confident in that campaign and in their ability to continue the status quo, and I am heartened that the House has just definitively proven them wrong.”
Room for Disagreement
Ebenezer Obadare, an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, downplayed the amendment’s impact on the bilateral relationship, saying Abuja has “adapted admirably” to US pressure — pointing to delegations sent to Washington and new military cooperation with the Pentagon.
Obadare doubts the amendment signals a new rupture in ties, calling it confirmation of “the persistence of a high level of concern about the security situation in Nigeria” and “more about holding the feet of the Tinubu administration to the fire” in a relationship that “has never looked better since Tinubu came to power.”
Notable
- Obadare argues in Foreign Policy that President Tinubu has established a cohesive Nigerian foreign policy, learning from early missteps to raise the country’s diplomatic weight in the first three years of his term.
- The sudden death of US Senator Lindsey Graham last weekend robbed foreign aid advocates of one of their most effective GOP champions in Washington.