Alleged Religious Persecution: Presidency tackles U.S., says no one appointed America world police

The presidency has again asked the U.S. to stop interfering in Nigeria’s matters.

Femi Adesina, the spokesperson to President Muhammadu Buhari disclosed this while reacting to a U.S. report that includes Nigeria as one of the countries with religious freedom violations.

He appeared on Channels Television “Sunday Politics” programme.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the U.S. placed Nigeria in the same category as Russia, Cuba and Uzbekistan for its attitude towards religious freedom.

The inclusion of Nigeria on the list was announced by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. They made reference to the killings of Shiite protesters and the violence in Nigeria’s middle belt as some of the reasons for its stance.

In its earlier reaction on Sunday, Nigeria government through Minister of Information, Lai Muhammad described the stance of the U.S. as an “orchestrated narrative that has long been discredited”.

The government also blamed the ‘political opposition’ for sparing “no resources in deriving political capital from the various security challenges in the country.”

However, rather than respond to the allegations in the report on Sunday, President Buhari through his spokesperson, Mr Adesina blasted the U.S. government for speaking about Nigeria.

“In international relations, you respect the internal affairs of other countries. The U.S. itself has enough to chew solving its own problems not to talk of poke-nosing into that of another country.”

“No man, no country, nobody has appointed them the policeman of the world, let them face their own issues”, Mr Adesina said.

PREMIUM TIMES recalls that this is not the first time Mr Adesina will be accusing the foreign governments of poke-nosing into Nigeria’s matter.

On December 12, this newspaper reported how he warned the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union to stop interfering in Nigeria’s affairs, especially on the issue of human rights abuses.