The United States House of Representatives has approved an amendment seeking to withhold 100 per cent of US assistance to Nigeria until the Federal Government takes effective steps to prevent violence and respond to insecurity across the country.
The amendment, sponsored by Congressman Gregory Steube, who represents Florida’s 17th Congressional District, was adopted on Wednesday through a voice vote.
The House had earlier proposed withholding 50 per cent of funds appropriated for Nigeria pending certification by the US Secretary of State that the Nigerian government had taken “effective steps to prevent and respond to violence and hold perpetrators accountable.”
However, the new amendment raises the withholding threshold to 100 per cent while retaining the same conditions.
Speaking on the House floor, Steube argued that withholding only half of the assistance amounted to rewarding the Nigerian government despite its failure to protect its citizens.
“I rise in strong support for my amendment to increase the withholding threshold for assistance to Nigeria, from 50 percent to 100 percent. While keeping in place benchmarks that demand Nigeria take effective steps to address the violence and persecution that continue to devastate the country,” he said. “Nigeria has faced a horrific wave of violence that its corrupt government has failed to address.”
The lawmaker alleged that Christians and other religious minorities in Nigeria had continued to face attacks by extremist groups.
“For years, and especially in recent months, Christians and other religious minorities in Nigeria have been subjected to violence and terrorism at the hands of extremists operating with impunity. Christian women and girls continue to be abducted, assaulted, tortured, and killed. Their churches are burned, and entire communities are erased,” he said.
Steube said if the conditions attached to the bill justified withholding half of the assistance, they also justified withholding all of it.
“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.
“The generosity of our taxpayers is a reflection of the American values we hold so firmly. Never should we allow their hard-earned tax dollars to be funneled to corrupt regimes that fail to uphold religious freedom, fail to adequately confront terrorism, and fail to protect the innocent from persecution. So, why are we rewarding a government that fails to meet such a basic obligation?”
He also argued that continued foreign assistance to Nigeria was difficult to justify amid worsening insecurity and growing US national debt, which he said was approaching $40 trillion.
According to him, the amendment would ensure that US assistance promotes and upholds American values.
The proposal is part of the US appropriations process and will require further legislative action before becoming law.
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