The recent claim by the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump about a genocidal pogrom of the adherents of Christian faith in Nigeria and the subsequent re-designation of Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ is a joke taken too far by the man at the Oval House.
It is an open and shut fact that Nigeria has, for decades, had her fair share of insecurity, a menace that is equally overtly ubiquitous across the globe, and has, through successive governments, done her best to address this menace. At every point in time, the country had shared intelligence and had even solicited support and collaboration with the international community to help fight the onslaught, which appears intractable as a corollary of many factors including foreign interests.
Reports backed by evidence, including that of the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and other international organisations, have shown that there have been as many Muslims killed as much as their Christian counterparts. What the country faces is an insecurity quagmire orchestrated by economic interest, sometimes land grabbing by locals, ethnic clashes, as well as other selfish motives, not necessarily religious.
The current leadership in the country under the ascendancy of His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR has so far shown more commitment in addressing the country’s insecurity on all its facets. This is seen in the many successes recorded in recent times by the Tinubu-led administration, and to which the same United States government has repeatedly commended, especially in the last four months. It is therefore shocking and overly flabbergasting that the same U.S. government, which has, many times, commended the Nigerian government would come back with such threat as recently announced.
As a think-tank group and a staunch supporter of the current administration, the leadership has taken its time to look at the report the United States president, Donald Trump relied upon to have acted in such manner, and we discovered President Trump had relied on a report by an NGO with sympathy for the proscribed group known as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) – a group that has hitherto killed more Igbos than any death from insecurity in the last four years. The Intersociety for Civil Liberty and Rule of Law’s report which the Republican Senator Ted Cruz relied on used data of 2016 through 2020 (which in itself were not accurate) to push the phantom narrative of a Christian genocide in Nigeria is owned by one Emeka Umeagbalasi. He launched the group in July, 2008. Umeagbalasi had at some point also worked with Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party during the 2023 election. So, understandably, the dots can be connected.
We at The Think-Tinubu Initiative (3TI), therefore, call on the United States president, Donald Trump to thread on the path of caution. Nigeria is a sovereign state that is capable of resolving its internal crisis. The best that the United States can do, and indeed the international community, is to support the country in the area of collaborative intelligence gathering and sharing, sale of arms, as well as provision of additional trainings for Nigeria’s military officers in the ever dynamic world of crimes.
Let it be placed on record that the Nigeria territorial soil is not prepared for occupation by the U.S. ground soldiers, neither is her airspace available for U.S. military interference. As Nigerians, we will solve our internal problems our own way, which the current leadership under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is addressing with all the zest, gusto, and commitment it requires anyway.
– Ọmọlúàbí Ọmọgbolahan L.A. BABAWALE
Convener/Lead Resource Person
The Think-Tinubu Initiative(3TI)