The United States House of Representatives has approved an amendment that would withhold 100 percent of American assistance to Nigeria until the federal government takes effective steps to prevent and respond to terrorism and violence, sharply toughening an earlier proposal that had targeted only half of that aid.
The amendment, sponsored by Florida Representative Gregory Steube and adopted by voice vote during consideration of the appropriations bill, raises the withholding threshold from 50 to 100 percent while keeping the underlying requirement that the US Secretary of State certify Nigeria has taken effective steps to prevent and respond to violence and hold perpetrators accountable. On the House floor, Steube argued the earlier 50 percent threshold simply did not go far enough, accusing the Nigerian government of failing to protect its citizens, particularly Christians. I rise in strong support for my amendment to increase the withholding threshold for assistance to Nigeria, from 50 percent to 100 percent, while keeping in place benchmarks that demand Nigeria take effective steps to address the violence and persecution that continue to devastate the country, he said, describing a horrific wave of violence that Nigeria’s corrupt government has failed to address, with Christians and other religious minorities subjected to violence and terrorism at the hands of extremists operating with impunity, women and girls abducted, assaulted, tortured and killed, churches burned and entire communities erased.
Steube argued that if the underlying conditions were serious enough to justify withholding half of all funding, they were serious enough to justify withholding all of it. If the aid conditions included in the bill are important enough to withhold half of all the funding to the Nigerian government, then they are important enough to withhold all of the funding, he said, questioning why American assistance should keep flowing to a country he argued has not justified it. The generosity of our taxpayers is a reflection of the American values we hold so firmly, he said, never should we allow their hard earned tax dollars to be funnelled to corrupt regimes that fail to uphold religious freedom, fail to adequately confront terrorism, and fail to protect the innocent from persecution, adding that continued aid was especially hard to justify given both Nigeria’s worsening insecurity and America’s own fiscal pressures. It is absurd to expend foreign aid to Nigeria in the face of rising insecurity, especially as America’s national debt approaches $40 trillion, he said, arguing the amendment would ensure US assistance is appropriately leveraged to defend, reflect and uphold American values.
The measure builds on an earlier House proposal from April and arrives amid heightened scrutiny of Nigeria’s security situation in Washington. Although President Donald Trump redesignated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern in 2025 over allegations of religious persecution, the two countries have continued deepening military cooperation against terrorist groups in northern Nigeria even as this measure moves forward. The amendment must still clear the remaining stages of the US legislative process before becoming law; if enacted, all US assistance to Nigeria would stay suspended until the Secretary of State certifies the Nigerian government has met the prescribed security and accountability benchmarks.
