By Jude Atupulazi
After the 2023 General Elections went against the wishes of the generality of Nigerians who felt robbed, expectations were that the coming 2027 General Elections would witness serious voter apathy. Why not when it is feared that what happened before will happen again? But then, I have always believed that nothing lasts forever. I always tell people that, after, all, all the strong ancient empires fell at different times, despite looking like they would never fall.
Empires usually fall from causes from within or without, but they eventually fall. This is the hope I have always nurtured about Nigeria. I have always believed that no matter how formidable anything, structure or individual is, at the appointed time, something will happen that will make it crash. That was exactly how the behemoth called the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, fell in Nigeria, despite being in power. It was as if they supervised their own fall.
Are we about to have the fall of the APC Empire? As the 2027 General Elections draw near, it looks like what has been thought an impossibility may be possible. What is making it look possible, even if remotely, is the recent outburst of the President of the United States of America, Mr Donald Trump, who threatened to attack Nigeria and crush the terrorists killing Christians, for which the Nigerian Government has been doing nothing.
Trump wrote on a social media post on Saturday, October 31, that he had instructed the US Department of War to prepare for “possible action” to tackle Islamist militant groups, accusing the government of failing to protect Christians.
Trump, who described Nigeria as a country of particular concern because of existential threat, did not say which killings he was referring to, but claims of a genocide against Nigeria’s Christians have been circulating in recent weeks and months in some right-wing US circles.
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, for his path, said there was religious tolerance in the country and that the security challenges were affecting people across faiths and regions.
And on Sunday, Trump reiterated that his country could deploy troops to Nigeria or carry out airstrikes to stop the alleged killings.
‘They’re killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria. They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen,’ the US President said.
In Saturday’s post he warned that he might send the military into Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” unless the Nigerian Government intervened, and said that all aid to what he called “the now disgraced country” would be cut.
Trump had also said: ‘If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians!.
U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, then replied to the post by writing: ‘Yes sir. The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.’
Trump’s threat triggered alarm across Nigeria, with many on social media urging the government to step up its fight against Islamist groups to avert a situation where foreign troops would be sent into the country. But the masses have been the ones rejoicing because, to them, a Daniel has come to judgment.
For long the Nigerian Government has carried on as if we are fools. Despite the massacring of Nigerians, let me not say Christians, by Fulani jihadists, not a single culprit has been tried in court. The few who were arrested were allowed to go. Yet, some people, mostly those in government, have been giving excuses for the government and I ask: is Nigeria a country?
What do you call a country where the government brazenly rapes its citizens daily? A government that doesn’t care for our welfare and a country where politicians despoil the Commonwealth and go scot free. For those who urge Nigerians to be proud of their country, how can Nigerians be proud of their country when the country is not proud of them?
It is well known that Nigeria is not serious in fighting terrorism and has been rather treating terrorists with kid gloves, rehabilitating them and integrating them into its armed forces from where they sabotage our efforts in fighting terrorism.
In all the years of the operations of Fulani herdsmen how many have been captured and prosecuted? None! Even when people fight back they are berated. Last year a man who was attacked by herdsmen in his farm who defended himself by killing one of them was sentenced to death. He was told he should have run away. Recall the case of the Christian student, Deborah, killed in a school in Sokoto for allegedly insulting Mohammed or something like that, what happened? Has anyone been arrested and prosecuted? If a Moslem had been killed by Christians there would have been an uproar.
Again the government brazenly calls the murder of farmers “herders/farmers clashes”, but we know it’s a huge lie. How come that in a clash only one side is armed and killing the other?
Nigeria is a huge joke to everyone, including the international community. What will America even gain from us? I ask this of those who say America is threatening us because of what they will gain from our resources.
While some may not like Trump, many of us like him for his unpretentious fight against terrorism. He doesn’t mince words, that’s his style. I remember when Buhari visited him in his first tenure with his home delegation. The moment Buhari entered, Trump shook his hand, and asked Buhari point-blank, ‘Why are you killing Christians?’
Everyone in our delegation was shocked.
Could Buhari be said to have been fair to Christians? Under his leadership hundreds of Christians were massacred and he did nothing. When Benue State buried over seventy people in one day who were killed by herdsmen, Buhari did not utter a word, not to talk about coming. In fact Buhari killed Nigeria with his ethnic and religious bias.
You can see that many Nigerians are happy with Trump’s threat and only those in government are griping and whining.
Nigeria is not worth defending and I regret being a Nigerian. But then, looking beyond Trump’s latest threat, one may not be blamed suspecting something deeper. Is America looking for regime change? The way America under Barack Obama wanted Jonathan out and achieved it without many of us knowing then. Is this threat by Trump a ruse to oust the present Government? This is why permutations for 2027 are suddenly becoming interesting and I bet many will be keenly watching events.
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Before I round off, however, let me share the experience of my friend when he was living in Kano where he served and settled back to work. He retold this story after someone defending the Nigerian system engaged him in an argument.
‘I ran away from Kano in 2012 after I escaped death at the hands of Boko Haram by just five minutes! Let me give you a little idea of what you seem to be defending.
‘At thereabouts 4:00 p.m. on Friday, 20 January, 2012, I was in Sabon Gari Kano, waiting for my ordered bread and omelette to be ready for collection when the daughter of the owner of the shop opposite where my food was being prepared got a phone call.
‘I couldn’t hear what the person at the other end said, but I heard her own sharp exclamation and feverish inquiry. It turned out it was her SSS husband telling her that Boko Haram had bombed the NPF AIG’s office close to Bayero University.
‘The day being Friday, and its being after mosque (Jumu’ah Prayers), I suspected it was going to be a coordinated attack on security formations in Kano. If they could attack the AIG, then the COMPOL and the entire Police Headquarters and Barracks in Bompai would not escape similar treatment.
‘My normal route home to Lamido Road in Nassarawa G.R.A. was going to take me past the police establishment, so I decided to make a detour. I told the bike man I stopped (who fortunately looked vacant in regard to knowledge of what was happening) to take some hidden routes that bypassed the NSCDC headquarters too.
‘Fortunately, SSS headquarters was located after my immediate neighbourhood, about a thousand meters behind my residence.
‘As soon as I got home my Northern neighbours rejoiced at seeing me, telling me of massacres that had happened just minutes before along the route I had taken! At a place called Daula Hotel Roundabout, commuters had been intercepted and stopped by the killers; all those who couldn’t recite portions of the Koran that they were asked to recite were gunned down!
‘This was replicated all over Kano that evening. All civil servants were targets, all security officials in uniform were targeted; scores and scores of innocent people were slaughtered on the streets of Kano. As I shakily sat down in my sitting room, turned on my TV and switched to BBC to see whether the international news media had got wind of what was happening, I then began to count the multiple bomb explosions I had begun to hear some minutes before. I counted up to sixty explosions before a mighty one hit my neighbourhood and lifted me out of my chair and sent plasters showering me all over like I was a mason or some other sort of builder!!!
‘I hurriedly put my as yet untouched bread and omelette in the fridge and went straight to the toilet to empty my bowel. My bowel was so emptied that I never had cause to go to the loo again till the following Tuesday! That was how panicked I had been.
‘That night, Kano metropolis went through one of the most resounding military offensives ever conducted in peacetime that no war film had ever given me to see. The gunfire I heard throughout that night I had never heard before nor have heard ever since.
‘After a 24-hour curfew was imposed by the army from Saturday to Tuesday, people were permitted to begin to move around on Wednesday. That Wednesday, I wrote my letter of request for a transfer to any location, south of the River Niger and River Benue.
My transfer came out on 1 October 2012 and I reported to Awka on 8 October of the same.
‘In the intervening period between the 20 January attack and when I reported to Awka, life was not funny in Kano. After civilian movement was permitted with restrictions, I had been with some friends at a business centre equidistant from Central Hotel and Kano Club then went home.
‘When I got there the next day, I was told the experience a barber in the building had had after I left. He had received a call from a customer to proceed to the customer’s house to barber their child’s hair.
He immediately packed up his equipment and shut his shop and was making to move quickly down the road in the direction of Central Hotel when, as he passed in front of a military checkpoint close to his building, his phone rang. Naturally, he quickly slipped his hand into his pocket to get the phone out, but he didn’t get as far as that. No sooner had he put his hand in his pocket than a terrifying military voice told him: “If that hand comes out of that pocket, you’re a dead man!!!
He remained frozen where he stood and had to ask for permission from the soldiers to remove his imprisoned hand. The next day, the barber left Kano forever with his entire family!!!!!
‘This little narrative I have given you is just the tip of the iceberg of what Nigerians in terror-stricken areas have been living through.
‘My narration of what the military did in Kano on that 20 January night/21 January morning of 2012 was just to show you what a decisive military can achieve if there exists the will to execute such missions.
For some reason, the Nigerian military has been significantly incapacitated. As you rightly pointed out, what happened then and what is happening now is unconventional warfare that requires equally unconventional means to fight it.
‘If it is the U.S. military that can precipitate the liquidation of the terrorists, then so be it.
‘The argument that Trump is not popular in America or that he is a rascal is argumentum ad misere cordiam; and the argument that America is looking for colonist opportunities in Nigeria is argumentum non sequitur.’
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I can’t agree more with him. What about you? Trump, please come save us!
