Nigeria: The Silver Lining in Trump’s Threat

Nigeria: The Silver Lining in Trump’s Threat

By Aliyu U. Tilde

President Trump has threatened a military intervention to stop the widely disputed fabrication of a Christian genocide in Nigeria. To a country that enjoyed peace for the past 120 years—except for the three year Civil War, occasional disturbances, few insurrections and banditry—his announcement has generated in our minds the apprehension of the destructive legacies which similar interventions left in other countries.

Yet, no matter how ominous looking is the cloud, there may be a silver lining. Even in the worst case scenario of American boots on the ground, the hope of finding some glimmers cannot be dismissed. This article is not a welcome for an act that clearly violates international law. Rather, it only attempts to locate the little ray which may be embedded in its dark cloud. Despite its miserable quantum, I hope the reader finds in it enough room for the following takes:

1. 

The immediate benefit of Trump’s threat is how fast it awakened the Nigerian government from the coma of incapacity. Suddenly, the issue of insecurity has gained traction beyond the office of the NSA or the Ministry of Defence. It is now, thanks to Trump, on the front burner in the Villa and the National Assembly. Trump has ignited a diplomatic conflagration which officials are rushing to extirpate. And the only way they can do so is by cajoling their greed to take leave, albeit briefly. In its absence, they can support our soldiers in—or task them with—ending our insecurity. 

2. 

Trump has brought to glare the failure of our military and the prospect of its in-domain diminution by a superior foreign force. Going forward, it must be different: the military must prove its mettle and win the war. Nothing else can revamp its pride. No politician can block its way anymore. No fifth columnist will it tolerate in its ranks. Only the merit of its committed members will lead its path. Such hitherto forsaken officers must be quietly thanking Trump. He has given them the rare opportunity to shine.

With the giant Trump on its heels, our military must embark on an all-out war with the terrorists, leaving behind the luxury of personal SUVs, elaborate mansions, fat accounts and pepper soup joints. The dawn has broken. Trump has blown the bugle. Let them hearken to the reveille of its morning.  With the discipline of law abiding citizens, they must ready their gear, pick the gun, carry the knapsack, don the helmet, board the tanks and fly the jets for a thorough disinfection of our forest while respecting the human rights of the innocent. Trump must keep the pressure until order is restored and citizens can traverse the land in comfort and peace.

3. 

With his troops on the ground, he may gladly be disappointed by the absence of genocide in the country; that he was fooled just as Cheney sold to President Bush the dummy of nuclear weapons in Iraq. All that he will discern are crimes which terrorists inflict on Nigerians regardless of creed. Indeed, if his troops would listen, they would be shocked by the inverse: in the past thirty years of ethnic and religious conflicts in Nigeria, the complainants are indeed the perpetrators of genocide in North-central Nigeria. 

Confronted by the abundant data, the quiet graveyards, the silent ruins, the speaking pictures and flowing tears of survivors, the Americans, as did many earlier visitors, would be disappointed with the barbarity that fits the dictionary definition of genocide, which their invitees have been unleashing on others in the states they dominate.

4. 

Even now, Trump has awakened the non-vocal majority in the North to the danger of silence and complacency in the face of injustice, the fallacy of “leaving everything to God.” They now know that going to Washington to report every incident, or even posting it on social media, is important in giving a balanced narrative and averting calamity. Had they used every opportunity to eloquently tell and remind the world of the horrors of the massacres of innocent Muslims in Kafanchan, Zangon Kataf, Zonkwa, Kachia, Jos, Kuru Karama, Yelwan Shendam, Mangu, Tafawa Balewa, Numan, Mambila, etc., they would have gained enough sympathy to expose the exaggerations and half-truths which their half brothers told the politicians and clerics in Washington and London.

Still, it is not too late. It is time to dig the archives and educate their Anglo-American audience. Henceforth, whatever happens, the Internet must be flooded with the details of any attack, no matter how small. Thank you Trump for another awakening.

5. 

Our clerics and prophets of doom who are quick to amplify matters to gain sympathy and cash in the West have also learned their lesson. They have invited foreign intervention many times in the past. Now that it is coming under the tenure of their strange benefactor or kinsman, they are denying that there is any genocide against Christians in Nigeria.

From my brother Bishop Hasan Kukah to my lecturer at UNIJOS Faculty of Law and now our INEC Chairman, Prof. J. O. Amupitan, they are running from pillar to post in the effort to quench the flame of the intervention they sought. Kukah is crying misinterpretation by the Americans: that the problem of Christians is shariah, not genocide. Even Yoruba Christian politicians and clerics are busy denying the fake news of Christian genocide in Nigeria, which they could have welcomed if Buhari were the President, adding oxygen to the Trumpian fire. Trump has answered their prayer at the wrong time.

6. 

Trump and his troops, if here, will also help us quench another insidious fire. They will hear the rhetoric of the unholy alliance that is openly calling for genocide against a section of the northern population. Such criminally minded elements must drop their guns and guard their tongues, now that the global sheriff is here. Any genocidal campaign will promptly invite his anger. Today, avoiding the anger of this global sheriff is the beginning of wisdom. He is the river, wrote my Al-Mutanabbi: avoid it in rage; sail it in calm.

7. 

Trump and his troops will also learn, first-hand, how previous American administrations refused to supply Nigeria with the weapons it needed to defeat terrorist groups. They can easily verify Representative Perry’s allegation of USAID’s complicity in Boko Haram. The fault of our insecurity, they may find out, is not entirely Nigerian but carries as well the stamp of American intelligence which MAGA equally detests.

8. 

Finally, Trump will have cause to hate President Obama and Senator Hillary the more. He must not forgive them, as he does not forgive—he said. In the Nigerian theatre, he would see the effect of their ruining Libya. The flow of Gaddafi’s ordnance is largely responsible for the instability in sub-Saharan Africa. He must conclude that regime change in one country can only precipitate instability in many others and with all-consuming global ramifications. 

Conclusion

Bigger than these glimmers is my insatiable hope that when the dust of Trump’s intervention settles and his troops lined up for evacuation, Nigeria would be rid of the menace of terrorism and its citizens regardless of their faith would live in peace and tranquility. 

8 November 2025