Opinion

Borgu, Northern Nigeria and Yoruba history, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

10 months ago

January 11, 2025

Farooq Kperogi

Borgu, Northern Nigeria and Yoruba history, By Farooq Kperogi

My December 21, 2024, column titled “Kemi Badenoch’s Yoruba Identity Meets Inconvenient Truths,” where I set out to show that, contrary to Kemi Badenoch’s claim, the Yoruba and the “North” have had and still have a lot in common, hurt the ethnic susceptibilities of many Yoruba nationalists who misunderstood me as creating a hierarchy of historical and cultural dominance in which the Yoruba are inferior.

That was not what my column was about. If it comes across that way, it’s because people are gazing at the past with the lenses of the present. Historians call that presentism. Presentism animates the sort of defensive, ahistorical, knee-jerk, decontextualized, and emotive reactions that some people gave to my column.

Notions of collective identity with definite ethnographic boundaries are relatively new all over the world. I made this clear to Dr. Lasisi Olagunju who wrote a 3,526-word response to my column last Monday in which he cherry-picked evidence from the self-comforting presentist fantasies of certain Yoruba historians to countermine my arguments. Here’s my response to his response.

Dr. Olagunju took issue with my restating of a well-known, uncontested socio-historical fact: that “Yoruba,” the collective name for the people of western Nigeria, is an exonym that traces etymological provenance from what is now called northern Nigeria and that it originally referred only to people from Oyo, not other subgroups such as Ijebu, Ondo, Ijesa, Egba, etc.

It explains why Oba Sikiru Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebuland, still says the Ijebu are not Yoruba and are not even descendants of Oduduwa. It also explains why, as I pointed out in my October 26, 2019 column titled “Fulani and Origin of the Names ‘Yoruba’ and ‘Yamuri’,” Nigeria’s first modern newspaper, called Iwe Irohin fun awon Egba ati Yoruba (Yoruba for “newspaper for the Egba and Yoruba people”) indicated from its name that the Egba and the Yoruba were different ethnic groups who nonetheless belonged to the same linguistic group.

In other words, as of 1859 when the newspaper was set up, the Egba didn’t call themselves “Yoruba.”

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That the name Yoruba is an exonym from the North of Nigeria for the people of Oyo is so settled in the literature that I am befuddled that anyone would contest it with mere implausible conjectures and self-created oral histories.

For example, in his 1984 article titled “Yoruba Ethnic Groups or a Yoruba Ethnic Group? A Review of the Problem of Ethnic Identification” published in África: Revista do Centro de Estudos Africanos, Professor Biodun Adediran argued that the term Yoruba wasn’t native to Yoruba and was, in fact, a word first used for Oyo people by northerners.

He said, “the term first appeared in Arabic sources and in European accounts based on information from the Hausa country,” arguing “It was probably the Hausa who first gave the name ‘Yarribah’ to their Yoruba-speaking neighbours. Since the Oyo were the sub-group the Hausa came most frequently in contact with, the name easily became synonymous with ‘Oyo’” (p. 62).

Adeniran also argued that the term “Yoruba” initially remained confined to “the dictionary of those who invented it” (p. 63) and gained broader use only in the early 19th century due to increased interactions between the Yoruba and their northern neighbors. During this period, local wars fostered sub-group pride, leading many non-Oyo groups to reject “Yoruba” as a foreign name.

It was only toward the end of the century, when Europeans insisted on its use and referred to the Alaafin as the King of the Yoruba, that even the Oyo (to whom the name originally referred) began to embrace the term (p. 63).

In his 2019 book, Partitioned Borgu: State, Society and Politics in a West African Border Region, Dr. Hussaini Abdu investigated it further and found that the Hausa themselves borrowed the term Yariba (or versions of it) from the Baatonu people of Borgu, known to the Yoruba as Bariba, Baruba, or Ibariba, who are Oyo’s northwestern neighbors. The Baatonu, as I argued before, refer to the Oyo people as “Yoru” (singular) and “Yorubu” (plural), with “Yoruba” used in third-person references.

Abdu traces the name’s spread to Songhai-Borgu interactions, later reinforced by interviews with Baatonu slaves in Sierra Leone and popularized through European travelers and missionary records, such as Samuel Johnson’s 19th-century writings. This theory aligns with the historical and cultural links between Songhai, Borgu, and Oyo, including the spread of Islam to both Borgu and Yoruba land by Songhai-speaking Mande from ancient Mali, reflected in the Yoruba term for Islam, “imale.”

This is consistent with collective naming practices all over the world. Immediate neighbors typically name each other, which others then adopt. Olagunju cited the examples of “Hausa” (which came from the Songhai) and “Fulani,” which came from the Hausa.

The older Hausa name for Yoruba people was Ayagi (see my August 19, 2022, article titled “‘Ayagi’”: Earliest Nupe-Influenced Hausa Name for Yoruba People” based on my review of Professor Rasheed Olaniyi’s work), not Yariba, which strengthens Abdu’s research about the Borgu origins of the name Yoruba.

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Of course, Katanga, the name of the old capital of the Oyo Empire was, according to Professor Stefan Reichmuth, the “Hausa name for Old Qyo,” adding, “This term which might even be originally a stranger’s name of northern origin was in the late nineteenth century coming to be accepted as an overall ‘national’ name not only by the Oyo themselves but by other related groups as well.” (p.157).

However, in his 1934 book titled A Hausa-English Dictionary and English-Hausa Vocabulary, G.P. Bargery defined Katanga as the Hausa word for a “wall of a house or compound” (p. 583).

Well, in their 2015 article titled “’Lucumi, ‘Terranova’, and The Origins of the Yoruba Nation,” published in The Journal of African History, Henry B. Lovejoy and Olatunji Ojo point out that all the collective names by which the Yoruba people were known are exonyms. They also agree that “Yoruba” came from the North.

Most importantly, they found that the term “Yoruba” does not appear in European slave records, slave-owner documents, or early self-references by the Yoruba people themselves before the 19th century. So, Olagunju’s argument that Baatonu people might have imitated the name from Oyo people whose Alaafin sought refuge in their land seems highly unlikely.

Yoruba isn’t the only exonym by which the “Yoruba” people were known. A common name in slave records that historians have found is “Lucumi” (or Lukumi). Lovejoy and Ojo found that while the term could mean “my friend” in Yoruba, or “female lover” or “concubine” in the Owo dialect, it was the name Bini people called people in eastern Yorubaland.

They said it originated as a pejorative Edo term for foreigners, likely slaves, who spoke unintelligible languages, including Yoruba. In Edo, they pointed out, oluku means “young animal,” while mi or mie translates as “that” or “to have.” The term’s dual meanings in Yoruba and Edo, they said, suggest an ironic basis for its later identity formation.

“Nagô,” a self-appellation of the Anago subgroup of Yoruba, became the dominant term in Brazil for enslaved Yoruba speakers. Fon-speaking Dahomeans adapted this term as “Anagonu” to refer broadly to Yoruba-speaking groups (p. 355).

“Aku,” derived from the Yoruba greeting “eku,” was also used to identify Yoruba-speaking recaptives in Sierra Leone following British anti-slavery efforts in the early 19th century.

Nonetheless, as I pointed out in my 2019 column, which Lovejoy and Ojo supported with more scholarly evidence, the people of Western Nigeria aren’t called “Yoruba” today because the Borgu people called them so, or because they were identified by a version of that name by Songhai, Hausa, and Fulani people.

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They self-identify as “Yoruba” precisely because returnee slaves of Yoruba descent chose the name, popularized it, and encouraged people in the region to embrace it. More significantly, though, it was because colonialists insisted on it even when other subgroups protested its imposition.

To put it cheekily for Kemi Badenoch, the same Europeans who stitched the North and South together to form Nigeria were the ones who insisted on calling her Ondo and Ijebu kin “Yoruba,” a northern label originally meant for the Oyo, a group her people weren’t even part of. Oh, the irony!

Dr. Olagunju reproduced passages from his favorite Yoruba nationalist historians to dispute specific claims about Borgu’s immersion in Oyo’s history but dismissed the claims of the well-regarded Akinwumi Ogundiran’s well-received book, The Yoruba: A New History, which supported some of my claims, as suspect because he “did not cite any authority to back this claim.”

Never mind Dr. Olagunju’s unsupported claim that I. A. Akinjogbin said Borgu was under Oyo “until 1783.” Well, he made no such statement. What he actually wrote was that Oyo’s “tributaries included at least parts of the Nupe and the Bariba countries” (p. 450). How “parts of” a territory paying tribute translates to the entire country being under Oyo’s rule is beyond me.

Nonetheless, later Yoruba historians have challenged the exaggerated narratives of Oyo’s rule and reach and undermined claims such as Akinjogbi’s and the predecessors that inspired him. For example, Professor Olayemi Duro Akinwumi, in a 1992 article titled “The Oyo-Borgu Military Alliance of 1835: A Case Study in the Pre-Colonial Military History published in Transafrican Journal of History wrote:

“The extent of the Old Oyo Kingdom had been a subject of debate among the professional and non-professional historians. Crowder, for example, had given the impression that Oyo at its peak of glory extended far and wide to cover north, south, west and east of the kingdom…. Among the states incorporated into the Kingdom was Benin on the east, and Dahomey on the west. Samuel Johnson (1960:179) went further by including a portion of Nupe, Borgu and Dahomey. It is now certain that the Kingdom did not embrace all the Yoruba and the non-Yoruba states as claimed by many authors” (p. 160).

Dr. Olagunju doubted that the bashoruns of the Oyo empire were of Borgu origins even when Professor Ogundiran pointed it out in his book. Well, they were more than bashoruns. According to Professor Babatunded Agiri, whom Dr. Olagunju quoted in his response to me, “This process, by which the earliest Yoruba dynasties lost their political power to an invading Borgawa group, is also found in the Save area (now in Dahomey).

“Here the invasion probably took place sometime in the seventeenth century or slightly earlier. That the ruling dynasty in Old Oyo was non-Yoruba is also supported by the existence of a relic of an extinct (and probably Yoruba) dynasty in the lineage of the Basorun” (see “Early Oyo History Reconsidered” by Babatunde Agiri, History in Africa, 1975, p.7).

Agiri also pointed out that, “The Oranyan dynasty was from Borgu and the traditions of its origin in Old Oyo emphasize this link. The conquest of Old Oyo by the Borgawa dynasty must have occurred well before the fifteenth century” and that Borgu “established satellite dynasties in the Yoruba towns in the area, including Oyo, replacing the former Nupe influence there” (p. 10).

He said Alaafin Abipa owed his success in reestablishing his dynasty at Old Oyo to the large following of warriors from Borgu who accompanied him and that some of these warriors were rewarded for their services by being permitted to replace the rulers of some former Yoruba settlements such as Kishi, Igboho, and Igbeti.

“Others became rulers of new settlements like Ogbomoso, located in strategic areas to guard the state against further Nupe incursions. Thus, the post-Igboho period witnessed another influx of Borgu men and blood among the Oyo but, as with the earlier conquerors, their descendants have been absorbed completely into Yoruba culture-a culture which probably expressed a broad continuity with the earliest inhabitants,” he wrote (p. 10).

However, in his 1985 article, “How Many Times Can History Repeat Itself,” Professor Robin Law argued that the Alaafins of Oyo were of Borgu origin. He dismissed the idea that these rulers were returning Oyo refugees, labeling it a stereotypical narrative used to legitimize foreign rule.

Instead, Law suggested a Borgu conquest, noting that several northern Yoruba towns, including Saki, Kisi, Igbeti, Igboho, and Ogbomoso, had royal dynasties of Borgu descent. He linked the foundation of Igboho to a significant influx of Borgu settlers, who likely introduced cavalry, enabling them to dominate northern Yorubaland despite their small numbers.

Law also questioned the traditional timeline, proposing that the Borgu dynasty’s arrival at Igboho could predate the 16th century (p. 47), which annihilates the notion that Borgu could ever be a tributary state of Oyo, especially because there is not a single ruling dynasty in all of Borgu that traces ancestry to Yoruba.

All that this shows is that the Yoruba and the North have always been intertwined since precolonial times. That’s not a reason to force a union of the people or to deny anyone the prerogative to take pride in their ethnic or regional identity. It’s merely to set the records straight.

Borgu, Northern Nigeria and Yoruba history, By Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism

Related Topics:Borgu northern Yoruba history

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Opinion

Trump, Christian genocide, and terrorism in Nigeria, By Farooq Kperogi

Published

23 hours ago

November 8, 2025

Trends Admin

Farooq Kperogi

Trump, Christian genocide, and terrorism in Nigeria, By Farooq Kperogi

Nigeria’s online and offline discursive arenas have been suffused with frenetic, impassioned, and intensely heightened dialogic exchanges in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s designation of Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” and this threat to militarily invade the country to stop what he called a “Christian genocide.”

Nigerians are predictably divided largely along the country’s familiar primordial fissures. But beyond the surface disagreements, there’s actually a deeper congruence of opinions we miss in moments of hyper-aroused emotions. And this revolves around the recognition that Nigeria faces an inexcusable existential threat from the intractable murderous fury of terrorists and that the earlier it is contained by any means necessary, the better Nigeria’s chances of survival.

The major areas of disagreement among conversational sparring partners (i.e., whether, in fact, there’s a Christian genocide; what really actuates Trump’s intervention; the question of what foreign intervention means for Nigeria’s sovereignty) actually have a convergence point.

For example, Muslims who question the factual accuracy of the existence of a Christian genocide in the central states point to the continuing mass slaughters of Muslims (both at home and in mosques) in the far north. But they don’t deny that the nihilistic, blood-thirsty thugs who murder both Christians and Muslims in their homes and places of worship identify as Muslims, even if they are a poor representation of the religion they identify with.

I honestly struggle to fault Christians who perceive the episodic mass murders in their communities by people who profess a different faith from them as deliberate, systematic, premeditated acts designed to exterminate them because of their faith.

If the situation were reversed, it would be perceived the same way. If murderous outlaws who profess the Christian faith (even if they don’t live by the precepts of the religion) continually commit mass slaughters of both Christians and Muslims, Muslim victims of these slaughters would instinctively read religious meanings to the murders.

As I noted in my April 12, 2025, column titled “Selective Outrage Over Mass Murders in Nigeria,” human beings derive their sense of self from belonging to collective identities, so when members of an out-group attack that collective, it provokes a powerful emotional reaction.

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Even in such states as Zamfara, Sokoto, and Katsina, where more than 90 percent of the population is Muslim and where clashes between sedentary farmers and itinerant herders are age-old, the persistence of mass slaughters has ruptured the centuries-old ethnic harmony between the Hausa and the Fulani that Nigerians had taken for granted. BBC’s July 24, 2022, documentary titled “The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara” captures this dynamic powerfully.

It doesn’t matter if people in the Middle Belt perceive the homicidal ferocity of the terrorists as “Christian genocide” or people in the Northwest see it as “ethnic cleansing.” What matters is that they shouldn’t be allowed to kill anyone.

I understand Muslim anxieties behind the “Christian genocide” narrative. It unwittingly exteriorizes the crimes of a few outlaws to the many who are also victims of the outlaws’ crimes. But if it takes calling these blood-stained bastards “Christian genocidaires” to eliminate them, the accuracy of the description is immaterial. If an equal-opportunity murderer of Christians and Muslims is killed only because he kills Christians, it still benefits Muslims because the murderer won’t be alive to kill Muslims.

Of course, people who question Trump’s motive are justified. In 2016, Trump enthusiastically endorsed Ann Coulter’s book Adios America, which claimed that the growth of Nigerians in the United States from virtually zero to 380,000 was problematic because, in her words, “every level of society [in Nigeria] is criminal.” Most Nigerians in the United States are Christians.

By December 2017, in his first term, Trump was reported to have said that people from Haiti and Nigeria should be denied visas because “15,000 Haitians who received U.S. visas all have AIDS,” and that 40,000 Nigerians who visited the U.S. that year would never “go back to their huts” after seeing America.

In January 2018, he was widely quoted as saying he didn’t want immigrants from “shithole countries” like Nigeria and Haiti but preferred “more people coming in from places like Norway,” a statement that made clear his racial preference for white immigrants.

That same racial logic was evident when he described white South Africans as victims of “white genocide” and offered them asylum but has not extended the same offer to Nigerians he claims are facing “Christian genocide.”

Unsurprisingly, by 2019, toward the close of his first term, Nigeria experienced the steepest decline in visitors to the United States of any country, according to data from the National Travel & Tourism Office.

Given this record, skepticism about Trump’s sudden concern for Nigeria is entirely warranted. Anyone familiar with his long-documented hostility toward Black people would reasonably question why he now professes to care enough about them to “intervene” on their behalf.

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His intervention is probably the product of three forces: powerful lobbying from Nigerian Christian groups who got through to the right people, a way to get Nigeria to scale down its embrace of China in the service of rare earth mineral exploration in the country, and an appeal to his evangelical Christian base even if he himself isn’t a believing, churchgoing Christian.

But given the direness of the depth and breadth of bloodletting in the country, who cares what his motivations are? If Trump’s intervention causes the Nigerian government to more seriously take its responsibility to protect all Nigerians, I would salute him. In fact, if direct, targeted hits at terrorist enclaves become inevitable because the government is either unwilling or unable to act, most people (Muslims, Christians, southerners, northerners, supporters or critics of the government, etc.) who are genuinely worried about the unchecked expansion of the theaters of insecurity in the country would be happy.

When it comes to questions of life and death, we can’t afford the luxury of pointless partisanship and primordial allegiances. Most Nigerians I know would accept help from Satan if that were what it would take to stop the unending blood-stain communal upheavals in the country.

What is the point of our sovereignty if we can’t stop perpetual fratricidal bloodletting? In any case, most Nigerian governments and opposition politicians in my lifetime have not only routinely sought America’s intervention in Nigeria’s internal affairs when it suits them, they serve as willing informants to America, leading me to once posit that the CIA doesn’t need secret agents.

In a May 20, 2017, column titled, “Xenophilia, Fake Sovereignty and Nigeria’s Slavish Politicians,” I said the following:

“Many Nigerian leaders seem to have an infantile thirst for a paternal dictatorship. The United States is that all-knowing, all-sufficient father-figure to whom they run when they have troubles. We learned from the US embassy cables that our Supreme Court judges, Central Bank governors … and governors routinely ran to the American embassy like terrified little kids when they had quarrels with each other.”

If the undermining of our sovereignty is what it would take to provide peace to everyday Nigerians, most people won’t miss it.

The urgent task, therefore, is not to litigate the purity of motives abroad or to indulge in perfunctory moralizing at home, but to force Nigerian institutions to perform. Whether pressure comes from international actors, diasporic lobbying, or domestic outrage, it must translate into concrete reforms: a security strategy that protects civilians, accountable and professional security forces, transparent investigations of atrocities, and long-term efforts to address the economic, political, and environmental drivers of violence.

Nigerians must insist that any external attention be channeled into strengthening the state’s capacity to protect all citizens and into justice for victims, not into new forms of dependency or political theatre. Only by combining unity of purpose with institutional competence can Nigeria begin to end the killing and reclaim the dignity of its sovereignty.

Trump, Christian genocide, and terrorism in Nigeria, By Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.

Opinion

Donald Trump’s plan to de-stabilise Nigeria, by Reuben Abati

Published

5 days ago

November 4, 2025

Trends Admin

Dr. Reuben Abati

Donald Trump’s plan to de-stabilise Nigeria, by Reuben Abati

I have chosen the provocative title of this piece deliberately knowing that some of the more patriotic elements among us in Nigeria would scream that it is impossible, because Nigeria is a sovereign nation. Indeed, since the end of World War II, the United States has refrained from portraying itself as a colonizing, conquering, destabilising power, sticking with what became known as the central pillars of the American foreign policy process namely: building global peace, promotion of democracy around the world, humanitarian assistance, liberalism and the projection of the United States as the world’s primary power, that is American exceptionalism. The tragedy of President Trump’s second term in power is that he has upended America’s foreign policy process, projecting himself wrongly as President of the world, and so from Kuwait, to the Middle East, Latin America, South America, and now instructively in Africa, he tries to call the shots. He throws up in the process intimations of unilateralism, egotism, hypocrisy and contradictions that are too loud to be ignored.

His latest gambit in this direction is his declaration, over the weekend that Nigeria is now a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for its alleged persecution of Christians and its violation of religious freedom. He has asked President Tinubu to” better move fast” otherwise the US will invade Nigeria to protect those he calls “our Cherished Christians”. He has also directed the US Department of War to commence preparations for action in Nigeria. Pete Hegseth, the Trump boot-licker who is Secretary of Defence has responded: “Yes Sir!” The Pentagon has also been put on alert to get ready to go “gun-a-blazing” to Nigeria. He has also threatened to stop US aid for Nigeria. Trump will always be Trump: he is an attention-seeking leader who seeks publicity almost to the same degree that children crave for candies. He says he is a peacemaker of the world, but with regard to Nigeria, he is trying to cause problems. What is his motivation?

There have been a number of conspiracy theories. They include first the argument that by defending Nigerian Christians, he would please the Christian evangelical constituency in the United States, especially now that some of his self-seeking sycophants like Steve Bannon are pursuing a third term agenda for him, we also have Congressman Riley Moore, Tom Cole, and Senator Ted Cruz who see themselves as defenders of the faith, as well as Republican right-wingers who spew divisive rhetoric. They are all wrong about Nigeria. There is no religious genocide in Nigeria. Genocide is such a specific word, properly defined in the Genocide Convention (1948) and the Rome Statute as the deliberate persecution of populations, which under international customary law is a crime against humanity. I am a Nigerian. I live in Lagos. I know that there have been cases of attacks on Catholic priests and Christian communities in Southern Kaduna, the Plateau, Owo, Yelwata, Niger State and parts of the Middle Belt, which we all condemn. But Moslems are also being attacked in the North East. Most of the victims of terrorism and insurgency in the North East, the North West and the North Central are Muslims. The terrorist, the insurgent, the bandit in Nigeria does not ask for religion. He strikes. He kills. In the Middle Belt, the challenge is about land ownership. Further South, it is separatist politics and agitation in the South East. The reality that I see is that Nigeria is a pressure cooker country where we are all facing the challenge of insecurity. Kidnappers do not ask for their victim’s religion. They run an emergent economy in human trafficking. To the extent that Nigeria is under siege, security-wise, it amounts to an oversimplification of the situation to assume that only Christian-Nigerians are in need of help. Terrorism, banditry and insurgency are international, cross-border problems, asymmetrical in character, and so the best that President Trump could have done was to have asked to assist Nigeria through mutually agreed co-operation.

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This is not the first time he would declare Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern. He did the same during his first term in December 2020. President Biden saved Nigeria the agony of US sanctions on the basis of that classification. Now, Trump is back, and he has gone after Nigeria afresh. Trump by the way does not think much of Africa. He is harassing Nigeria and South Africa. These are two of the most prominent countries in Africa. Those who read conspiracy into Trump’s behaviour may have a point. Nigeria, like South is romancing the China-led alternative economic power alignment, the BRICS. Nigeria, like South Africa is supporting the two-state solution in Israel/Palestine which the US opposes. Nigeria has bluntly refused to serve as a dumping ground, a third country destination, for deportees from America. The Tinubu administration has introduced economic reforms which make the Nigerian economy less dependent on the dollar. Nigeria is a good friend of China.

I do not subscribe to the argument that Trump wants to seize Nigerian territory or the country’s economic resources. The US is no longer so dependent on our Brent crude or our gas. Where was everyone when the Dangote Refinery even had to import crude oil from the United States? We have some other mineral resources that we are just beginning to develop. The US can get those from elsewhere. Trump was most recently in Japan where he signed a deal with the first female Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, not missing the opportunity to acknowledge her as “a winner”, and he has also met, at a very warm summit, with China’s President Xi Jinping reaching some agreements for at least one year, that would serve the mutual interests of the world’s two largest economies.

It is important to look closely at the sub-text. What do the Americans want? What does Trump want? Is this an attempt at regime change in Nigeria? Ahead of the 2027 general elections, is it that Trump does not want Tinubu in power? The sub-text is often more important than what is spoken. Nigerians are part of the problem. Many of our compatriots out of spite have become very adept at running down, and demarketing their own country. For their own selfish reasons, when they are invited to events by foreign embassies, they talk too much, not knowing that they are being recorded. There are also elements in civil society looking for foreign grants, who specialise in maligning Nigeria and the government of the day. We are a country in need of patriots. This is a moment that calls for patriotism and unity more than ever. If Trump, exercising his powers under Article Two of the US Constitution deploys armed action against any section of Nigeria, the consequences would be tragic. Nigeria will never be the same again. The North vs South rhetoric at the heart of Trump’s belligerence can lead to another civil war. Nigeria as it is, cannot survive a second civil war. No country in living memory has survived a religious war. Nigeria cannot afford a war between Christians and Muslims. The West African region will be destabilized, creating grave humanitarian crisis.

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Nigerians must come together and save their country. It must be clear to the United States, with its capacity for intelligence and all the futuristic devices at its disposal that whatever conflict that may exist in Nigeria is far more nuanced and complex. Both Muslims and Christians and animists have suffered losses. The other day, kidnappers seized human beings along Lokoja road. They did not ask for religious identity. There is no body of evidence to support President Trump’s claim that about 3, 100 Christians have been killed in Nigeria or that this is relatively the highest number in the world. Christians are being persecuted in China, and Gaza and Ukraine. Yet, the United States is supporting Israel and has remained ambivalent towards Russia.

President Tinubu needs to get adults in the room. He does not need a propaganda-spewing crowd of yes-men who are more interested in their own self-promotion. He needs adults, and we have many of them around who can step in and help Nigeria with the benefit of their experience: There is the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) where you have scholars whose main trade is foreign policy formulation and analysis, the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations which provides solid institutional memory about Nigeria’s relations with the world – that body used to exist, but if it does not at the moment, there are experienced diplomats that can be called upon. They include President Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, General TY Danjuma, President Goodluck Jonathan, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, Ambassador Moses Ihonde, Ambassador Olusegun Akinsanya, Ambassador Dapo Fafowora, Ambassador Hassan Tukur, Ambassador Joe Keshi, Professor Bola Akinterinwa, Ambassador Yahaya Kwande and many other members of the Association of Retired Ambassadors of Nigeria (ARCAN). President Tinubu needs wise counsel. This is not the time for partisan politics. He also needs the support of religious leaders who can speak up and help change the narrative. We have heard Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah and Pastor Wale Adefarasin defending religious harmony in Nigeria. We need other religious leaders too: Pastor Adeboye, Pastor William Kumuyi, Pastor Tunde Bakare, the Sultan of Sokoto, Sheik Ahmad Gumi, Pastor Chris Okotie, Pastor Sam Aiyedogbon, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome should be mobilised to help douse tension at a time it appears the Devil is knocking on the door. Pastor Kumuyi has denied saying anything on the matter, but let him and the others not sit on the fence. He should say something. The voices of the likes of Prophet Isa El-Buba and Pastor Bosun Emmanuel must also be listened to.

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President Bola Ahmd Tinubu needs to appoint Ambassadors to Nigeria’s missions abroad. For almost two years, our missions abroad have been manned by Charge D’affaires without substantive representatives of the President. The Nigerian Government must act swiftly and address this omission.

But more importantly, the message from President Donald Trump should be taken as a wake-up call. Nigeria is not facing a religious war. Every Nigerian life matters – whether Christian, Muslim or animist, apparently Trump pandering to his own evangelical base in the United States does not know this. However, the Nigerian government has an obligation to make this environment safe for all and sundry. We play too much politics with safety in this country and that is why there is no immediate meeting of minds on Trump’s aggression towards Nigeria. A major starting point should be a major overhaul to ensure political stability. Many Nigerians do not have a sense of belonging. They do not think that they belong here. They feel excluded. We need a different structure to ensure that every Nigerian can build the confidence that he or she can one day rise to any level in this land regardless of belief or ethnic identity.

Some analysts once recommended the idea of Rotational Presidency. We have six geopolitical zones. Every zone should be able to produce a President for a single term of whatever number of years is agreed upon. This idea of North vs. South simply means that two major ethnic groups can dominate power to the exclusion of others who end up breeding fifth columnists who sabotage the government of the day. The other point is one of nemesis. Years back, the leaders of the APC went to the United States to de-market the Jonathan administration, and then, they complained about religious persecution in Nigeria. The wheel has now turned full circle, and we are back to the past. The God of Jonathan has caught up with those who once accused him of being the problem with Nigeria. The shoe is now on the other leg. Karma is a bitch. It is a mirror. It actually has no deadline.

Donald Trump’s plan to de-stabilise Nigeria, by Reuben Abati

Opinion

Trump’s threats to Nigeria are reckless, infantilising and dangerous, by Halimah Nuhu Sanda

Published

6 days ago

November 3, 2025

Trends Admin

US President Donald Trump

Trump’s threats to Nigeria are reckless, infantilising and dangerous, by Halimah Nuhu Sanda

In the past few days, the world has once again witnessed the recklessness that has come to define President Donald Trump’s approach to foreign relations. On October 31, 2025, his administration placed Nigeria on the United States’ list of “Countries of Particular Concern,” alleging severe violations of religious freedom. Barely 24 hours later, he went further, threatening to cut all aid and assistance to Nigeria and even hinted at possible military action if the Nigerian government failed to stop what he called “the killing of Christians.”

This sequence of events is disturbing not only for its tone but also for its ignorance of Nigeria’s complex social realities. It is one thing to express concern about human rights, but it is another to distort facts and issue threats to a sovereign country. Nigeria’s issues are not religious; they are social, economic, and structural. The violence that has afflicted parts of our nation affects Christians and Muslims alike. To isolate it as an anti-Christian campaign is not only false but dangerously simplistic.

The truth is there is no policy of persecution in Nigeria. Our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Nigerians of all faiths live, work, and worship together. In the North, there are Christians in every community. In the South, there are Muslims in every city. We intermarry, trade, and build together. To suggest that one group is being systematically targeted by the Nigerian state is a blatant misrepresentation of facts. It undermines the collective suffering of all Nigerians who have fallen victims to violence, regardless of their faith.

President Trump’s language was not just reckless; it was inflammatory. To threaten another country with military action and to speak of Nigeria in such contemptuous terms betrays a complete lack of diplomatic discipline. No responsible leader should speak like that about a partner nation. His words sounded less like the considered statement of a statesman and more like the outburst of an angry child who believes shouting will solve everything.

For many Nigerians, this latest episode is not surprising. Trump’s first term in office was marked by similar disregard for international norms. His administration imposed travel bans that included Nigeria, halted many cooperative development programmes, and disrupted the activities of USAID, the very agency through which the U.S. channels most of its humanitarian assistance. In January 2025, he again suspended several USAID operations under the guise of an aid review. So, when he now threatens to cut all aid to Nigeria, one must ask: which aid exactly is he referring to? If the programmes were already paused by his own order, then this threat is hollow, more political than practical.

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It is important to recall that Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, has been one of the few African diplomats who have spoken firmly and clearly about Nigeria’s right to make independent decisions. When he declared months ago that Nigeria would not accept deportees from the United States without due process, his words carried the weight of sovereignty. Many observers now believe that Trump’s recent hostility is partly a reaction to that boldness. Nigeria has refused to be bullied, and that seems to irritate a man who thrives on intimidation.

But Nigeria must not respond in anger. We must respond with maturity. The Nigerian government has rightly rejected the claim that our nation is intolerant of Christians. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Ambassador Tuggar have restated Nigeria’s commitment to religious freedom and to protecting all citizens, regardless of faith. The Foreign Ministry’s response was measured and diplomatic, reminding the world that Nigeria’s conflicts are rooted in terrorism, poverty, and competition for resources, not religion. That is the truth.

The real tragedy in all of this is that the U.S. president has chosen to exploit a complex humanitarian issue for political theatre. By framing Nigeria’s struggles in religious terms, he fuels division, encourages extremists, and undermines efforts toward peace. Violence in Nigeria has never respected religion. Boko Haram, ISWAP, and bandit groups have killed both Muslims and Christians. Villages have been attacked not because of what people believe but because of where they live or how vulnerable they are. To suggest that Nigeria’s government condones or promotes such acts is a grave insult to the thousands of Nigerian security personnel who have died fighting these same terrorists.

The tone of Trump’s statement also reeks of arrogance. To threaten a proud African nation with invasion in the twenty-first century is beyond comprehension. Nigeria is not a colony. It is a democratic nation with institutions, laws, and a vibrant civil society. It may have its challenges, but it has earned its place as Africa’s largest democracy and a regional leader in peacekeeping and mediation. For the leader of another country to talk about “going in guns blazing,” as Trump reportedly said, is not only undiplomatic but dangerously provocative.

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The United States has long presented itself as a friend of Nigeria, but friendship must be based on mutual respect. True partnership is built through dialogue, not threats. If the American government truly cares about Nigerian lives, then it should support initiatives that strengthen our economy, promote education, and improve security cooperation in ways that respect Nigeria’s sovereignty. Empty threats and public humiliation will achieve nothing but resentment.

This latest episode should serve as a reminder to Nigerians that our destiny cannot depend on foreign validation. We must define our narrative, own our struggles, and find our solutions. Outsiders will always interpret our story through the lens of their own interests. Today it is religious freedom; tomorrow it may be something else. The real question is: how long will we let others misrepresent who we are?

Nigeria is far from perfect, but we are not what Trump describes. We are a resilient people, diverse yet united by shared hopes. The world must understand that our challenges are not born of intolerance but of inequality, governance failures, and economic strain. Reducing them to religion is an insult to both Christians and Muslims who have worked together for peace and progress.

Donald Trump’s comments are beneath the dignity of his office. They do not reflect the spirit of cooperation that has defined U.S.–Nigeria relations for decades. His words were reckless, unfounded, and unbecoming of a leader who claims to value global stability. Nigeria will not be intimidated by bluster. We remain open to engagement, but we will not tolerate disrespect.

History will remember this moment not for his threats but for how Nigeria stood firm in the face of them. Ours is a nation that has weathered greater storms. This, too, will pass. And when it does, the world will remember that Nigeria did not bow, did not panic, and did not lose its composure. We met arrogance with dignity, provocation with restraint, and lies with truth. That is the Nigerian way.