THE United States has launched an independent investigation into sectarian violence killings in Jos, Plateau State, and other parts of the northern states, and has sent its investigative team to Nigeria for that purpose.

The US investigative team which visited the National Assembly on Tuesday, is relying on initial investigations on same issue done by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which berated the Federal Government for failing to apply correct measures in tackling religious crisis in the country.

The American investigators had met some members of the Senate and House of Representatives for directions on how get the appropriate authorities in Nigeria to appreciate the danger lying in waiting for Nigeria on the unceasing clashes between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria.    

The investigators, Nigerian Tribune learnt, had earlier visited Plateau, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, Borno States and some other northern states, noted as the hotbed of religious crisis in Nigeria.

The visit by the US investigators to Nigeria, it was learnt was meant to obtain detailed information on plans by the United States Government to put Nigeria on the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) for special attention by US and other developed countries.

An initial report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, made available to the Nigerian Tribune, highlighted that since 2008 till date, religious violence in Plateau State alone had claimed more than 3,000 lives, just as it stressed that more than 10,000 citizens of the state had been displaced.

The report expressed regret that even the parliament of Nigeria which conducted independent investigations into religious crisis in the northern parts of the country within the period under study, agreed that violence so far recorded in the most affected states were “absolutely avoidable.”