Nigeria Needs Support, Not Shock and Awe, by Osmund Agbo
Since week, President Donald Trump has intensified his rhetoric on Christian persecution in Nigeria, warning the Nigerian government to act swiftly against the growing insurgency. He even directed the Department of War to prepare for possible military action, boasting that any U.S. strike would be “fast, vicious, and sweet.”
The announcement sent shockwaves across Nigeria. Depending on who you ask, the reaction ranged from jubilation to dread. Many Northern Nigerian Christians, long victims of Islamic insurgency and herder violence, felt a flicker of relief. Finally, it seemed, someone powerful was listening to their cry. But for others, particularly many Muslims, the rhetoric sounded troublingly simplistic and dangerously divisive. The truth is that today, insurgents in Nigeria make no distinction between Muslims and Christians. Both mosques and churches are targets. The bullets are blind.
So, why this sudden awakening from Washington? Why now, after more than a decade of bloodshed? Many Nigerians can’t help but suspect that America’s renewed interest carries motives beyond altruism. History, after all, offers painful lessons about foreign “liberations” that ended up as national tragedies.
That said, if this new pressure from abroad forces the Nigerian government to take the fight against insurgency seriously, to finally follow the money and prosecute those who fund and shield terrorists, perhaps we should welcome it, cautiously. Because let’s be honest: our government has failed us. At best, it’s complicit. At worst, it’s aiding and abetting.
While sponsors of Boko Haram are languishing in UAE prisons, their Nigerian counterparts are contesting elections and pulling the levers of power.
Still, the last thing Nigeria needs is an American air campaign disguised as Christian salvation. We have seen that movie before, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria and it never ends well.
When foreign powers drop bombs in the name of freedom, homes are destroyed, farms are razed, and basic infrastructure is reduced to rubble. Livelihoods vanish, families scatter, and nations collapse into chaos. What follows is not peace, but an endless cycle of famine, crime, and lawlessness. Once the smoke clears, the so-called liberators move on, leaving the victims to pick through the ruins of their “freedom.”
Just this week, we learned that Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-linked coalition active in the Sahel, claimed an attack on a military post in Kwara State. This came only months after the group announced the formation of a new brigade inside Nigeria. JNIM’s arrival adds another deadly actor to a landscape already crowded with Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Ansaru.
Clearly, we are losing this war. The insurgency is mutating, expanding, and now, advancing southward. Yet the federal government continues to respond with denial, division, and empty rhetoric.
Long before the Trump administration designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), debates raged over whether the violence amounted to genocide against Christians. But that argument misses the point. What is happening in Nigeria today is not just a religious war, it’s a war against ordinary Nigerians. Christians, Muslims, and those of no faith are being slaughtered alike. Calling it a “Christian persecution” may comfort some, but it distorts the truth. The victims are Nigerians first, poor, defenseless Nigerians abandoned by the very government meant to protect them.
Those who recall recent history will remember how some Northern politicians pressured the Obama administration to designate Nigeria similarly under the Jonathan government, a move that carried dire diplomatic consequences. Yet, despite the label, the killings did not stop. Under Buhari, the massacres continued. Under Tinubu, they persist. Different administrations, same indifference, same bloodshed.
This is the deeper tragedy: Nigeria is trapped in a vicious circle of violence and denial. Every new wave of death is followed by outrage, condemnation, and then silence, until the next round. The only way out is radical reform; constitutional, institutional, and moral.
If America’s renewed attention can force our leaders to confront insecurity with urgency and sincerity, great . But if it comes with bombs and foreign boots, we must reject it. Nigeria’s wounds are deep, but they require healing hands, not missiles.
Let’s be clear: there is genocide happening, not against one faith, but against humanity itself within our borders. It is the slaughter of villagers in the North, farmers in the Middle Belt, oil workers in the South-South, and traders in the Southeast. It is the slow death of a people betrayed by their leaders’ corruption and cowardice.
If Washington truly wishes to help, it should start by targeting the assets of those in power, the politicians who steal defense funds, the generals who collude with warlords, and the oligarchs who profit from chaos. Freeze their accounts. Cancel their visas. Seize their homes in Maryland and Atlanta. Make complicity expensive. That will do more good than a thousand drone strikes.
America can also assist by improving Nigeria’s capacity for intelligence gathering, counterterrorism training, and regional cooperation not by turning our villages into war zones. The goal should be to strengthen Nigeria’s ability to protect itself, not to replace it.
The reality is that Nigeria’s insecurity is now spilling beyond its borders. Jihadist movements from Mali, Niger, and Chad are converging on our territory. The Sahel’s firestorm is moving south, and Nigeria, with its size and fragility, could easily become the next epicenter of global terror. If that happens, the world will not be dealing with another Libya but something far worse.
We must therefore act and act swiftly and wisely. The Nigerian government must summon the courage to reform its military, prosecute financiers of terror, rebuild the intelligence community, and secure the trust of its citizens. No foreign power will do this for us.
We need help, yes but not the kind that arrives from the sky, wrapped in napalm and moral superiority.
Osmund Agbo is a medical doctor and author. His works include, Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance and a fiction work titled The Velvet Court: Courtesan Chronicles. His latest works, Pray, Let the Shaman Die and Ma’am, I Do Not Come to You for Love, have just been released. He can be reached@ [email protected]