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Nigeria’s attempt to launder its battered human rights image with a $9 million lobbying blitz in Washington has detonated in its face, drawing blistering condemnation from United States lawmakers who say Abuja is paying top dollar to dodge accountability for mass violence and religious freedom abuses.

At a tense joint hearing of the US House Subcommittee on Africa and the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, lawmakers tore into Nigeria’s hiring of powerful lobbying firms, warning that the contracts reek of a calculated effort to distract from years of unchecked killings, displacement and state failure.

Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee, Chris Smith, did not mince words. Defending the October 2025 designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act, Smith said the move was “long overdue” after relentless attacks on Christian communities and the government’s chronic inability, or unwillingness to stop them.

He said he was alarmed that instead of confronting the crisis, Nigerian authorities were pouring $750,000 a month into a Washington lobbying firm, DCI Group, to spin a comforting narrative for US policymakers.

“These firms are producing polished stories suggesting there is ‘nothing to see here,’” Smith warned, describing the effort as a blatant attempt to undermine the CPC designation and blunt international pressure.

The outrage deepened with revelations that a Nigerian billionaire had separately signed a $120,000-a-month contract with Washington consultancy Valcour to influence Congress, the US executive branch and American media, raising fresh questions about whose interests are really being served as communities burn back home.

Former US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, and former chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Dr Stephen Schneck, backed Smith’s concerns, painting a grim picture of a country spiralling under the weight of terrorism, banditry, mass displacement and systemic corruption.

Schneck described Nigeria’s predicament as a “toxic mix” of Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorism, farmer-herder clashes, organised crime and a “corrupt and frankly, a failing government” unable to guarantee basic security or justice.

But while condemning Abuja’s lobbying spree, the hearing also exposed sharp divisions within Washington. Ranking member Sara Jacobs criticised what she called an overly simplistic fixation on Christian persecution, arguing that Nigeria’s violence cuts across religious lines and is fuelled by multiple, overlapping crises.

Jacobs accused the US of policy hypocrisy, noting that even as American politicians rail against religious violence, Washington has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Nigeria—programmes that supported faith leaders and conflict-affected communities and, in some areas, actually reduced violence.

She also took aim at recent US military strikes in Sokoto State, arguing that missiles had delivered optics, not protection. “It is clear that President Trump only cares about Christians in Nigeria,” she said, adding that US military actions had failed to materially help vulnerable communities.

Brownback went further, warning that labels without consequences are meaningless. He called for Magnitsky sanctions and targeted economic penalties, insisting that without real punishment, governments like Nigeria’s would simply absorb the criticism and carry on.

“This government has not given us any reason to trust them,” Brownback said bluntly, accusing Abuja of abandoning power-sharing traditions and failing its most vulnerable citizens.

The explosive hearing comes amid rising friction between Washington and Abuja, fuelled by President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that Christians in Nigeria are facing genocide, claims the Federal Government has angrily rejected.

Yet documents filed with the US Department of Justice show that even as Abuja disputes those allegations, it quietly signed a $9 million contract with DCI Group in December 2025 to sell Nigeria’s “efforts to protect Christians” to US officials. The deal was executed through Kaduna-based Aster Legal on behalf of National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu.

Separately, Valcour founded by a former Trump State Department adviser was retained to lobby for “stronger bilateral relations,” completing what critics now see as an expensive public relations shield for a government under fire.

For US lawmakers, the message from the hearing was unmistakable: Nigeria can spend millions polishing its image in Washington, but no amount of lobbying can erase the blood, the graves and the growing global impatience with a state that appears more invested in spin than in saving lives.

• By Barth Ozah, PGSNews