Special to USAfricaonline.com, first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the internet.
A Nigerian Catholic Bishop Stephen Dami Mamza of the Yola Diocese (from the area generally referred to as the northern region) has requested the U.S Senate to review the recent decision of the U.S State Department to explain its decision for delisting Nigeria as a country where religious freedom has been threatened and previously listed as a place of “particular concern” on religious freedom. He was quoted by the U.S Religious Freedom Institute
“Since the United States has delisted Nigeria from countries of particular concern, what we would like to hear from the United States now is for them to explain to us, give us the data…. How is it that Nigeria is different from Nigeria of two years ago? Because we that are living in Nigeria – when it comes to discrimination, when it comes to persecution of Christians, we are still feeling it. And we are still experiencing it. How is it that the Secretary of State [Antony Blinken] that lives outside – he doesn’t live in Nigeria, and he has not had any contact with us.”
“He has not met us and asked us questions. We have not interacted and just of a sudden we hear that Nigeria has been delisted. I think that this is really disheartening and all Christians in Nigeria are feeling very bad about it so we want to know … they can’t just delist without explaining. If they have statistics … we want to hear. But as far as we are concerned here now in Nigeria, the persecution is more intense now than ever.”
“It is difficult to find any family that has not lost at least one person.”
It was former President Donald Trump who took critical assessment of the attacks (at the time primarily against Christians and churches by Islamic terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, ISWAP and other groups) to categorize Nigeria as a country of “particular concern”.
