Our dear nation, Nigeria, is currently at the crossroads as it grapples with the threat of military invasion by the United States of America over claims of genocide against Christians in the country.
President Donald Trump’s threat to the Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, to stop the alleged killings of Christians in his country or contend with military intervention, followed the recent designation of Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern (CPC),’ a moniker the Nigerian government has consistently rejected.
Other countries on the CPC list include Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan. It was not Trump’s first time. He had designated Nigeria as CPC in his first term but Joe Biden, his successor, who probably had a better grasp of the true situation in the country, yanked Nigeria off the list.
Indeed, Trump’s accusation about genocide against Christians in Nigeria is a false narrative. The US President, his advisers and lawmakers who are involved in the debate about Nigeria’s CPC status, miss the point about the real situation on ground. True, the blood-thirsty terrorists are in the orgy of massive killings and kidnappings for ransom in the country and the situation is dire.
However, contrary to the popular narrative fed the US President, it is never an etho-religious issue.
The felons do not discriminate about their victims’ faith or ethnicity. Actually, whenever they attack predominantly Christian populations or states, the victims will be majorly Christians. This is the picture in Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Southern Kaduna.
Conversely, whenever the daredevils swoop on predominantly Muslim populations, majority of those killed or kidnapped will be Muslims, which is also the situation in Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Niger, Borno and other Muslim populations under siege.
However, that is not to say that there are no cases where some Christians are killed by some overzealous Islamic fanatics largely for alleged blasphemy. There are. They included an Igbo, Gideon Akaluka, in Kano (1994); a preacher, Eunice Olawale, in Kubwa Abuja (2016) and a college student, Deborah Yakubu, in Sokoto (2022). But they are isolated cases and far between.
The sudden and shocking threat from the US President momentarily spewed a flurry of reactive actions. First, it expectedly stirred panic across the land, because that is the first time the ‘policeman of the world,’ as US is often labelled, will tout military option in its dealings with Nigeria.
The panic is accentuated by the fact that President Trump immediately followed his threat with a clear directive to the US War Department to prepare for a possible military action to wipe out the terrorists killing Christians in Nigeria.
The situation is already uncomfortably getting the eagle eyes of US’ rival world powers: China already warned against interfering in the nation’s internal affairs, while Russia says it is watching the US-Nigeria imbroglio with keen interest.
Second, to the chagrin and horror of more discernible Nigerians who are circumspect about the larger consequences of the sudden and bland threat from the most powerful country in the world, some Nigerians have been celebrating the threat!
Third, and ironically like the ‘good’ side of a bad dream, Trump’s war rhetoric has set the Tinubu administration into an immediate spur of actions. Before now and perhaps until the ‘coup scare’ and the sudden change of the Service Chief that trailed it, politicking about 2027, especially the gale of defections and opposition’s reactive politics, had somewhat dominated the business of governance.
However, the threat appears to have spurred a stronger push against the security maelstrom in the land. There have been more strategy meetings and redoubling of efforts by those concerned, as government has stepped up security coordination and diplomatic engagement following the threat by the US President.
The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, hours after Trump’s threat on Sunday, met with the service chiefs and heads of intelligence agencies in Abuja to review the security situation and coordinate the government’s response. The meeting was said to have also discussed US statements and measures to avoid diplomatic tension.
Almost about the same time, the FCT Police Command, Abuja, launched a three-month special operation targeting criminal hideouts across the territory.
According to a statement by the FCT Police Public Relations Officer, SP Josephine Adeh, the Commissioner of Police, Miller Dantawaye, directed all tactical and surveillance units under the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), including operatives of the Police Mobile Force and Counter Terrorism Unit, to join forces with divisional police formations in the operation.
The special operation, which commences in November, 2025 and will run through January, 2026, is aimed at identifying, dislodging and apprehending all criminal elements hibernating within the nooks and crannies of the territory,” Adeh said.
The government’s renewed attention to security, analysts say, may signal tougher operations against Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province, and armed bandit groups blamed for thousands of deaths in the past decade across Nigeria.
However, as tensions continue to brew between the two countries and uncertainty rules the waves, especially because Trump, a stroppy and an unpredictable character, has hinted that there would be no further warning before he strikes if he has to, it is laudable that the Tinubu administration has elected to handle the challenge diplomatically in order not to escalate the rhetoric.
This, indeed, is not the time for heroic, rumbustious speeches to grandstand but a time for sobriety and diplomatic niceties to mollify and conciliate with a view to properly ventilating the correct perspectives of the issue to Washington, in order to avoid further inflaming passions.
This is exactly the wise counsel of a former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Lai Olurode, who advised the Federal Government to tread cautiously in its engagement with the US.
In a statement last Wednesday, Olurode advised that diplomacy, rather than what he called “emotional or defensive patriotism”, should guide Nigeria’s response to the US designation and Trump’s recent comments.
He warned: “There seems to be no country that can stop America. We should be diplomatic rather than being emotional or displaying morbid patriotism. President Trump can be angry with even the truth. So far, our government has acted with caution and with the consciousness that America can kill Nigeria’s fly with a sledgehammer. It is suicidal to walk into America’s death trap.”
So far, Tinubu and government functionaries have been highly diplomatic in the handling of issues.
Diplomatic channels have already been opened with the international community, including Washington and the nation’s foreign allies. The President himself, who has reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to overcoming the CPC designation by defeating terrorism, has had a direct telephone conversation with Trump over the issue and robustly interacted with the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Richard M. Mills Jr.
On Wednesday last week, strategic members of the diplomatic community were assembled in Abuja and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dunoma Ahmed, carefully briefed the diplomatic world why Nigeria’s situation does not resonate with the CPC designation.
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, also laid on the table with lurid facts and figures, the efforts of the Tinubu administration in tackling the terrorists since he came to power since 2023.
Idris’s Aviation and Aerospace Development counterpart, Festus Keyamo, also wrote quite a scintillating letter to Trump, explaining a balanced view of Nigeria’s situation. He said Nigeria’s insecurity trajectory is not a religious issue and that the current administration is never complicit in the killings.
These are commendable efforts but the current challenge is more of a self-inflicted one for the Tinubu administration. The government has created a lacuna in the all-important diplomatic sphere by failing to replace the ambassadors it recalled immediately it assumed power in 2023.
According to experts, diplomacy thrives on presence and personal relationships, two assets Nigeria currently lacks by its inexcusable delay in appointing new ambassadors for two whole years now!
Whereas in the world power centers, ambassadors are described as the ‘currency of influence,’ who by their calling, cultivate trust long before crises arise. If they are not there, there is delayed communication, lost advocacy and missed opportunities.
Diplomats, who chide the government for this big loophole, say the nation’s empty embassies are also undermining its economic ambitions because ambassadors play crucial roles in negotiating trade deals, attracting foreign direct investment, and mobilizing diaspora remittances.
In essence, it would have been better for the former ambassadors to be left in their stations till government is ready to replace them, because were they in place since, the narrative would probably have been different. The correct picture of the situation in Nigeria would have been appropriately canvassed in the language the world understands when the debate about Nigeria being a CPC came on the card in Washington.
The government should, therefore, release the list of the new ambassadors and let them resume without further delay to engage in whatever diplomatic damage control they can still do. In the interim, government should ‘employ’ some of the old and globally respected diplomatic buffs the nation is blessed with — The likes of Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, Sir Emeka Anyaoku, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, among others, to engage Washington and possibly talk Trump off the threatened invasion.
It is, however, shocking that while apprehensions rule the waves about a possible US military invasion whose consequences cannot be predicted, some Nigerians are not only hailing the move, they are campaigning and even writing the Oval Office for Trump to make good its threat!
Some of them are ostensibly playing ‘spoilers’ politics because they hate the government of the day. But some are innocently naive, expecting that a US invasion will just wipe out terrorists and restore peace and order.
But it is not as simple as that. As the saying goes, he who fails to learn from history risks repeating history. Those who are circumspect are in retrospect, considering the tragic fate that befell most of the countries where US has intervened directly militarily, either to neutralize terrorist networks or for other reasons, leading allied forces in some instances.
Some of these countries include Iraq, Afghanistan (following the 9/11 attack), Libya, Syria (against ISIS), Sudan, Somalia, among others. Most of these countries are either in fragments or fighting wars today following the US military interventions.
Therefore, this is not the time to play politics with the issue at hand or cast aspersions. This is the time to rally around government in the battle to stave off a military intervention that could potentially raze down the roof. If the nation goes under today, God forbid, who loses?
This is an appeal to President Trump to heed the various admonitions for him to balance his views about Nigeria and in the interest of the masses of the Nigerian people avoid plunging the country into needless fratricidal chaos. A direct military intervention will not help Nigeria. It will only escalate the nation’s fragile sectarian fissures, widen ethnic divisions and undermine national cohesion.
Nigeria, however, needs help desperately in tackling the terror gangs because all the military campaigns so far have failed to decimate the bandits and insurgents. Stretched thin and battling in all fronts, the military is almost getting overwhelmed.
But the real help Nigeria needs now is not direct military invasion but logistic support. The US should rather provide modern, sophisticated weapons and manpower training to man those equipment. It should also assist the nation with its massive networks in intelligence and surveillance towards dismantling the hydra-headed terrorists’ cells with precision.
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