The United States President, Donald Trump, was very clear and precise about the warning he issued to the Nigerian government on November 1. He had said then that if the Nigerian government continued to allow the killing of Christians in Nigeria, “the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing’”.
To demonstrate that he meant business, Trump added for effect: “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action.” Then he submitted: “ If we attack, it will be fast, vicious and sweet.”
Trump made good his threat on Christmas Day. On that day, the US carried out air strikes on ISIS targets in northwest Nigeria. The action, as Trump promised, was fast and sweet. But I am yet to convince myself that it was vicious. If there is anything sweet about it, it was because it came on a day many Christian worshippers across the country attended church services with a mixture of apprehension and uncertainty. Weeks before Christmas, there were unconfirmed reports that many Christian worshippers were being targeted for vicious attacks on Christmas Day by Islamic terrorists. The Trump attack coming on a day many Christians were scared stiff of going to church was, indeed sweet. Some will say that it was a check on what could have been a blood-chilling assault on Christian worshippers on a day like Christmas.
All this is coming on the heels of the ongoing debate about Christian genocide in Nigeria. In recent weeks, Nigerians of various persuasions have had cause to agree or disagree with one another over this subject matter. The debate has been heated and passionate.
While contributing to the debate, I had, some seven weeks ago, written as follows in this column: “A shock wave hit our cavalier presidency just the other day. A government that has its head in the air has just been roused into reality. The United States, the world’s watchdog, has taken the Tinubu administration to task over massive killings in the country allegedly targeted at Christians. The government of the United States did not just drop this allegation. The American Congress spearheaded by Senator Ted Crux and other concerned congressmen had carried out an extensive investigation on this and came up with the conclusion that a genocidal run targeted at Christians was going on in Nigeria. The Donald Trump administration has since bought into the report. The result was the recent unflattering label placed on Nigeria by the American government as a Country of Particular Concern . But President Trump did not stop there. He has threatened to take military action against Nigeria if the ugly trend is not halted.”
Trump, as we have earlier noted, has done as he threatened. But one thing the issue of Christian genocide threw up is that Nigerians can argue about anything on the surface of the earth. If it were not so, there would have been no argument as to whether Christian genocide in Nigeria is real or imagined.
Our experience in the past 13 to 15 years clearly shows that Christianity has been persistently under attack since the advent of Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. Let us recall that on Christmas Day of 2011, St Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, was bombed by Islamic insurgents. Many lives were lost with scores of others wounded. The Madalla incident was not an isolated case. Similar attacks targeted at Christian worshippers have been taking place across the country with reckless abandon. It was in recognition of this ugly trend that the then Catholic Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, while praying for mankind on Easter Sunday 2012, gave Christians in Nigeria a special mention. He called on Christians the world over to pray for their counterparts in Nigeria who, he pointed out, were being oppressed and persecuted by the terrorist Islamic sect, Boko Haram. 14 years after Madalla, and 13 years after the Pope saw Nigerian Christians as particularly endangered by Islamic extremism, nothing has changed. Christians in Nigeria are still targets of extermination by sectarian warlords. That was why many found it disquieting that Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, who should know better, tried rather unsuccessfully, to create the impression that there is no Christian genocide in Nigeria. Kukah, after that strange disputation, won no one to his side. If anything, he lost a reasonable number of those who used to hold him in high esteem.
Now that America has taken notice of our vulnerability on security matters and has chosen to help Nigeria out, unsolicited, we should drop one or two words for those who have deceived Nigerians thus far. When terrorism was imported into Nigeria during the Goodluck Jonathan administration, those behind the crimes against humanity targeted Jonathan for vilification. They said he lacked the gravitas to secure the country. They said he was clueless; that he was overwhelmed by the demands of office. In fact, Jonathan was thoroughly blackmailed. It was a ploy to weaken his presidency. Regrettably, Jonathan fell for the bait. He was thoroughly harangued from all corners without let or hinderance.
When elections came, the anti-Jonathan forces ensured that he lost out. They put forward a new president called Muhammadu Buhari. They said that the new president, being as a retired General of the Nigerian Army, would do better than his predecessor in the area of securing life and property. But that was as far as the optimism went. We are still living witnesses to the way Buhari failed spectacularly in the area of security. But the strange thing was that while Buhari was failing, those who nailed Jonathan to the cross continued to give gullible Nigerians the impression that he (Buhari) was on the right track.
Now, the disaster has gone full cycle.
Bola Tinubu, the proverbial Daniel, who played a major role in the weakening of the Jonathan presidency, has come to judgment. He has been in the saddle for some 30 months now. But one thing is clear: he has absolutely no idea about what to do to tame the monster of insecurity. He is, as a matter of fact, even more clueless than the Jonathan he and his cohorts packaged and sold as clueless. The president is looking morose. He does not know what to do. It has become so bad that America has to intervene unsolicited. The giant of Africa cannot even fight its internal wars. This is very shameful.
Now that Nigeria depends on America to secure itself from internal wars, Trump can as well go full blast with his military intervention. The strikes have to be truly vicious. While we believe that America knows what to do, it is important to suggest to it that the action it is taking in Nigeria has to be sustained. Nigerians have to see the difference between when America came into our lives and when we were lost in the wild, wanton world of insecurity
QUOTE:
“Now that Nigeria depends on America to secure itself from internal wars, Trump can as well go full blast with his military intervention. Nigerians have to see the difference between when America came into our lives and when we were lost in the wild, wanton world of insecurity.”
