Trump who must wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and ask, “Who is the most powerful and brilliant leader the world has ever known?”
And, who would have answered the question himself: “Me”, doesn’t understand why Iran is still standing and fighting.
Any attempt to educate him would amount to talking to Mount Everest. Come to think of it, Everest might be more reasonable than the President of America.
At least Everest has not made the 8 billion people on Earth miserable. Trump has managed to do just that. There is probably no community in the world, however remote or rural, which is not feeling the impact of Trump’s war. Instead of the global applause, usually bestowed on conquerors in the past, curses and maledictions are flying, like missiles, towards the United States of America.
Once fondly called ‘God’s Own Country’; today, nearly 8 million human beings are convinced that the devil is now in charge of America. It is difficult to dispute that. God provides for people, lightens their burdens; brings joy. Satan brings misery, deprivation, sorrow and death – including to young schoolgirls. The USA, which, until Trump, had stood for decency, against attacks on civilians even when war broke out, is now having the deliberate murder of children charged to its account. What is the difference between that and what Hitler did? Should the world, US included, now start reversing itself; apologise to Hitler in absentia and erect monuments to his military genius – now that Trump is borrowing from the Hitler playbook?
“History does not repeat itself; man does” – Professor Barbara Tuchman.
President Trump is a shallow thinker. He obviously reads very little and understands even less. That is understandable. A leader who constantly allows his private fantasies to spill out into the public domain, and who takes every issue personally, seldom has time for deep reflections. He talks first; acts second and thinks third – if at all. That explains why he doesn’t seem to understand that the US and Iran are fighting different wars. Trump desperately wants to establish a legacy as a great American president. He has chosen fomenting global conflicts as his strategic thrust. That was why he started his second term by imposing high tariffs on virtually every country – including traditional allies. Today, even Canada and Western Europe are moving away from the US and, ironically, closer to China. Nobody could have predicted this shift a year ago.
Iran, in its own way, is not different from the US in many ways. It seeks to control the Islamic Middle East in its quest to spread its brand of Islam worldwide. But, unlike the US, which still clings to the fading illusion of being a democracy, it is a theocracy – a nation ruled by religious leaders. Elections are not held. Believing they derive their powers from Allah, their positions are inflexible. That is not the only difference between Ayatollah and Trump. While Trump, a bloody coward, who dodged being drafted to fight for America, is afraid to die, the late Ayatollah knew he would be killed. Most other leaders, like Assad of Syria, would have escaped to another country; the old man waited serenely for death. That is one important fact which Trump has failed to understand. Dying, while fighting for Allah, was the most desirable way to end a true Muslim’s life. He is not alone; millions of Muslims, globally, will do the same. America will have to kill most of the world’s Muslim to permanently end this war. It remains an axiom of life that the most difficult person to fight is one who is prepared to die; while you want to live. Millions of Americans will spend the rest of their lives fearing assassination.
Meanwhile, Trump’s war has already upended the life of everybody worldwide.
All available indicators point to galloping inflation at a time when purchasing power is declining in virtually every country. Airlines and cruise ships operators, particularly those in Middle East, are grounded and the multiplier effect reaches down to their food and other contractors; all the way to the farm gates.
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Fertiliser prices will soon climb as the Gulf area accounts for a significant percentage of supply. No President needs to be reminded that great political and economic uncertainties result in market volatility. Goods are hoarded; discretionary spending is suspended; merchants groan. Every country is now a “nation of shop keepers”. The rich also cry; capital markets are shedding value like trees in autumn. Nobody is immune; except the merchants of death – arms manufacturers. Trump works for them because he probably holds shares in all of them. The rest of us pay dearly for the folly of Americans; who handed the mightiest military power ever assembled to someone who needs to consult a shrink.
Irrespective of how the Iran war ends, the US, ‘land of the free and home of the brave’, will never again be trusted by the rest of the world. The world’s savior during the Second World War, WWII, has become a brutal rapist and murderer of schoolchildren in less than a century after receiving our unalloyed gratitude for saving the universe from another terrorist. Nigerian children and young adults, like others round the globe, will never forget who forced them to trek to school, without lunch money in March 2026. Pleasure is fleeting; pain runs deep and lasts longer.
Trump has made history for himself and America; but, not what he intended. Iran has won the moral war.
SHEIK ABUBAKAR GUMI EXPOSES GOVERNMENT LIES
“You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest” – Louis M Howe, 1871-1936, VBQ p 192.
“The government knows every terrorist by name and by location. I don’t go alone to negotiate – I go with the Police and other security agencies” – Sheik Abubakar Gumi, March 10, 2026.
Politicians form political parties and run governments. Obviously, in every country and at all the sub-national governments, citizens are confronted with the choice of the dishonest people to elect to office. An honest politician is an oxymoron – a contradiction in terms. Until a top government official, at federal or state level, past and present defence chiefs (Army, Air Force, Navy), Inspectors General of Police, IGP, Director General of the Department of State Security, DSS, openly disclaim knowledge of and participation in Gumi’s negotiations with terrorists, Nigerians would have no choice but to believe that all our leaders have been lying to us – while engaging in a collective conspiracy of silence; at our expense. Trump must not know about this disclosure. It would alter his views about Nigerian leaders and their seriousness about ending terrorism and banditry. Prolonging the horrors might serve their personal interests.
“Every time you negotiate with a terrorist, you become an accomplice” -Unidentified Israeli Defence Official, VBQ p 244.
Unless Gumi was telling lies, several top government officials, especially the security officers, have been accomplices to terrorists. Tinubu, inadvertently, appointed one of them as Minister; and has stubbornly refused to remove him. One state is paying a frightful price for it. Obviously, nobody in authority cares. Celebrated terrorist was turbaned during the tenure of a former governor; who also confessed to carrying N900 million to the bush to negotiate with bandits. Does anybody seriously expect that man to fight terrorists? The consequences are predictable. “CO, soldiers, terrorists killed in Borno Military attack.” (VANGUARD, March 10, 2026.
Nigerian soldiers are paying with their lives for the deception and conspiracy of silence of leaders in corridors of power – including Abuja.
AMBASSADORS STRANDED AT AIRPORT
“India, others reject Tinubu’s envoys over tenure policy” – Report, March 11, 2026
“An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for his country” – Sir Henry Wolton, 1568-1639, VBQ p 9.
There were honest men in the seventeenth century to be sent abroad to lie for their countries. Not anymore. Today, with ambassadors being selected among politicians or closet party members, there are few honest men and women ambassadors. Instead, what we now have are mostly shameless liars and unprincipled individuals eager to spread falsehood wherever they went. It is like throwing pigs in dirty, muddy water. They love it. This is their natural environment. These days, I strain to hold my nose; each time someone is introduced as an ambassador. Almost nothing he says will be taken without several table spoons of salt. Verification, later, is inevitable.
But for observation of Lent, I would have gone to my favourite bar or watering hole and ordered beer/stout to be served round, when the news of India’s rejection of the ambassador-designate was reported. I have nothing against the fellow personally, but, I strongly believe that Nigerian ambassadors represent the worst form of throwing good money after bad imaginable. Tinubu was right to have withdrawn them; he was wrong to succumb to pressure and appoint so many dishonest people at once. I pray that more nations will follow India’s example and leave the ambassadors stranded at the airport.