; Whereas Nigeria is an ethnically and religiously diverse Federal State, and traditionally political power has been balanced between Muslims and Christians, Northerners and Southerners, and among Nigeria’s 371 different ethnic groups; Whereas President Muhammadu Buhari has favored and promoted fellow Fulani and other northern Muslim ethnic groups, while many of Nigeria’s diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Igbo and Yoruba as well as Christians and Shia Muslims, report they are denied equal rights; Whereas, on July 13, 2021, in testimony at a congressional hearing before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission by Bishop Matthew Kukah of Sokoto, representing the Catholic Church in Nigeria, stated that the Muslim elite us[es] religion as a tool for political mobilisation , and further stated that President Buhari shows a clear preference for appointing men and women of his faith ; Whereas departures from past conventions aimed at achieving ethnic, religious, and geographic balance include the forced replacement of then-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Walter Onnoghen with a Muslim jurist, and the selection of Muslims as leaders of both houses of the national legislature; Whereas President Buhari’s party, the All Progressives Congress, in a departure from customary practice, nominated two Muslims to its 2023 Presidential ticket, selecting as vice presidential candidate Kashim Shettima, whose past tenure as governor of Borno State was criticized for failing to adequately address jihadi violence perpetrated by Boko Haram; Whereas the Aid to the Church in Need reports that, since early 2022 alone, 20 Nigerian Catholic priests have been kidnapped, 5 of whom were murdered, with many of these attacks occurring on church grounds