MUSLIM RIGHTS
CONCERN (MURIC)
هيئة حقوق المسلمين
Motto: Dialogue,
Not Violence
12th February, 2026
PRESS RELEASE:
US SANCTIONS ON MUSLIM FIGURES IN NIGERIA LOPSIDED – MURIC
Five United States lawmakers yesterday 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.
Commenting on this development, a faith-based human rights
organization, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has flayed the decision as
lopsided, unjust and selective.
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.
“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!”
#UnitedNations
#USCongress
#ChristianReligiousPersecutionInSouthernNigeria
#SanctionChristianTerroristsInNorthCentral
#SanctionChristianOfficialsInSouthernNigeria
Professor Ishaq
Akintola,
Founder/Executive
Director,
Muslim Rights
Concern (MURIC).
No comments:
Post a Comment