Washington, on Wednesday, removed Nigeria from its list of countries with religious freedom concerns, just a day before Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in the country as part of a tour of Africa.
Blinken is expected to arrive in Abuja on Thursday, where he is set to meet with officials including President Muhammadu Buhari and deliver a speech on U.S. Africa policy.
The U.S. secretary of state will be traveling to Nigeria from Kenya where he kicked off his Africa tour which will see him also travel to Senegal.
The omission drew a sharp rebuke from a U.S. government commission that had recommended the Biden administration keep Nigeria as a so-called country of particular concern for engaging in or tolerating violations of religious freedom.
Blinken made an annual announcement on Wednesday of the countries on the list, naming Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as countries of particular concern. He also placed Algeria, Comoros, Cuba and Nicaragua on a watch list for religious freedom, and designated armed groups, including Islamic State and several of its affiliates, as entities of concern.
But Nigeria, which was added to the list for the first time in 2020, was not redesignated.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment, and it was unclear if the designation was related to the secretary’s travel.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in April recommended that Nigeria remain on the list, citing “violence by militant Islamists and other non-state armed actors, as well as discrimination, arbitrary detentions, and capital blasphemy sentences by state authorities” in the country.
The commission, which had also recommended that India, Syria, and Vietnam be designated as countries of concern, said in a statement that it was “appalled” by the removal of Nigeria.
“We urge the State Department to reconsider its designations based on facts presented in its own reporting,” Chair Nadine Maenza said, referring to the department’s report on international religious freedom in May, which cited religious freedom concerns in Nigeria.
Blinken reiterated calls for an unconditional ceasefire in the Ethiopian conflict on Wednesday on the first leg of an African trip.
Blinken also appealed to Sudan’s military leaders to free prisoners taken in the coup there last month and to return to the path of democracy, saying some of the financial assistance that were frozen might be restored if civilian leadership returned.
The war in northern Ethiopia, the coup in Sudan, and Somalia’s long-delayed elections dominated the agenda, along with climate change, as Blinken and Kenya’s foreign minister Raychelle Omamo addressed the media in Nairobi.
Blinken described Ethiopia’s year-old war as “a growing risk to the unity and the integrity of the Ethiopian state”.
He pledged support for mediation efforts by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, now the Africa Union’s (AU’s) High Representative for the Horn of Africa, and said there was still time for a ceasefire to succeed.
“I strongly believe there is an opportunity and an absolute necessity for all the parties to stop, to talk, to move back, for humanitarian assistance to flow and also to be at the table together,” he said.
He also urged rebellious Tigrayan-led forces to stop their threatened advance on the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa – where the AU is headquarted.
Blinken arrived in Nairobi on Wednesday for his first Africa trip following the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, where poorer nations called on rich governments to do more to help them combat climate change.
He praised Kenya for getting 90 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, saying it presented a global model.
Omamo said Kenya looked forward to working with the United States to plug the climate financing gap, saying that poorer countries that did not create the problem paid the greatest price for global warming.
On Thursday, Blinken will visit Nigeria – Africa’s largest oil exporter – to meet President Muhammadu Buhari, whose government is battling an Islamist insurgency in the northeast and kidnappings in the north and northwest.
The two are expected to discuss possible security assistance from the United States, a source in the Nigerian presidency told Reuters.
In July, Nigeria received its first six A-29 Super Tucano planes four years after the United States agreed to sell the light attack aircraft to fight insurgents.
Blinken’s final leg is Senegal, considered one of Africa’s most stable democracies, where the focus will be on leaders and female entrepreneurs.
