U.S. Bill: Driving a wedge at Nigeria- China partnership

By Charles Onunaiju Just recently, American’s political establishment took credulity too far, perhaps believing that it takes only to dare and fabricate and everything falls into place. Nigeria is Africa’s

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The Nation

February 20, 2026·7 min read

By Charles Onunaiju

Just recently, American’s political establishment took credulity too far, perhaps believing that it takes only to dare and fabricate and everything falls into place. Nigeria is Africa’s major country, both the continent’s largest economy with the biggest population and has humongous deposit of critical minerals beneath its expansive swathes of land.

Nigeria’s relations and cooperation with China is generally considered pragmatic with outcomes of tangible results. It has always been the target of innuendoes and scurrilous misrepresentations by the United States of America because Washington views Nigeria as a traditional sphere of influence. Nigeria has not seen herself as the exclusive preserve of any major power but rather, has consistently declared herself open to pragmatic engagement to partners across the world.

While Washington has persistently driven a wedge into Nigeria-China cooperation with a view to pulling them apart, it has done so without necessarily naming names. Its latest bold effrontery at sowing doubt and undermining Nigeria-Sino relation was the so-called legislative bill, with a patronising title, “Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026” with the explicit aim “to require a comprehensive report on United States efforts to address religious persecutions and mass atrocities in Nigeria”.

However, the nexus to mass atrocities in Nigeria and Washington’s underhand complicity was in public display a year ago, when a U.S Republican Congressman, Perry Scott disclosed that the United States Aid Agency (USAID) funded foreign terrorist organization, including the dreaded terror group in Nigeria, Boko Haram and its off-shots.

The recent massacre of nearly 200 people and abduction of 176 others in the sleepy community of Woro in Kwara State, North Central Nigeria was perpetrated by Boko Haram offshoot operating in Kainji forest in the region. Congressman Scott Perry, last year, in a session titled “The war on Waste: Stamping out the scourge of improper payments and fraud” raised questions about where the taxpayer’s money go – “who get some of the money?

“Does the name ring bell to anybody in the room? Because your money, your money, $697 million annually plus the shipments of cash, funds in Madrases ISIS, AL-Queda, Boko Haram, ISIS Khorassan terrorist training camps. That is what it is funding”, he had said.

Connecting these revelations with the resilience and the staying power of the Boko Haram terror group despite the military pressure of Nigeria’s authorities, would ultimately unmask the real life line of the persistent campaign that seem to defy government determination to bring it heels After the Washington’s unusual revelation, many people would not have any more illusions about who keep the terror campaign in Nigeria on the move and flourishing too.

Despite that in 2021, Nigeria received all the 12 Tucano fighter jets from the U.S at a whooping cost of $500 million described by the U.S Department of Defence, renamed Department of War as the largest single arms purchase in sub-Saharan Africa, terrorist impunity persists. Despite the hype, the fighter jets did not manage to seriously dent the Boko Haram campaign of terror; rather its theatre of deadly operations, now shifting to the north-central region, has widened.

Beyond the attempted smear of Nigeria-China bilateral relation, the bill recklessly and provocatively slanders one of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities, maliciously labelling the Fulani people as marauding ethnic militias allegedly perpetrating the atrocities that many Nigerians and the world know as the heinous handiwork of terrorist and criminal gangs that is certainly not representing any ethnic nationality.

The Washington latest legislative bill took umbrage at China, directing “the Secretary of State to work with the government of Nigeria to counteract hostile foreign exploitation of Chinese illegal mining operations and destabilizing practices involving protection payments to militias”. The brazen interference in the normal bilateral cooperation of two friendly countries, represent a new low of the unhinged Washington elites for whom trouble shopping is a next nature.

Before the U.S led NATO destabilization campaign in Libya, Boko Haram was an extremist sect, whose campaign was restricted to a small patch of a state in the Northeast. The destabilization of Libya by the U.S led NATO opened the gate to hell, releasing weapons, munitions and trainees to incipient terror group across the Sahel and Nigeria. Boko Haram, whose terror tactics was mainly confined to the use of improvised makeshift bombs took hold of the portions of Libyan armoury flung open by the U.S led NATO, deliberately allowed to flow into the hands of irregular non-state actors.

That Boko Haram and its affiliates metamorphosed from a local lightly armed band to a sophisticated terror group was largely thanks to Washington and NATO. While Washington has extensively nurtured and fed terror campaigns in Nigeria and the Sahel, her audacity to point fingers in other directions is a well-established pattern of U.S historical revisionism.

China through her Embassy in Nigeria has pushed back at the U.S allegations, describing it as “completely baseless”, pointing that “the over-whelming majority of Chinese mining companies in Nigeria have set an exemplary record of compliance with Nigeria laws and regulations” adding that “Chinese mining enterprises in Nigeria are victims of terrorist activities”.

Since 2025, Nigeria has been commissioning multiple Chinese backed lithium plants marking a departure from raw material exports to value added domestic processing. Major projects include $600 million plant near Kaduna-Niger border, a $200 million refinery near Abuja and two additional facilities in Nasarawa. Over 80% of the funding for these four major facilities is provided by Chinese investors including Jiuling Lithium Mining Company and Canmax Technologies. In the race to the global electric vehicle battery supply chain, Nigeria’s increased capacity in the sector through massive Chinese investment would significantly boost her position.

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The United States understand the prospect of Nigeria emerging capacity in the global energy transition and would stop at nothing to derail it. The first step is to slander and scare away the Chinese investors, bringing the emerging industry to share the same fate of the Ajaokuta steel mill abandoned with implications that robbed Nigeria a place in the global steel industry value chain.

Turning Nigeria into a theatre for the ideological containment of China is Washington’s long term project and the pretences to address religious persecution and mass atrocities in Nigeria is the latest chapter in undermining Nigerian prospects and tarnishing one her important bilateral relations.

Nigeria authorities must reflect on a spectacular moment in U.S power diplomacy as noted by one of her leading lights on U.S international relations. Henry Kissinger has warned that “While to be America’s enemy is dangerous, to be America’s friend is fatal”.

That the Atlantic alliance is currently at its fractured worst points to the fact that any pontifications of altruism and concerns for others by Washington must be taken with considerable and measured scepticism.

While a range of intervening variables would be necessary in the Nigeria’s fight against terrorism, banditry and other criminalities; inclusive and sustainable development is not only the solution in the long term, but a guarantee against future resurgence. In this regard, Nigeria-China partnership have delivered tangible contributions and it is no wonder that “America first” ideologues would go for the jugular of that meaningful partnership.