When I read the threat of POTUS against Nigeria’s deadly sectarian banditry, i immediately dismissed the report as fake news.
Two reasons had swayed my senses:
One, Donald Trump has been a prime target of hostile press especially phoney yet ubiquitous social media platforms sensationalizing his maverick manners.
Two, the tone of the post was uncharacteristic of US communication tradition. Americans write the best speeches in the world.
From Abraham Lincoln to Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King to Barack Obama, American elite rhetoric is ever elevated. Framed in epic, dignified, racy lines. No banal or colloquial diction . No outpouring of prosaic words conveyed in intense moralistic tales of emotionalism .
Even Trump is known for sublime sound bites.
However I suspended my disbelief upon a quick fact- check from two of the most trusted news organizations in human history.
Reuters wrote that US president ” has threatened “fast” military action in Nigeria if the West African nation fails to crack down on the killing of Christians” while Washington Post confirmed that Trump “has ordered the Defense Department to prepare for potential strikes in Nigeria”
The Nigerian media led by the flagship of the press, The Guardian , would feast on America’s indignation with screaming headlines.
With the authenticity of the news of Trump’s war threat to crush suspected Islamic insurgents, over genocide claims, it is time for soulful stock taking.
Thousands of people have perished in Nigeria by violent extremism.
Religious terrorism is an endemic phenomenon, ravaging the nation for over a decade.It is not peculiar to Tinubu but now his persistent pain as president. Our thoughts not tirades should be with the president.
It is an absurd albatross.Not just on the neck of one man but hovering dangerously on the heads of over 200 million Nigerians, entrapped by horrifying insecurity.
Nigeria is at a crossroads. If bloody sectarianism is not checked, both Christians and Muslims among others will continue to die in dreadful droves.
Today bandits are the worst punishers of Nigerians outside poverty. Human monsters bent on final annihilation of a people through senseless killings.
America’s war alarm must be a cause for worry.
Label America meddlesome interloper in the affairs of a sovereign country, but such typology would not take away the load of bloodbath dehumanizing Nigerians.
Abuja must not wait for Washington to invade Nigeria “guns-a -blazing” before pursuing terrorists to blazes .
Let war descend on evil and wipe off the darkness of terror.
The new service chiefs under Tinubu as Commander in Chief must move to save Nigeria now!
