Profiling, systemic inequity and lessons in history, By Auwal Gonga

If foreign legislators can successfully criminalise one ethnic group in the court of international opinion, no group is safe. Today the Fulani. Tomorrow the Igbo. The Yoruba. The Ijaw. The Tiv. The precedent, once set, will be available for any political interest that seeks to weaponise the human rights rhetoric for partisan ends… That is why this moment demands a united response.

History is repeating itself: Riley Moore’s bill to label an entire tribe is the same dangerous profiling America should have left behind.

There is a troubling pattern in human history one in which fear, political pressure, and lazy stereotyping converge to produce laws that criminalise not individuals, but entire peoples. We have seen it before. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The Slave Codes of the antebellum South. Executive Order 9066, which sent over 112,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps based solely on their ancestry.

Today, we are witnessing the making of another such tragedy. And it is being sponsored by a former welder turned Congressman from West Virginia named Riley Moore.

Nobody is opposed to designating actual criminals or terrorists. If an individual commits murder, kidnap, or armed violence, they should face the full weight of justice, whether in Nigeria, the United States, or anywhere else. But what Congressman Moore is proposing with the Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026 is not justice. It is collective punishment. It is the weaponisation of legislation to vilify an entire ethnic identity that spans over twenty countries and comprises tens of millions of peaceful, accomplished, and distinguished human beings.

The Dangerous Precedent of Ethnic Labeling

Let us be clear about what this bill seeks to do. It calls for the US Secretary of State to consider designating “Fulani ethnic militias” as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation. But the language is dangerously slippery. When you attach the name of an entire nationality to a terrorism designation when you write “Fulani militias” into American law as a formal category, you do not target criminals, you smear an entire people.

This is not hyperbole. It is the lesson of history.

When President Franklin D Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, the justification was “military necessity.” Japanese Americans were rounded up, stripped of their property, and incarcerated, not because they were disloyal, as not a single one of them was ever convicted of espionage, but because of how they looked and where their grandparents were born. It took forty-six years and a formal apology from Ronald Reagan to admit that the United States had committed a grave injustice against its own citizens.

When the Slave Codes were enacted in colonial America, they defined enslaved human beings as chattel. They prohibited reading, gathering, or owning property. They treated an entire race as inherently suspect. The echoes of those laws persist in the systemic inequities that America still grapples with today.

And now, Riley Moore, a man who once worked as a welder and later as a lobbyist at the Podesta Group, wants to write a new chapter in this shameful tradition. Only this time, the target is the Fulani.

Who Are the Fulani? A People, Not a Criminal Syndicate

The Fulani are not a militia. They are not a terrorist network. They are one of the largest and most widely dispersed ethnic groups in Africa, with an estimated 25 to 40 million people spanning the Sahel and West Africa, from Senegal to Sudan, from Cameroon to Chad.

They are pastoralists and settled farmers. They are scholars and merchants. They have produced presidents, prime ministers, and global leaders of unimpeachable distinction.

Consider the names Congressman Moore’s bill implicitly stains by association:

● Ahmadou Ahidjo, the first president of Cameroon.
● Macky Sall, the former president of Senegal.
● Umaro Sissoco Embaló, the president of Guinea-Bissau.
● Shehu Shagari, the democratically elected president of Nigeria.
● Muhammadu Buhari, former president and head of state of Nigeria.
● Amina J Mohammed, the deputy secretary-general of the United Nations, one of the most powerful and respected diplomats in the world.

If there were any doubt about the partisan and personal nature of this legislation, one needs only examine the inclusion of Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in it… Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State and presidential aspirant, is being singled out for sanctions, visa bans, and asset freezes, not because of any credible evidence linking him to violence, but because he dared to disagree with Riley Moore on X (formerly Twitter).

Are these terrorists? Are these the faces of “Christian persecution”? The very question is absurd.

Yet, by Moore’s logic, because some criminals exist in every ethnic group, and have committed atrocities, the entire Fulani nation is to be treated as a suspect class. This is not counter-terrorism. It is ethnic profiling elevated to the level of state policy.

The Witch-Hunt Against Kwankwaso: Evidence of Bad Faith

If there were any doubt about the partisan and personal nature of this legislation, one needs only examine the inclusion of Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in it.

Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State and presidential aspirant, is being singled out for sanctions, visa bans, and asset freezes, not because of any credible evidence linking him to violence, but because he dared to disagree with Riley Moore on X (formerly Twitter).

When President Trump designated Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern,” Kwankwaso issued a measured statement. He urged the Nigerian government to strengthen diplomatic engagement and warned that foreign rhetoric should not polarise a multi-religious nation. His crime? Speaking up for his country’s sovereignty.

Moore responded by accusing Kwankwaso of “complicity in the death of Christians” and pointed to his implementation of Sharia law in Kano two decades ago, as if constitutional federalism in a Muslim-majority state is equivalent to genocide.

Let us state the facts plainly: Under Kwankwaso’s leadership, Kano confronted Boko Haram cells and prevented the sect from establishing a foothold in the state. Christians in Kano worshipped freely. No evidence has ever been presented linking Kwankwaso to any act of religious persecution .

This is not accountability. It is retaliation. It is a foreign legislator using the immense power of the United States Congress to punish a Nigerian politician for a Twitter argument. If that is the evidentiary standard for a terrorism designation, then the process is not merely flawed, it is a farce.

MACBAN: A Lawful Association Under Siege

The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) has also been named in this legislation. Yet, MACBAN is not an armed group. It is a 42-year-old trade association, democratically run, with offices in all the 36 states of Nigeria. It has cooperated with security agencies to combat crime, and its leaders have lost their lives in that cooperation .

As MACBAN National President Baba Othman Ngelzarma stated: “This is an association that has never taken responsibility for any crime, that has never supported any criminality. Our books are open for everybody to come and check” .

MACBAN has submitted comprehensive reports to the US Embassy detailing its members’ victimisation and peace-building efforts. Those reports were acknowledged — and then ignored.

What more must a peaceful association do to prove its innocence? Must it renounce its very identity? Must it disband because its members share an ethnicity with men of violence?

We call on all Nigerians of every tribe, faith, and political persuasion to condemn this bill in the strongest possible terms. Let there be no confusion: this is not about defending criminals. It is about defending the principle that guilt is individual, not inherited. It is about insisting that no foreign legislature has the right to define an entire people by the actions of a few.

A Call to All Nigerians Fulani and Non-Fulani Alike

This bill is not merely an attack on the Fulani. It is an attack on Nigeria.

If foreign legislators can successfully criminalise one ethnic group in the court of international opinion, no group is safe. Today the Fulani. Tomorrow the Igbo. The Yoruba. The Ijaw. The Tiv. The precedent, once set, will be available for any political interest that seeks to weaponise the human rights rhetoric for partisan ends.

That is why this moment demands a united response.

We call on all Nigerians of every tribe, faith, and political persuasion to condemn this bill in the strongest possible terms. Let there be no confusion: this is not about defending criminals. It is about defending the principle that guilt is individual, not inherited. It is about insisting that no foreign legislature has the right to define an entire people by the actions of a few.

We call on the Federal Government of Nigeria to engage the United States at the highest diplomatic levels. Present the evidence. Demand due process. Insist that Nigeria’s security challenges are complex, multi-causal, and cannot be reduced to a single ethnic bogeyman.

We call on religious leaders, Christian and Muslim alike, to speak with one voice against this dangerous trajectory. The Christian Association of Nigeria, the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, and every ecumenical body must make clear that religious freedom in Nigeria is a shared concern, not a cudgel for foreign intervention.

We call on the African Union and ECOWAS to recognise that this bill sets a precedent for the entire continent. If the Fulani, a trans-national community present in nearly every West African nation, can be designated terrorists by an act of American Congress, what stops the same treatment from being applied to others?

And we call on Members of the United States Congress who know their country’s painful history with ethnic profiling. You apologised for the Japanese internment. You repudiated the Alien Enemies Act’s excesses. Do not repeat those mistakes. Reject this bill. Withdraw the names of lawful associations and distinguished political leaders from its provisions. Base your human rights policy on evidence, not tweets.

Conclusion: They Will Fail

The architects of this bill believe they are striking a blow for religious freedom. In truth, they are striking a blow against the very idea of fairness. They are exploiting the genuine suffering of Christian communities in Nigeria to advance a pre-packaged narrative that serves neither peace nor justice.

But they will fail.

They will fail because the Fulani are not a people who can be erased by legislative fiat. They have survived empires, colonial borders, and the Sahel’s harshest climates. They have contributed leaders, scholars, and peacemakers to the world. They will survive the ignorance of a freshman Congressman from West Virginia.

They will fail because Nigeria, for all its challenges, remains a country where inter-marriage, inter-faith cooperation, and inter-ethnic solidarity are not slogans but lived realities. The same nation that produced Ahmadu Ahidjo and Amina Mohammed also produced Christians and Muslims who worship side-by-side in Abuja, Lagos, and Kaduna.

And they will fail because history is merciless to those who repeat its worst errors. The Alien Enemies Act is remembered today not as a triumph of national security, but as a stain on American jurisprudence. The Slave Codes are taught in schools as a cautionary tale. Executive Order 9066 is the subject of apologies, reparations, and shame.

Riley Moore’s name will join that list. But the Fulani, like the Japanese Americans who rebuilt their lives, like the descendants of enslaved Africans who continue to fight for justice, will endure.

This is not the first time an empire has tried to define us by its fears. It will not be the last. But we are still here. And we will remain.

Auwal Gonga writes from Abuja.