Leading human rights group, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has outlined 21 broad measures which it says the Nigerian Government has to undertake to avoid being sanctioned by the United States of America. These measures, Intersociety said in a statement issued in Enugu on Sunday, October 19, 2025, would ?return Nigeria to a secular State including freedom of religion and worship, ensure multi-cultural composition and governance, and stop the looming Complex Humanitarian Emergencies that can envelope Africa, US, Europe, Canada, Maghreb and Asia should Nigeria?s explosive population of 238m imploded.?

Intersociety which was reacting to the recent confirmation by US factfinders of genocide against Christians in Nigeria, spoke through the Head, Emeka Umeagbalasi; Head, Dept. of Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esquire; Head, Dept. of Campaign and Publicity, Chidinma Udegbunam, Esquire; and Deputy Head, Dept. of Int?l Justice and Human Rights, Ogochukwu Obi, Esquire.

According to the group whose years of painstaking research work culminated in the classification of Nigeria as a country persecuting Christians, ?The recent shocking disclosures by the Nigerian Government-procured American Fact Finders on raging Religious Persecution across the country, is therefore a clear wakeup call and a rare opportunity for leaders of the country to make amends and rise to the occasion including embarking on problem solving and win-win situation in the end. The Nigerian leaders are strongly reminded that time is longer on their side. The Nigerian Government must stop defending the indefensible, and squandering hugely borrowed and scantly generated non-loan public funds on frivolities and irrelevancies by sustaining falsehood propaganda and international lobbying. The National Assembly technical committee to advise the Executive and channel their ?expert advice? to the country?s Federal Executive Council and leaders or high commands of the country?s security forces to go back to the drawing board and comprehensively rewind and reverse.?

Intersociety listed the 21 measures ?that must be undertaken as a matter of uttermost immediacy? as follows:

1. Ensuring the supremacy of the provisions of the country?s 1999 Constitution above all domestically enacted auxiliary laws including supremacy of Sections 10 (no state religion) and 38 (freedom of religion and worship) and the entire constitutional Chapter Four above any other law passed or deemed to have been passed by National Assembly by way of an Act or House of Assembly of any State by way of a State House of Assembly Law. These importantly include all blasphemy laws or ?Sharia and its Enforcement laws.

2. The above are also in conformity with Articles 8 and 18 of the UDHR, the ICCPR and the ACHPR, acceded to by Nigeria in 1961, 1976 and 1983, in addition to the ICC Statute of 1998 and their Protocols of 1977, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Genocide Convention of 1948, all acceded to by Nigeria.

3. Ending all semblances of ?State Jihadism? in Nigeria and allowing the country to be operated and governed on secularism guarded by the provisions of the secular 1999 Constitution.

4. Ending and abolishing all forms of ?structural, physical and cultural violence? and enthronement of ?negative and positive peace? and ushering the country into ?Human Security Governance? and massive growth and development

5. Mustering enough political will to convene an electoral constituent National Conference where the country?s 384 ethnic nationalities and its multi-religious groupings shall be converged to discuss and agree on how best to live in peace, religious harmony and ethnically-induced peaceful co-existence.

6. These must be done bearing in mind important historical instances below:

7. The Union of Tanzania (Tanganyika and Zanzibar Path 1964), Ethiopia- Eritrea Path 1991, Czechoslovakia (Czechs and Slovakia: Velvet Path 1989), Unification of Germany (Berlin Wall Path 1989), Balkanization of the Yugoslavia Breakup Path 1991, the terminal point of the Soviet?s Perestroika and Glasnost Path 1991.

There were also the Sudan-South/Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement Path of 2005, the Taif Power Sharing Agreement Path of 1943 between Lebanese Sunni Muslims and Christians, dividing parliamentary seats into 50:50 and high ranking public posts, etc. These are great historical answers to several ?Great National Questions? undertaken by several troubling States or Unions.

8. Nigerian Government must end crude, brutish, clannish, illiterate, hate, discriminatory and ethno-religious soldiering and policing especially in Eastern Nigeria.

9. Nigerian security forces? operations and law enforcements must be intellectually and intelligence driven and maddening resort to indiscriminate killings, wanton destruction of properties, hate policing and soldiering, ethno-religious profiling, false labeling, mass arrests, indefinite detention without trials, prosecutorial vindictiveness, mass criminalization, hearsay conclusions and jungle justice must be stopped and discontinued.

10. There must be an end to flooding of Eastern Nigeria with senior Northern Muslim officers from the country?s security forces as heads of key military and policing formations in the two regions; a case study of Imo State where despite being a State with more than 95% Christian population, all the four key security and policing establishments are manned by senior Northern Muslim officers till date.

11. There must be an end to Igbo-phobia, hatred and ethno-religious profiling including hatefully tagging every Igbo or South-East respected and independent person or group of persons or bodies as ?IPOB-affiliated/sponsored?; just to wickedly and violently verbally scare them from adding their credible and independent voices on issues of critical national or regional public importance.

12. There must also be an end to indiscriminate killings, abductions and disappearances in the East by security forces on the grounds of ethnicity and religion or by way of mass labeling the victims ?IPOB or ESN?.

13. Nigerian Military must account for estimated 5000 Easterners especially Igbo-Southeasterners secretly face-bagged and transported at late night and dumped from August 2015 till date in several secret military and other security dungeons scattered in different parts of Northern Nigeria including Kainji and Wawa military cantonments in Boko Haram and other Jihadists? gripped areas. This was shocking discovered in the course of our Special Investigative Report: ?Ocean of Innocent Flowing in Eastern Nigeria: 280 Pages; Dec 22, 2024?; covering August 2015-Dec 2024.

14. There shall be de-radicalization of the Nigerian security forces and their re-orientation and re-integration into Nigerian secularism and law enforcement professionalism.

15. There must be an end to ?lawless or above the law status? accorded members of the Fulani population in Nigeria in which their jihadist elements must be routed out and disarmed.

16. The Government direct or vicarious policy of facilitating the flooding into Nigeria of African jihadists of whatever names called, must end and jihadists presently quartered in the country?s mapped 11,129 forests disarmed and sent back to where they were directly or indirectly brought from.

17. Nigeria?s indigenous farming communities displaced from their ancestral lands, must be restored and protected by Nigerian Government.

18. Nigerian Government and the country?s security forces must inexcusably give account of the whereabouts of more than 850 Christian hostages still held inside the Rijana Forest in Kachia County of Kaduna State.

The recent rescue by Nigerian Army of 21 kidnapped victims including 14 males, five females, four Chinese expatriates and one infant, inside different forests located across Kwara and Kogi States is very commendable. The evidently undisputable rescue operation was conducted by soldiers of 12 Brigade Lokoja and 22 Armored Brigade, Ilorin and coordinated by the GOC of 2 Division of the Nigerian Army, Major Gen CR Nnebeife should be replicated in the case of the trapped Rijana Christians, held by Jihadists from Dec 2024 to Sept 2025. The number of them that have died in captivity must also be accounted for.

19. Abolishing Muslim-Muslim Presidency (occupation of offices of the President and the Vice President by Muslims) in Nigeria and restore power sharing arrangements between Muslims and Christians in places like Kaduna, Adamawa, Gombe, Kogi, Nasarawa, etc., using proportionality of Muslim and Christian population in the areas.

20. Conducting a credible national census which has not been conducted since 2006 and identifying illegal aliens including gun-wielding jihadists among them and have them repatriated to their countries of origin.

21. Putting national leaders of MACBAN, FUNAM and allied others on red notice, with a stated timeframe; by giving them matching orders to rout out jihadist elements within their foot-soldiers or herdsmen by having them disarmed; or be proscribed.

22. Discontinuing jihad-enabler national policy of Fulani Cattle Ranching and flushing out Jihadists occupying vast areas of Niger State, Nigeria?s largest landmass State, recover the State from Jihadists and transform the State into Africa?s largest modern cattle ranching State, in the like of Ethiopia that recently inaugurated Africa?s largest hydroelectric dam worth not less than $5b.

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