Human rights lawyer and counsel to the detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Aloy Ejimakor, has said that the United States’ designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) is not a punitive action, but a strategic effort to deploy America’s soft power in the global fight against religious terrorism.
Ejimakor, who reacted to the development amid mounting controversy, said those who feel threatened by the U.S. decision are “the real suspects” in the alleged persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
“The designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern is intended to unlock the full potential of American soft power and place it at the disposal of Nigeria in the fight against religious terror,” Ejimakor wrote on his verified X handle on Monday.
“If you feel threatened by it, then you’re a suspect. Simple!”
He added that the U.S. move was rapidly reshaping political and regional conversations within Nigeria.
“The CPC designation is escalating in geometric proportions. In barely 24 hours, it has gone from Donald Trump’s credible threats of military action to high-level suggestions of self-determination for Nigeria’s Christian South. What a surge!” Ejimakor wrote in another post.
His remarks followed comments by Dr. Walid Phares, a Lebanese-American foreign policy expert, who outlined a chain of possible U.S. responses to what he described as the “genocidal killings” of Christians in Nigeria.
Phares stated that if Nigeria’s federal government fails to protect Christian communities from jihadist violence, the U.S. may have to support the self-determination of the country’s Christian South, while assisting the Muslim North to defeat Boko Haram and other extremist groups.
“If the federal government of Nigeria is unable to fight and defeat armed and genocidal Jihadism to protect the Christian people of Nigeria—as it failed to protect Muslim communities in the North—the only remaining option to save lives and stop genocide is to grant Nigeria’s Christian South its right to self-determination,” Phares wrote.
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The controversy comes after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to deploy American troops to Nigeria if the killings of Christians continue, calling the situation “an existential threat to Christianity.”
On Saturday, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that Nigeria had been redesignated as a Country of Particular Concern over systemic violations of religious freedom.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and may very well go into that now disgraced country, guns-a-blazing, to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists committing these atrocities,” Trump wrote.
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
Trump also directed U.S. lawmakers, including Representatives Riley Moore and Tom Cole, to investigate the killings and report back to him.
