The Muslim Rights Concern, a Nigeria-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy organisation known as MURIC, has criticised proposed United States sanctions aimed at prominent Muslim figures and organisations in Nigeria, describing the move as selective and unfair.
The proposal was introduced last week by five lawmakers in the United States Congress, the federal legislature of the United States. The bill seeks visa bans and asset freezes targeting Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State in northern Nigeria and a leader of the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP), as well as the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) and Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, among others.
In a statement issued on Thursday, February 12, 2026, MURIC’s Executive Director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, argued that the proposed sanctions focus on Muslims while failing to address alleged abuses linked to some public officials in southern Nigeria and to armed groups he described as Christian militias in Nigeria’s North Central region, an area that includes states such as Plateau, Benue, and Kogi. Okay News reports that Akintola said this imbalance undermines justice and fuels mistrust.
Akintola said: “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.”
He maintained that extremist violence in Nigeria has involved people of different faiths, and he insisted that any international punitive measures should apply broadly rather than to one religious group. He also said MURIC, founded in 1994, has records of alleged rights violations it is willing to present to international bodies.
It read, “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.”
Akintola further alleged that Christian militia groups in North Central Nigeria have killed Muslims over several decades, and he argued that if northern Muslims are listed for sanctions, then past and present public officials in parts of North Central Nigeria who, he claimed, funded, enabled, or protected violent actors should also face scrutiny.
He also accused the United States of relying more heavily on Christian accounts from Nigeria when assessing conflict and human rights claims, and said the process should include Muslim perspectives as well.
“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),”he said.
In the statement, Akintola urged Washington to consider sanctions against a wider range of actors, including officials he accused of denying Muslims civil rights and access to public services. He alleged that some Muslims have faced discrimination linked to religious dress, including hijab for women and caps or turbans for men, and claimed that some institutions have withheld voter cards, national identity cards, driving licences, passports, education services, and healthcare unless religious coverings are removed. He also alleged discrimination in hiring and political appointments in parts of southern Nigeria, including in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, and Osun states in the South West, a region largely associated with the Yoruba ethnic group.
Akintola said his organisation feared what he described as forced religious conversion backed by violence, and he warned that tensions could deepen if the proposed sanctions proceed without broader investigations. He said the United States should avoid steps that could be interpreted as punishing “law-abiding and peace-loving Nigerian Muslims” while violent extremist groups continue to operate.
He added: “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 antagonise 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!”
The proposed sanctions are not yet law and would still require legislative approval in the United States before any visa bans or asset freezes could take effect.
