Rights Group Faults Government’s $9m US Lobbying Deal

NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: The prominent pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA, HURIWA, has faulted the hiring of lobbying firm by the Nigerian government for $9m to ‘communicate Christians protection efforts’ to the US government.

Describing the action as wasteful, hypocritical and a smokescreen, the group noted that the action has also been termed an effort by some top government official to provide job for the boys, which is totally irrelevant and meaningless.

HURIWA said that it was nonsensical that the same government that denied that Christians were the targets of genocide attacks by armed Islamic terrorists has decided to fritter a huge chunk of public fund on the meaningless venture to explain to the United States of America what the government is doing for Christians, which therefore means that truly the government has now accepted the obvious that indeed Christians are targeted in a well coordinated[H1]  mass killings by Islamic extremists in the North of Nigeria.

HURIWA stated that media reports stated that the lobbying contract document filed with the US Department of Justice, Aster Legal, a law firm in Kaduna state, hired the services of DCI Group on behalf of Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser.

The agreement was signed by Oyetunji Olalekan Teslim, the managing partner of Aster Legal, and Justin Peterson, managing member of DCI group, on December 17, 2025.

According to the contract details, the American lobbying firm is expected to “assist the Nigerian government through Aster Legal in communicating its actions to protect Nigerian Christian communities and maintaining U.S support in countering West African jihadist groups and other destabilizing elements”.

It was agreed that the contract would be for six months until June 30, 2026, and would be automatically renewed for another six months.

HURIWA, which condemned the wasteful gambit of frittering billions of naira that could have been used to even motivate soldiers waging war on terror in the North of Nigeria, the Rights group said: “it makes no sense that the Nigerian government wants to explain happenings in the country that are already well known and extensively reported on the Internet and aired in several global television stations like BBC, CNN, SkyNews, Aljazeera television all of which have locally based journalists feeding them with happenings in Nigeria.’ 

Besides, HURIWA reminded the government of President Bola Tinubu that it is an unproductive gambit to invest such a huge amount of public funds in attempting to sell propaganda to the same American government that is fully represented in Nigeria by their Ambassadors and hundreds of local staff just as HURIWA recalled that even the Congressional team from the USA spent nearly one month recently visiting theatres of terror attacks and generated information from eye witnesses and survivors of the terror attacks in several states of Nigeria. 

The Rights group said that even the Congressional group from America that came were met hy government officials which then makes us wonder why we have to spend such a princely sum to educate American government on what government is doing to protect the same Christians that President Bola Tinubu insisted were never targeted by terrorists.  So who is deceiving who?

“Did President Tinubu and the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria not recently appointed and approved over 68 Ambassadors some of whom would be deployed to the United States of America? So why is the federal government frittering away such a humongous amount to inform the US government about treatment of Christians when representation of the country qualitatively is the core job of Ambassadors? This is an absolute bunkum.

“This Nigerian government deceitfully maintained that Christians were not being targeted by terrorists, but at the same time the government has to hire US based lobbying firm to help it explain how it is protecting Christians. So why is the government protecting Christians that the same government said were never targeted for mass killings and extinction by Islamic terrorists? This shows you that the government of Nigeria has all the time been dishonest and untruthful about the situation of Nigerians and mostly Christians in the North facing genocidal killings by Islamic terrorists,” the statement by Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko, National Coordinator,HURIWA, said.

Credit: realnews