Nigeria’s governing All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) have criticised a proposed United States bill that recommends visa bans and asset freezes for Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State in northern Nigeria and a former presidential candidate.
The bill, titled “The Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026,” was introduced in the United States House of Representatives by Representative Chris Smith. It recommends sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and lists Kwankwaso, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) and Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore among those lawmakers accuse of involvement in severe violations of religious freedom.
Okay News reports that the draft also asks the United States Secretary of State to decide whether Fulani-ethnic militias should be designated as foreign terrorist organisations, and calls for humanitarian assistance, co-funded with the Government of Nigeria, to support communities affected by violence in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
Speaking on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, APC Director of Publicity Bala Ibrahim said allegations should not be treated as proof. He stated, “Now, whatever the allegation against former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, and others is, it remains an allegation until it is proven.”
The NNPP said the proposal amounted to blackmail. At a press conference in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Ladipo Johnson, said, “We see this development as a contrived action against an innocent man who clearly has no relationship with religious fundamentalism in Nigeria.” The party questioned why Kwankwaso was being singled out after Kano State implemented Sharia, an Islamic legal code, like several other northern Nigerian states.
Representative Riley Moore, in a post on X, wrote to Kwankwaso, “Governor, do you care to comment on your own complicity in the death of Christians? You instituted Sharia law. You signed the law that makes so-called blasphemy punishable by death.”
The bill makes expansive claims about persecution and insecurity, citing sources including the Open Doors 2024 World Watch List. Lawmakers said Nigeria accounts for 82 percent of all Christians they claim are martyred globally and estimated that between 50,000 and 125,000 Christians were killed between 2009 and 2025. They also said more than 19,000 churches and Christian-owned facilities were attacked or destroyed and named Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Fulani-ethnic militant groups as key perpetrators.
The draft law criticises blasphemy laws that carry the death penalty in 12 northern states operating Sharia criminal codes and references cases including Rhoda Jatau, Deborah Yakubu and Sunday Jackson. It says Jackson was sentenced to death in 2021 and later pardoned in 2025, and it links the debate to repeated United States government designations of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.
Miyetti Allah leaders rejected the allegations. National President Baba Ngelzarma said, “We are not a terrorist group.” In Benue State in north-central Nigeria, MACBAN secretary Ibrahim Galma said, “We are not terrorists or bandits. Let me emphasise this: We are also victims of Boko Haram in Nigeria because we have lost members and cattle.”
