US President Donald Trump has finally created space for Nigeria in his busy schedule. “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and 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 posted on Truth Social. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!” Please note: the capitals are his.
Almost every country has been at the receiving end of Trump’s vicious vituperations and tariff tantrums, but I felt Nigeria was too insignificant to have its own slot on his schedule. He then dropped the fully loaded, ominous post. One, he said “if the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians”. That means he believes the government wilfully allows the killings. Many Nigerians have argued that the government has been pampering the so-called repentant terrorists and bandits, thereby sending the wrong signals about its seriousness. Two, Trump said “the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria”. Aid, many activists will argue, is political.
Three, Trump threatened to “completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities”. He thinks he can wipe out the terrorists (this is good news to me) and seems to attribute all the “horrible atrocities” to them. Four, he said the US attacks “will be fast, vicious, and sweet”. That is, ending terrorism is “easy peasy”. Five, he warned the Nigerian government to move “very fast”, implying that we can wipe out the terrorists but we don’t want to do so. But contrary to widespread reports, Trump — who says there is “white genocide” in South Africa — did not mention “Christian genocide” regarding Nigeria. He spoke of the “persecution” and “killing” of Christians.
“Christian genocide” was coined from a report by InterSociety, an NGO based in Onitsha, Anambra state, which the military has linked to the separatist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). The NGO has denied the allegation, but it classifies the killing of “unknown gunmen” in the south-east by security agencies as part of the “Christian genocide”. Instructively, it is InterSociety’s data that is being used by the American lobbyists. However, it appears Trump did not get the memo as he seems only concerned about “Islamic Terrorists” and northern Christians. That may be why Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader, called on him to also probe the killing of “Judeo-Christians” in the south-east.
Kanu had to speak out. The powerful lobbyists who successfully sold the genocide narrative to Trump are not that interested in northern Christians. They are obviously looking at how Trump can help facilitate the break-up of Nigeria. “ExNigeria” is already a popular topic on social media. An audit of social media has shown that most of the accounts amplifying “Christian genocide” are pro-IPOB. But Prof Chukwuma Soludo, the Anambra governor, had this to say: “Christians [are] killing Christians [in the south-east]. The people in the bushes are Emmanuel, Peter, and John, all Christian names… they have maimed and killed thousands of our youths.” This can complicate the agenda of the lobbyists.
Before Trump drops his bombs, therefore, I would like to keep him up to speed on the Nigerian situation. There are at least five dimensions to the insecurity: (1) terrorism (2) insurgency (3) banditry and kidnapping (4) farmers/herders clashes (5) communal conflicts. When Trump says “Islamic Terrorists”, I assume he means Boko Haram, founded in the early 2000s when President Olusegun Obasanjo was in power. They started as a bunch of zealots whose doctrine did not sit well with many Islamic clerics. Their first prominent victim was Sheikh Jaafar Mahmud Adam, who was gunned down during early morning prayers at the Dorayi Central Mosque, Kano, on April 13, 2007.
Boko Haram, whose core message centred on Good Muslim vs Bad Muslim, soon got on the nerves of politicians. The security agencies went after them. The first major crackdown was on July 26, 2009 in Bauchi. They were arrested and killed, and their mosques razed. They responded with an uprising in Maiduguri, their headquarters. Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf, the founder, was captured and summarily executed. That resulted in the launch of their full-scale terror campaign: they started making bombs, first targeting the police, before unleashing horror on motor parks, buildings, churches and mosques, mostly in Abuja, Kano, Borno and Kaduna. The bombing campaign now appears to be distant history.
On the other hand, the insurgency is still very much alive, specifically in the north-east. Insurgents typically seek to conquer a territory to establish political authority. Between 2012 and 2015, we lost significant territory, equal to the size of Belgium, in the north-east to the Boko Haram insurgents. President Goodluck Jonathan once declared emergency rule in parts of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa to push them back. The reason given for the postponement of the 2015 elections was to intensify the war against insurgency, which recorded notable progress. Under President Muhammadu Buhari in 2016, they were dislodged from most parts of Borno. But the more they die, the more they multiply.
The third dimension to the insecurity is banditry — typified by looting and shooting with no declared political agenda. For over a decade, this has been ravaging north-western Nigeria, full of ungoverned spaces, with Zamfara state as the epicentre. I started monitoring this in 2012. It, maybe, started with cattle rustling, leading to herders arming themselves. The herders became a menace too and rural communities started hiring foreign gunmen for protection. Illegal mining, believed to be the bread and butter of some local politicians, entered the mix. In the midst of the anarchy, kidnapping for ransom took the centre stage. The crime began to spread to other parts of the north and the south.
The perennial herders/farmers clashes add another dimension to the insecurity. These conflicts are as old as I can remember and were common in the north but became politically explosive as they spread to the Middle Belt and many parts of the south. I grew up witnessing herders/farmers clashes. As I pointed out in my previous essay, when Fulani herders ravage the farms of Hausa or Kanuri farmers in Jigawa or Borno state, the ensuing fracas is classified as herders/farmers clash since religious framing is impossible while ethnic mapping will be odd. But when the herders destroy farms in predominantly Christian areas in the north, the resultant clashes inevitably wear a religious toga.
Communal conflicts constitute the fifth dimension of the insecurity. Such conflicts are all over the country. Some have gone dormant. In southern Nigeria, we had the Ogbeh-Ijoh war in Delta state between Urhobo and Itsekiri militias from 1997 and 2003. Over 700,000 people were displaced, in addition to the hundreds killed. The Umuleri-Aguleri hostilities in Anambra state consumed hundreds of lives. The Ife-Modakeke war in Osun state threw up many dead bodies. Ishiagu and Ezza communities in Ebonyi state fight over farmlands till today, leading to the loss of lives. Early this year, Ilobu and Ifon communities in Osun state fought, leavings many villagers dead, injured or displaced.
However, these bloody conflicts in the south do not fit into our narrative of ethno-religious killings because the warring communities are of the same religion or ethnicity. The same cannot be said of the north where most communal conflicts are framed as religious. Some conflicts are rooted in colonial, even precolonial, history in places like Kaduna, Plateau and Benue where there is also the issue of indigenes vs settlers. And this is also where the “Christian genocide” allegation is common. I want to believe that this is where Trump’s interest really lies. I sense that everything Trump has been saying is about the killings in Plateau and Benue states (Kaduna is now, thankfully, more peaceful).
If I am correct, that means Trump’s bombs would not be as helpful to Nigeria as many people think. For one, I do not believe Boko Haram is involved in the Benue-Plateau killings. Those ones are more interested in carving a caliphate out of Borno state. If Trump bombs the “Islamic Terrorists”, it may be helpful in Nigeria’s war against terrorism and insurgency, but it will not end the killings in the Middle Belt, where people are fighting over land and grazing rights.
That is not Boko Haram’s priority. Also, bombing the bandits in the north-west may help us, but it will not resolve the old issues between Christians and Muslims (if we choose to define them by religion) in the Benue-Plateau communities.
In other words, Trump’s “fast, vicious, and sweet” attack may not achieve much — and I am not even discussing the legality of such an action. It will not end the 16-year-old terrorism/insurgency in the north-east, or the decade-long banditry in the north-west, or the intractable conflicts framed as Christian/Muslim war in the Middle Belt dating back to maybe 100 years. Nigeria has lost thousands of soldiers and other security personnel in the war against Boko Haram, bandits and “unknown gunmen”. If terrorism were easy to “completely wipe out” as Trump suggests, the US would not have left Afghanistan after losing over 2,200 soldiers in the Asian country between 2001 and 2021.
As for “Operation exNigeria”, it will be interesting to see how this will be implemented. While it is easy to excise the south-east to form the Republic of Biafra, Christian populations are spread across the 19 northern states. I wonder if, and how, northern Christians will be physically relocated into one geographic space. Some things are easy to implement on social media but are very complicated in practical terms. Moreover, there are no reports of “Christian genocide” in northern states such as Adamawa, Nasarawa, Gombe, Kwara, Kogi and Taraba. How then will they figure in “Operation exNigeria”? I promise to keep watching this fascinating agenda with keen interest. Fingers crossed.
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AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…
MADE IN CHINA
In the wake of President Trump’s “guns-a-blazing” threat against Nigeria, we may think we have found a friend in China, with Ms Mao Ning, spokesperson for its foreign ministry, saying: “As Nigeria’s comprehensive strategic partner, China firmly opposes any country using religion and human rights as an excuse to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, and threatening other countries with sanctions and force.” I hope we did not take that to the bank. The last thing China wants to be involved in is war. It is busy expanding its place in the global economy as well as its exploitation of Africa’s resources and colonisation of its markets. China will not lift a finger for anybody. Fact.
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