US lawmaker accuses Matawalle of trying to silence her

KEY POINTS

• Florida state representative Kimberly Daniels has accused Bello Matawalle, Nigeria’s minister of state for defense, of pressuring US officials to discredit her report on insecurity in Nigeria.
• Daniels released a report on April 14, 2026, flagging Easter-period attacks in Plateau, Kaduna and Nasarawa and calling on President Bola Tinubu to consider redeploying Matawalle.
• The lawmaker says she will not be silenced and has invoked her constitutional right to speak on international human rights as an elected official.

A US state legislator has stepped into Nigeria’s deepening security row, accusing the country’s minister of state for defense of trying to muzzle international criticism of the killings on his watch. Kimberly Daniels, a member of the Florida House of Representatives, said Bello Matawalle and his allies pressured American officials to push back against her recent report on killings in Nigeria.

Daniels traces pressure to Matawalle

Daniels, who chairs the United World Congress of Diplomats, made the allegations during a Facebook live broadcast. She said her statement on what she called the targeted killing of Christians in Nigeria triggered coordinated attempts to discredit her work and to “buy support” from US elected officials.

Daniels also said one unnamed American lawmaker took up Matawalle’s defense, publicly countering her position on the killings. She added that she had received communications, including a draft statement and promotional material she traced to the minister’s circle, meant to “divide American elected officials, not knowing that they are united.”

“I am speaking on behalf of people who say they are under attack,” Daniels said, framing her intervention as a call for investigation rather than an outright accusation.

She also brushed off attempts to intimidate or silence her, asserting her constitutional right to speak on international human rights as an elected official in the United States.

Report calls for Tinubu review

The flare-up follows a report Daniels released on April 14, 2026, in her role at the UN-WCD. In turn, the document raised alarms about escalating violence in Nigeria’s North Central and North West, citing Easter-period attacks across Plateau, Kaduna and Nasarawa states and pointing to a widening gap between government assurances and the reality on the ground.

The same report questioned Matawalle’s continued leadership of the defense ministry, citing “credibility and integrity concerns.” It urged a review of Nigeria’s security leadership and called on President Bola Tinubu to consider redeploying the minister, alongside a transparent investigation into the underlying allegations.

Daniels said her position ultimately rests on testimonies from affected communities, members of the Nigerian diaspora and findings from the UN-WCD’s multinational network across the United States, Nigeria, Ghana, the United Kingdom and Canada.

The exchange further lands at a moment of heightened scrutiny over Nigeria’s security architecture, as fresh attacks in the country’s middle belt continue to test the Tinubu administration’s response. Whether Tinubu acts on Daniels’ call for a redeployment will be one of the first signals of how Abuja plans to handle rising international pressure.