President Donald Trump

By Dr Samaila Suleiman Yandaki

Nigeria is once again in the global spotlight in the wake of its redesignation as a Country of Particular Concern and the accompanying threat of U.S. military action by the Trump administration to save Nigerian Christians from “genocide”. This narrative is as dangerous as it is familiar, evoking the old imperial logic that simplifies and distorts our complex realities to justify external intervention. As a student of the politics of history and identity conflict, I find this portrayal beyond perturbing and perilous. 

I witnessed firsthand how such perilous narratives were debated in international policy circles when I joined other Nigerian and British stakeholders at a high-level summit at Wilton Park in February 2020 for a dialogue on “Fostering Social Cohesion in Nigeria”. Situated in the serene estate of Wiston House, Steyning, West Sussex, Wilton Park is an Executive Agency of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, widely recognised as a global space for peace dialogues and post-conflict reflection. The meeting was part of the UK government’s follow-up to the Bishop of Truro’s Independent Review on the persecution of Christians worldwide, in which Nigeria was identified as a major flashpoint of “religious violence.” The Truro Report asserted that Nigerian Christians are facing systematic persecution and called upon Western governments to do more to protect them. 

At Wilton Park, we were offered more than an interfaith forum to dialogue; we were given the opportunity to deconstruct the dangerous oversimplifications that have come to characterise Western discourses on Nigeria. Unlike the imperialist gimmicks and threats emerging from Washington today, the British government, through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, convened diverse stakeholders from Nigeria and the UK – religious leaders, politicians, diplomats, academics, and civil society representatives – to deliberate on the multifaceted security challenges confronting Nigeria and explore ways of building social cohesion. I am not permitted by the Wilton Park Protocol to name participants or cite their specific interventions, but suffice it to say that, with few exceptions, those present were individuals who matter in Nigerian and British policy circles.

The participants spent three days discussing the farmer-herder crisis, the Boko Haram insurgency, and the persistent communal conflicts in the Middle Belt. What struck me most was the consensus among Nigerian participants — Muslims and Christians alike — that the “Christian persecution” framing was profoundly misleading. We emphasised that the reality was far more complex than the narrative of religious persecution suggests. The problem, as several participants observed, is not that Christians do not suffer violence, but that violence in Nigeria is indiscriminate, affecting all communities. To single out one group as uniquely persecuted is to misread the nature of the crisis. 

The Wilton Park approach reflected a subtle but significant shift– the need to appreciate the broader social, political, and environmental dynamics of violence in Nigeria. While the Truro Report relegated these factors to the background, we strongly highlighted them, showing that Nigeria’s crisis is a shared national tragedy rather than a targeted religious war. The goal was to nurture a more nuanced understanding, one that resists the reductive opposition between Muslim perpetrator and Christian victim. 

The meeting concluded on a high note with consensus around the “sensitivity and diversity of conflict narratives,” recognising that every victim’s voice deserves to be heard. It was agreed that shifting the narrative from “Muslims against Christians” and other binary categories must therefore be a priority if we are to avoid deepening existing divisions. The meeting recommended that the Nigerian government should “commission and fund independent, credible research on climate change, number of attacks, crime victims, cattle routes and patterns; develop strategy on how to use data to proactively educate, myth-bust and shape narratives for both sides of the argument; justice and peace training to be included in schools; Government of Nigeria to appoint a National Reconciliation Adviser; establish a Joint Religious Coalition to ensure accountability of government for insecurity and politicisation of conflict; develop religious engagement strategy; and commence dialogue to facilitate creating ‘Code of Conduct’ for religious leaders,” among other actionable recommendations. This later became the groundwork for further peacebuilding engagements between Nigerian and British stakeholders. The Wilton Park dialogue is a model of thoughtful engagement, the kind of thoughtful diplomacy the world requires in times of conflict, not the militarised moralism coming from Washington. 

The question is, what are the true intentions of Trump? Is he genuinely motivated by a humanitarian desire to protect Nigerian Christians, or is this another exercise in the US geopolitical and imperial crusade? History offers little reason for optimism. We know that humanitarian and messianic pretexts always precede Imperial interventions. In the 19th and 20th centuries, colonial logic was a “civilising mission”; today it is “defence of persecuted Christians”. The language changes, but the logic remains the same —define and rule, borrowing from Mahmood Mamdani. The Palestinian literary critic Edward Said describes this imperial habit of defining how others are perceived and how their suffering is interpreted. Therefore, classifying Nigeria—a complex, plural, and Muslim-majority nation—as a persecutor of Christians is a convenient casus belli for Trump, masquerading as a humanitarian concern. 

Meanwhile, I congratulate the proponents of the “Christian genocide” narrative in Nigeria and beyond. We are now officially a Country of Particular Concern, polarised and divided. As the advocates of the narrative await, with self-righteous anticipation, an American-led “rescue mission”, I want to remind them of the devastation that American invasion has brought to nations in the name of salvation: Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Vietnam, Somalia. Each intervention was couched in the language of freedom, yet each left behind broken societies and deepened resentment.

The “Christian genocide” narrative is doubly dangerous: while deepening domestic divisions, it legitimises foreign intervention. This is not to deny the suffering of Christians in parts of Nigeria. Their pain is real and deserves acknowledgement. But this is equally true of Muslims and others who have suffered the same fate. The question is not who suffers most, but how that suffering is framed. 

Ultimately, the Nigerian state bears the greatest responsibility for its failure to protect all its citizens. Endemic corruption, elite impunity, and the persistent inability to provide security for Nigerians have created fertile ground for such divisive narratives to thrive. Unfortunately, the citizens themselves have collectively failed to hold the government accountable for these failures. Instead, they are busying themselves competing for victimhood, thereby creating the conditions for external powers to intervene discursively and politically. It is this vacuum that the Trump administration is filling.  

The task before Nigerian scholars, faith leaders, and policymakers is to reclaim the narrative, not through denial, but through a more honest, inclusive, diplomatic and historically grounded understanding and framing of its own complex realities. The federal government must strengthen its security institutions and reassert the primacy of equal citizenship. All lives matter in Nigeria—Christian, Muslim, and traditionalist alike.

Dr Samaila Suleiman writes from the Department of History, Bayero University, Kano.

By Misbahu El-Hamza

President Bola Tinubu has finally responded to the false accusation of a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria, a narrative that surfaced in late September. Yet as this claim gains traction in U.S. conservative circles, he should be more worried about his political prospects. The narrative—and U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent call to redesignate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC)—could give Washington both motive and cover to oppose Tinubu’s re-election in 2027, just as former President Goodluck Jonathan alleged of the Obama administration in 2015.

Former President Jonathan publicly claimed that he lost the 2015 election because of U.S. interference. Two issues broadly defined the diplomatic rift between the two governments. The first was Boko Haram’s insurgency and the abduction of the Chibok girls. In a 2018 BBC interview, Jonathan lamented that Nigerians in the U.S. joined public protests there, one of which famously featured Michelle Obama holding a placard with the slogan #BringBackOurGirls.

At the October 2025 launch of ‘SCARS: Nigeria’s Journey and the Boko Haram Conundrum,’ by former Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Lucky Irabor (retd.), Jonathan recalled: “When I was in office, one of the major scars on my government, and one I will retire with, is the issue of the Chibok girls. As Bishop Kukah said, no plastic or cosmetic surgeon will remove it.” The then-opposition under Muhammadu Buhari, which included Tinubu, exploited insecurity for political advantage, a factor that clearly contributed to Jonathan’s loss.

The second, and in my opinion, more damaging rift was Jonathan’s stance against same-sex marriage, reflecting the convictions of most Nigerians. In 2014, he signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, shortly after the Obama administration’s 2011 pledge to “use all the tools of American diplomacy” to promote gay rights globally. Washington’s reaction was swift. The White House warned of possible cuts to HIV/AIDS and anti-malaria funding, while Jonathan’s government held firm. Nigerians applauded him for that. But during the 2015 campaign, the Obama administration’s outreach, including direct appeals to Nigerian voters and a high-profile visit by Secretary of State John Kerry, was widely viewed as tacit support for Buhari, which many Nigerians, including Jonathan himself, believe shaped the election’s outcome.

Insecurity also played a domestic role in Jonathan’s downfall. Nigerians were increasingly alarmed by unrelenting violence—beyond Boko Haram, currently compounded by communal, ethnic, and religious clashes and by banditry mostly in northern Nigeria—that claimed hundreds of innocent lives. Regardless of how the world described it, the reality was and is still tragic. It eroded public trust and patriotism. Yet successive governments, rather than restoring security, have often appeared more concerned with foreign perceptions than with rebuilding national confidence and truly working to end the bloodshed of innocent Nigerians.

So, while Jonathan’s administration angered the Obama White House over the same-sex marriage law, many believe that Tinubu’s has irritated Washington for another reason.

In early September, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025 (S.2747) to the U.S. Senate. The bill seeks to sanction Nigerian officials allegedly complicit in “Islamist jihadist violence against Christians and other minorities” and those “enforcing blasphemy laws”. Blasphemy remains an offence under Nigeria’s criminal code and in the twelve northern states operating shari’a law. Yet, the Cruz bill’s language raises serious questions: how would the former officials be identified, and on what evidence? If Washington possesses proof, it has not presented any. Within Nigeria, such accusations often surface in political rhetoric but rarely withstand scrutiny.

Still, Nigeria’s greater “offence” under Tinubu—at least to American conservatives like Bill Maher, Mike Arnold, Ted Cruz, Riley Moore, and now Donald Trump—is its unwavering support for the Palestinian people. Successive Nigerian governments, whether Christian- or Muslim-led, have consistently condemned Israel’s occupation and called for a two-state solution as the only path to peace. This position, long-standing and bipartisan in Nigeria, clashes directly with Washington’s pro-Israel consensus.

After Nigeria’s firm statement at the 80th UN General Assembly in September, Maher went on his HBO show and declared, “I’m not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria,” comparing it to Gaza and calling it “a more serious genocide.” Such claims, amplified by Trump’s rhetoric about “defending Christians,” serve U.S. political optics more than global justice. Recall Trump’s 2020 CPC designation for Nigeria. It was largely symbolic and carried no enforcement before he left office. His renewed posturing appears equally opportunistic.

Tinubu may believe U.S. pressure arises from concern for Christian victims of Islamist violence and that this aligns with Nigeria’s large Christian population. Yet the U.S. record tells a different story. The same establishment that condemns persecution in Nigeria supports Israel’s war in Gaza, where many casualties are both Muslim and Christian Palestinians.

If Nigeria accuses Washington of selective advocacy, it may find sympathy at home, but not in Washington, where lobbying interests dominate the narrative. Assuming that the “Christian genocide” argument will shield Nigeria from criticism would be a miscalculation.

Tinubu is not yet where Jonathan stood in 2015, but the parallels are unmistakable. The Obama administration’s posture during Jonathan’s re-election bid showed how U.S. influence can shape Nigerian politics. A sustained clash with U.S. policy on religious freedom and Palestine, coupled with insecurity and governance failures, could become a tipping point. Avoiding that outcome will require strategic diplomacy (which we have no doubt our president possesses), credible reform, and a domestic agenda rooted in accountability. Nigerians must see real action towards ending Boko Haram and banditry.

This moment demands political acumen and the disciplined management of both security and foreign relations. Tinubu cannot afford to repeat Jonathan’s missteps. In global politics, misreading Washington’s signals has previously cost Nigerian presidents, and history may not be kind to those who fail to learn from it.

Misbahu writes from Kano and can be reached via email: misbahulhamza@gmail.com

By Hassana Abdullahi

The Trump administration has announced a sharp reduction in the number of refugees allowed into the United States over the next year, slashing the annual cap to 7,500. Officials described the move as being “in the national interest,” marking a dramatic shift from the previous limit of 125,000 set under the Biden administration.

In a statement, government representatives said the new policy would prioritise white South Africans, commonly known as Afrikaners, citing what they described as “ongoing discrimination” against the group in their home country.

The decision has sparked criticism from human rights advocates, who argue that it politicises refugee admissions and undermines America’s long-standing commitment to offering protection based on humanitarian need rather than ethnicity or nationality.

Administration officials, however, defended the move, saying it reflects a “targeted and merit-based” approach to refugee resettlement aimed at protecting those “most aligned with American values.”

The new refugee ceiling marks one of the lowest in U.S. history and signals a broader reorientation of the country’s immigration and humanitarian policies.

By Maryam Ahmad

The U.S. State Department has revoked the visas of at least six foreign nationals from Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, Germany, Brazil, and Paraguay who publicly “celebrated” the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

In a statement posted on X, the department said it had exercised its authority to deny entry to individuals “who wish death on Americans.” It also published screenshots of their social media posts praising Kirk’s killing, describing the remarks as “reprehensible and incompatible with the values of decency and respect.”

“We will not tolerate or provide safe haven to those who glorify acts of violence against Americans,” the statement read.

The move underscores Washington’s unprecedented effort to shut criticism of Mr Kirk after his assassination, which has sparked intense debate and condemnation both within the United States and abroad. The State Department did not release the names of the individuals involved.

By Muhammad Abubakar

The government of Ghana has announced that it will accept West African nationals deported from the United States under a new repatriation arrangement.

The agreement, reached after weeks of diplomatic consultations, is expected to cover citizens from Ghana and neighbouring West African countries who have overstayed their visas or entered the US illegally. Officials say the move is aimed at strengthening bilateral ties and ensuring orderly migration management.

In a statement, Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasised that the government is working closely with the US to ensure the rights and dignity of returnees are respected. 

“We are committed to upholding humanitarian standards while cooperating on international migration policies,” the ministry said.

The decision has drawn mixed reactions locally, with some civil society groups raising concerns about the country’s preparedness to reintegrate deportees. Others see it as an opportunity for returnees to contribute to national development.

US officials welcomed Ghana’s stance, describing it as a positive step toward addressing migration challenges in the region.

By Sabiu Abdullahi

United States President Donald Trump has drawn attention with remarks made during a meeting with African leaders at the White House, where he praised Liberian President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s English-speaking skills.

After Boakai delivered his remarks, Trump responded with visible admiration. “Such good English,” the president said.

He then asked, “Where were you educated? Where? In Liberia? Well, that’s very interesting. It’s beautiful English.”

He went further to say, “I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well.”

The comments were made during a luncheon on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, attended by the leaders of Senegal, Gabon, Mauritania, and Guinea-Bissau, among others.

The gathering was held to deepen ties following a recent executive order signed by Trump to enhance U.S. mineral output, with a focus on collaboration with resource-rich African countries.

President Boakai, who studied at the University of Monrovia and previously served in various senior roles under former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, responded to Trump’s praise with a statement of friendship and alignment.

“Liberia is a longtime friend of the United States and we believe in your policy of making America great again,” Boakai said.

Trump’s remarks, however, sparked debate on social media and in the press. Some viewed them as complimentary, while others criticized the tone as condescending.

In defense of the president, a White House spokeswoman told The New York Times that “only the fake news could so pathetically pick apart President Trump’s heartfelt compliment during a meeting that marked a historic moment for U.S.-Africa relations.”

Liberia, located in West Africa and with a population of 5.7 million, was founded by freed Black Americans in the 1800s.

English is the country’s official language, although Liberian English and various indigenous languages are widely spoken.

The World Bank projects a 5 percent GDP growth for Liberia in 2025, driven largely by an expansion in the gold mining sector, along with improvements in agriculture and services.

The country’s reserves of rare Earth elements, including neodymium, have made it a point of interest for foreign investors, including the U.S.

Other African leaders at the White House also expressed interest in deepening economic cooperation with Washington and voiced support for policies that prioritize mutual benefit.