President Donald Trump’s accustomed blustering and warmongering against fellow world leaders and nations hit Nigeria like a storm, penultimate week, with his threat of military action against the country if its leaders do not take urgent and deliberate steps to halt the killings of Christians by non-state actors.
These murders, he claimed, have reached genocidal proportions. He doubled down on this falsehood with an unprovoked denigration of our country.
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His stance on Nigeria, to say the least, is absurd — an illegality that flagrantly violates international law. Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter expressly requires member nations to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force” against one another. The American president and his country must respect that law.
Mr Trump’s sabre-rattling came two days after his re-designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) over the allegation of genocide against Christians, for which he has arrogated to himself the role of their self-appointed advocate. Nigeria is one of the 13 nations that have been globally placed on that pariah list. He had included the oil-rich nation in the same category during his first term in office in 2020, but his successor, Joe Biden, delisted it in 2021.
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In our editorial of 27 October, we dismissed the genocide narrative as “false and misleading,” given that there is no official mastermind of such impunity. Yet, we acknowledged the reality of killings affecting both Christians and Muslims, perpetrated by non-state actors. This context exposes Washington’s gross misrepresentation of the facts of Nigeria’s security situation and betrays the underbelly of a clearly mischievous agenda.
According to Mr Trump, “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA may very well go into that now disgraced country, guns-a-blazing, to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
He further declared that the military action would be “fast, vicious and sweet.” As a result, he claimed to have ordered his Department of War to prepare for the assault.
Mr Trump’s reckless, inflammatory and undiplomatic outbursts triggered a frenzied pushback by the Nigerian Presidency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Information, the National Orientation Agency, and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Why would the United States even contemplate a unilateral military offensive on a country with which it has no adversarial relations? The answer remains unclear, though certain indicators provide clues. Since July this year, it became apparent that Nigeria had incurred Mr Trump’s wrath for refusing to accede to his proposal to accept US-deported migrants, some of who are convicted criminals, on its soil.
America’s migration crisis was one of Mr Trump’s key campaign anchors in the 2023 presidential election. Refusing to align with him in cleaning up that mess, as he promised during his campaign, was tantamount to courting his wrath. Even American judges who refused to compromise justice in migration-related cases before them risked being targeted and humiliated by the eccentric, falsehood-manufacturing, and spewing president. One of them, Hannah Dugan from Wisconsin, met a related fate in April, as she aided an undocumented immigrant, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, in avoiding arrest by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Nigeria’s decision not to admit American deportees was clearly articulated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, during a television interview: “Our country has enough of its own challenges. We have no interest in becoming a dumping ground for unwanted migrants.” For the audacity of the government to reject this imposition, the US retaliated with visa restrictions on Nigerian citizens, now limiting them to three-month, single-entry visas each time they apply to visit America.
Mr Trump, however, found allies in five African leaders — from Senegal, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, and Mauritania, who he recently hosted at the White House. Deals were struck. In unmistakable terms, Mr Trump told them to look to the US as their principal trading partner, rather than China, stressing its policy shift from “aid to trade.”
The foregoing underscores a geopolitical dimension or raison d’être for Mr Trump’s war threat to Nigeria. Africa has become a vast chessboard in the feverish rivalry among China, Russia, and the US, for spheres of influence and trade. China has outmanoeuvred the US in this regard, especially in Nigeria, with its steady infrastructure provision, concessional credits, strategic investments, multilateral deals, and a currency swap arrangement.
China’s growing footprint in Nigeria has also enabled its nationals to seize the solid minerals landscape for illegal mining, notably of gold, lithium, and other resources. The US desperately needs lithium for the production of rechargeable batteries for consumer goods, including electric vehicles, and in its massive tech ecosystem. This rare earth resource is abundant in Nasarawa, Kogi, Kwara, Cross River, and Ekiti states.
To secure access to it could be one of the hidden allures behind Mr Trump’s belligerence – a bid for subversion disguised as a moral crusade. This transactional or quid pro quo mindset is consistent with Mr Trump’s past conduct: from his conditional military aid to Ukraine, amidst its war with Russia, to his intervention in the rapprochement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda over mineral interests in the DRC.
Conscious of what is at stake, China warned the US last Tuesday not to meddle in Nigeria’s internal affairs under the guise of religion or human rights. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Mao Ning, reminded Washington of her country’s “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Nigeria.
Nigeria had also rebuffed a US overture in 2024 to establish a military base within its territory, after Washington withdrew its troops from the French base in Chad, following the ejection of France from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad. Regaining a strategic hub for US special operations in West Africa, with Nigeria as an ideal location, remains a tempting objective for Mr Trump.
Some observers are sceptical of the likelihood of an actual US military action in Nigeria. However, reports of contingency plans — with three operational options by the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), as revealed by the New York Times on Wednesday — may have tempered such doubts. Mr Trump is an unpredictable character who cannot be casually dismissed. His decision to deploy a 30,000-pound bunker-buster bomb on Iran’s nuclear facility in June, the largest in the US arsenal, despite its apocalyptic implications, is a chilling reminder of what he is capable of.
The Nigerian government, however, deserves some blames for Mr Trump’s disrespect of our country. Widespread corruption and poor governance has continued to ridicule Nigeria in the comity of nations. For instance, while ambassadors are regarded as lubricants in the machinery of diplomacy, the first line of engagement when relations turn frosty between nations, it is regrettable that Nigeria’s 109 missions abroad, including that in Washington, remain headless since all ambassadors were recalled on 2 September 2023. This dereliction of duty by the administration represents a shameful failure of Nigeria’s diplomatic responsibility, which is quite indefensible. Correcting this faux pas should be an immediate priority of the federal government.
In addition, President Tinubu should urgently constitute a high-level diplomatic back channel, comprising eminent, globally respected Nigerian statesmen and women, to engage Mr Trump and salvage the longstanding but now fraying Nigeria-US relationship.
At this juncture, PREMIUM TIMES would like to remind the boastful and warmongering Mr Trump, who continues to spread falsehoods about a so-called Christian genocide in Nigeria, to exercise restraint. Any unilateral, spiteful military action in Nigeria could trigger a monumental humanitarian catastrophe that would harm the very “cherished Christians” he claims to want to defend. Israel’s bombings in Gaza, which he supported, did not kill only Hamas fighters, but over 65,000 Palestinians, including Christians.
READ ALSO: Alleged Christian Genocide: Why the Sudden Love for Christians? — Pastor Wale Adefarasin to Trump
The US military misadventures in Iraq, Syria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Libya should inspire wisdom and caution. These reckless displays of might, in brazen violation of the UN Charter, just as Russia’s current aggression in Ukraine and Mr Trump’s threatened assault on Nigeria, raise troubling questions about the United Nation’s capacity to maintain global peace. It is a broken international system in dire need of fixing.
Mr Trump’s diplomatic bullying, masquerading as Christian advocacy, must stop. The US needs to learn to engage with other nations — big or small, weak or powerful, stable or troubled, rich or poor, First World or Third — with respect, equanimity, and a sense of shared humanity. History teaches that empires rise and fall, and the biblical story of David and Goliath should remind nations and their leaders alike of the enduring virtue of humility.
Every nation has its peculiar challenges. As Nigeria grapples with terrorism, banditry, and other security difficulties, it deserves US’ respect and partnership — not disdain and humiliation. Nigeria needs America’s collaboration, not confrontation; support, not alienation, to defeat these merchants of terror and death, who threaten not only our nation, but all of humanity.
