The Cost of Silence: How Apathy Deepens the Middle Belt Crisis

By Ankeli Daniel

For years, the Middle Belt has been crying out for help, sometimes in quiet pleas, sometimes in desperate screams. Whole communities have been destroyed by waves of terror and displacement, yet the silence that follows often feels even heavier than the violence itself.
This silence from citizens, leaders, and the global community is not an absence of sound. It is a decision, and that decision carries consequences.

The Sound of Neglect

In a country that never stops moving, tragedies easily fade into background noise. One day it is villages burned in Benue, the next it is kidnappings in Kogi or fresh attacks in Southern Kaduna. The headlines shift quickly, but the survivors do not get to move on.

Behind every “breaking news” alert are people who may never return home, families trapped in makeshift camps, and children who learn the meaning of loss long before they learn the meaning of hope.

The scale of this crisis is undeniable. According to Amnesty International, over 10,217 people were killed in armed attacks across several Nigerian states in just two years, with Benue State alone accounting for 6,896 deaths. UNHCR estimates that Nigeria now has roughly 3.5 million displaced or stateless people, about 600,000 of them from Middle Belt communities.

Still, the silence continues in offices, churches, and conversations. We scroll past these tragedies, waiting for someone else to care first. But silence always takes a side. It stands with power, not the powerless, with comfort
instead of conscience.

When Silence Becomes Complicity

When we stop asking where security funds disappear to, when we look past displaced families struggling to live with dignity, and when we downplay acts of terror by calling them “skirmishes”, we are not just ignoring the problem, we are helping it grow.

Injustice doesn’t survive because evil is powerful; it survives because good people stay quiet.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reported 291,000 new conflict-related displacements in 2023, pushing Nigeria’s total to 3.4 million internally displaced people. Each displacement left unresolved, each attack left unpunished, becomes soil for impunity to grow. The suffering of the Middle Belt is not inevitable. It is the result of what we have tolerated for decades.

Apathy in High Places

It is not only ordinary citizens who stay silent. Many in positions of power, with the means to make real change, have chosen indifference over action.

Governments at both the federal and state levels often respond with words of sympathy but show little accountability. Security funds disappear without explanation, while communities remain unprotected. Relief materials arrive too late or not at all.

Every broken promise leaves another scar, and every ignored report erases another piece of truth.
Yet, the apathy of those in power is fueled by the apathy of the people. When we stop demanding better, they stop delivering.

Breaking the Silence

There is strength in our collective voice. Each time people speak out, ask the hard questions, or tell the story of someone who has survived, the walls of silence begin to break.

This, is why Middle Belt Concern (MBC) exists; to amplify those voices, to remind Nigeria and the world that silence has a cost too heavy to bear.

We stand for a region that refuses to be forgotten, for survivors who deserve justice, and for accountability that rebuilds trust in those who lead.

Speaking up means choosing courage instead of comfort, truth instead of silence, and life instead of loss.

What We Can Do

Breaking the silence is more than just speaking; it’s about taking action.
Share verified stories from the Middle Belt, because every repost helps fight misinformation.
Ask your leaders the hard questions. Demand transparency about how security funds are used.

Support local efforts that provide relief, education, and advocacy for displaced families and communities.
Organize or join dialogues and discussions that keep these conversations alive.
Every voice raised brings us closer to justice, and every action taken helps a survivor take one step closer to healing.

Hope in the Noise

Silence may have allowed this crisis to grow, but purposeful, persistent, and united voices can help bring it to an end.
The story of the Middle Belt is not one of defeat, but of strength and defiance. Its people have endured unimaginable pain and are still standing. What they need now are allies who will speak when it is easier to stay quiet.
In the end, history does not honor those who chose comfort; it remembers those who chose courage.
So, speak up.
Share the truth.
Stand with the Middle Belt until silence is no longer an option.

Daniel Ankeli is a photographer, media professional, and human rights advocate who documents insecurity, displacement, and community resilience across the Middle Belt. He is a member of Middle Belt Concern and writes from Jos, Plateau State.

The Silent Genocide: Gwoza’s Christians in the Grip of Jihadist Terror

By Suleman Ayuba

Gwoza, a once-vibrant Christian enclave in Nigeria’s Borno State, is thick with grief. For over a decade, jihadist insurgents primarily Boko Haram have waged a relentless campaign of terror against the region’s predominantly Christian population. Homes have been razed, churches reduced to rubble, and families torn apart. More than 60,000 Christians have fled across the border into Cameroon, only to face hunger, disease, and despair in overcrowded refugee camps. Many who attempt the treacherous journey back to Nigeria perish along the way, succumbing to starvation or exhaustion in the unforgiving bushes. This is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is a targeted, systematic assault on a religious community, one that many now describe as genocide.

Gwoza’s nightmare began in earnest in 2014 when Boko Haram seized the town and declared it the capital of their self-styled Islamic caliphate. In the years since, the group has returned again and again, launching coordinated attacks on Christian villages. Just last month, in October 2025, insurgents overran Kirawa, a settlement near Gwoza, forcing over 5,000 residents to flee into Cameroon. This was not an isolated incident. In January 2025, more than 4,000 Christians were displaced from nearby Chibok after similar raids.

The human toll is staggering. Since 2009, over 50,000 Christians have been killed nationwide by extremist violence, with Gwoza and surrounding areas bearing the brunt. Of the 176 churches that once stood in Gwoza Local Government Area, 148 have been destroyed. Pastors, farmers, and children have been executed in cold blood, often forced to renounce their faith at gunpoint.

For the more than 60,000 Gwoza Christians now living in Cameroon, exile offers little solace. Most are crammed into camps like Minawao in the country’s Far North Region, where aid is scarce and conditions are dire. Families live in flimsy tents, battling malnutrition, cholera outbreaks, and the constant threat of Boko Haram incursions across the porous border.

Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum visited these refugees in October 2025, acknowledging their plight but offering little in the way of immediate solutions. Many feel abandoned by the Nigerian government, by the international community, and by the world’s conscience.

The journey home is even deadlier. With internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Nigeria closing and repatriation programs faltering, desperate refugees attempt to trek back on foot. Hundreds have died en route, their bodies claimed by hunger, dehydration, and ambushes. One of the survivor recounted walking for days with nothing but wild leaves to eat, only to find his village in ruins upon return and bokko haram still targeted him until he run again to Nasarawa state.

The deliberate targeting of Christians for elimination based on their faith. A Gwoza Christians elder recently received death threats for daring to call it what it is a genocide and demanding international intervention.

Regardless of terminology, the facts are undeniable: entire Christian communities have been erased from the map. Land once farmed by generations of Marghi, Chibok, and Gwoza believers now lies fallow and is occupied by settlers aligned with the insurgents.

The world cannot afford to look away. The Home for the needy foundation in benin Open Doors for 3000 Gwoza orphans, providing critical support, but their resources are stretched thin. Safe, voluntary repatriation must be prioritized, alongside robust security for returnees. International pressure is needed to ensure Nigeria fulfills its duty to protect all citizens regardless of faith.

The people of Gwoza are not statistics. They are mothers who buried their children, pastors who preach in the ruins of their sanctuaries, and refugees who still dare to hope. Their story is one of resilience amid unimaginable loss.
It is time for the global community to act not with silence, but with solidarity. The Christians of Gwoza have suffered enough.

Some mixed metaphors on the rumours of war (II)

By Ahmed Yahaya Joe

“History is a vast early warning system.” – Norman Cousins (1915-1990)

President Bola Tinubu might be a consummate champion in local politics but obviously a very poor student (despite his numerous visits to France) of how Bonaparte elaborately describes a sandwich of distraction and flanking as “manoeuvre sur les derrieres.”
The moral here is even brilliant men are capable of blunders as famously exemplified at the epic Battle of Isandlwana fought between the armies of the Zulu nation commanded by their warrior-king 1816-1828, Shaka kaSenzangakhona and that of the British led by Lt. General Lord Chelmsford (1827-1905) along the plains of Nqutu and Angua valley of present-day South Africa nearly 150 years ago.
The timeless adaptable lesson involved should be very instructive to not only Asiwaju, his handlers and support base but also to a motley of his opponents including the rest of us from useful idiots to useful innocents.

On January 21, 1879 the Zulus headed into battle deploying what they had conceived as the “horns, chest, and loins,” of a metaphoric buffalo;
“The chest was the central part of the battle line, which would hold and pin the enemy force.
Meanwhile, the horns to either side would encircle it, moving in to the sides and rear. The tip of one horn stayed hidden behind tall grass and boulders; when it emerged to complete the encirclement, it gave the British a nasty psychological shock.
The loins were a reserve force kept back to be thrown in for the coup de grace. These men actually stood with their backs to the battle, so as not to grow overly excited and rush in before the right moment.”
– p.247 33 Strategies of War (2006) by Robert Greene

On the CPC designation of Nigeria by the US leader the “chest” that held and pinned down the Tinubu administration is inadvertently the increased practice of cartel politics by the ruling behemoth APC in the build-up of 2027 against the background of a spate of dysfunctional opposition parties in Nigeria’s political terrain;
“A cartel political party is a party which uses the resources of the state to maintain its position within the political system, colluding with other parties in a way similar to a cartel.
The premise is that the parties do not compete with one another being post-political, but rather collude to protect their collective interests and keep outsider parties from being viable.”
– Democracy and the Cartelization of Political Parties (2018) by Richard Katz and Peter Mair

Meanwhile, the bespoke “horns” are twofold.
First, was “hidden behind the tall grass” which shows that open-source intelligence analysis by various credible bodies have now established with accompanying forensic evidence that many social media networks and quite a number of self-styled influencers affiliated to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) played a very prominent role in pushing the “Christian genocide” narrative in Nigeria from as far as back as 2016.
Take for instance the findings by TheCable;
“Data from X (formerly Twitter) between January 1 and October 1, 2025 showed over 165,000 mentions of the topic reaching an estimated 2.83 billion people worldwide a figure more than 12 times the Nigerian population.”

The second horn is the March 12, 2025 Capitol Hill testimony of the Guma-born Bishop Wilfred Anagbe, Catholic diocesan of Makurdi beside Tony Perkins, a former chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom – the very State Department body responsible for the global due diligence before any nation is designated CPC or not. Anagbe was at the House Foreign Affairs Committee over prior attacks 3 months before that of June 13-14. Notably, his appearance on February 14, 2024 was when he quite elaborately described the situation in Benue and others parts of Nigeria’s Middle Belt as “genocidal persecution of Christians” in his detailed testimony. Why wasn’t the Nigerian mission in DC present at both hearings to offer the counter-narratives as being presently touted by the federal government?

Then came an Isandlwana-like “coup de grace” delivered via the Angelus from the Vatican, a 12-noon prayer led by any given Pope every Sunday from a window at the Apostolic Palace St. Peter’s Square since 1954 under Pope Pius XII. That of Pope Leo XIV on June 15, 2025 was no different televised across the globe to millions of the Catholic faithful probably even including US Secretary of State Marc Rubio, Ted Cruz among others;
“During the night between 13 and 14 June, a terrible massacre took place in the city of Yelwata, located in the local administrative area of Guoman (Guma) in the state of Benue, Nigeria. Around two hundred were killed with killed with extreme cruelty.”
The onetime Francis Cardinal Prevost who was billed to visit Nigeria in July before he was elected as Pontiff on May 8, 2025 after a brief exhortation concluded;
“I pray that security, justice and peace prevail in Nigeria, a beloved that has suffered various forms of violence. I pray in particular for the rural communities in the state of Benue, who have increasingly been victims of violence.”

Perhaps if Nigeria had had an ambassador to Italy with a letter of credence to the Vatican, His or Her Excellency would have promptly notified President Tinubu of the obvious diplomatic red flag of His Holiness mentioning Nigeria ahead of the atrocious situation in Sudan in his Angelus. Such a monumental lacuna is unforgivable in international relations. Is the Villa even aware that between November 2001 and September 2016 the Pope had visited 9 times each time travelling extensively across Nigeria?

Recall the future Pope first visited barely a month after the Sharia riots in Kano also a year or so after previous Sharia riots in Kaduna. He was present at the episcopal ordination of the Catholic Bishop of Kano then under the Sharia dispensation of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau. His next visit back then was after the 2011 post-election fallout and Christmas Day bombing of St. Theresa’s at Madalla.
Even without an ambassador to Italy accredited to Vatican City the federal government would have sent a special envoy to directly engage the Roman Curia to salvage the diplomatic collateral damage before the situation culminated into a CPC designation across the Atlantic. Shuttle diplomacy is obviously not part of Tinubu’s governance modus operandi.

“We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual friends. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
– Lord Palmerston, British Prime Minister 1855-1858, 1859-1865

Palmerston was not a man of religious faith. Rather he worshipped at the altar of gunboat diplomacy who as a foot soldier of imperialism, he was able to deftly kill three birds with one stone in pre-colonial Lagos.
This was by skilfully aligning British commercial interests of abolishing the extremely lucrative trade in slaves that was the oxygen of the local economy with that of the power tussle between Obas Kosoko and Akitoye all the while factoring the evangelical aspirations of the Church Mission Society (CMS) and visceral fears of the “Saros” – a very marginalized and deeply prosecuted minority in Lagos. Palmerston then as Foreign Secretary had no compunction in ordering the British consul to the Bight of Benin and Biafra (now Gulf of Guinea), John Beecroft (1790-1854) to unleash a very horrific cannonade on Lagos still described in local parlance as “Ogun Agidingbi” between 26th-28th December, 1851.

Oba Akitoye (d.1853) who was monarch in 1841 until after his dethronement in 1845 by his nephew Oba Kosoko (d.1872) had prior written the British from exile at Badagry pleading;
“My humble prayer is that you would take Lagos under you and plant the English flag there, and that you would re-establish me on my rightful throne at Lagos.”
While Kosoko was in turn dethroned in 1851 by British fiat elsewhere;
“Eight years after being admitted into the ministry as a priest by the Bishop of London, Crowther was received by Queen Victoria and (her husband) Prince Albert in November 1851 at Windsor Castle. Both the Queen and the Prince studied a map showing Lagos and Abeokuta and displayed great interest in the area’s trade. When Queen Victoria asked what the solution could be for slave trade in the West African coast, Ajayi replied, ‘Seize Lagos by fire and by force.’”

In conclusion, the moral of history here is as sentinel warning. President Trump’s sabre-rattling within the context America’s grand strategy should be a wake-up call for much needed introspection in our nation. This in retrospect it points directly to the missing ingredient during the power tussle between Obas Akitoye and Kosoko. Their mutual lack of consensus made the resort to “by fire and by force” inevitable. Perhaps why we still retain the name NNS Beecroft as “cradle of service” of the Nigerian Navy in Lagos as a metaphor lest we forget Kristin Mann writes in her 2007 book entitled Slavery and the Birth of an African City “The British bombardment opened Lagos to Christian missionaries.” -p.93

This writer therefore reckons just like Palmerston needed an intractable pretext to deploy British firepower 174 years ago to Lagos, for Trump to protect his nation’s strategic interests in present-day Nigeria, he similarly needs “useful innocents” that irreconcilable circumstances have pushed to the wall by local dynamics.

Concluded.

Mixed metaphors on rumours of war (I)

By Ahmed Yahaya Joe

“The spider has no need to hunt; it simply waits for the next fool to fall into the web’s barely visible strands.”

– The Controlled-Chaos Strategy, p.77 33 Strategies of War (2006) by Robert Greene

According to William D. James, “A close examination of the history of statecraft reveals that grand strategy works best when competing ideas collide, and rigorous processes challenge prevailing orthodoxies.” – The Key to Grand Strategy (2025)

If so, why is there more gaslighting than enlightened debate resonating from the high-decibel “Christian genocide” babel of discordant voices?

Anyway, ESL is the United Kingdom acronym for English as a Second Language that formed the kernel of “Mind Your Language” an immensely popular bygone era British comedy series that ran from the late 1970s to early 80s on Nigerian national television. For those old enough to remember the program brilliantly captured the struggles of an assorted group learning the twists and turns including nuances and idiosyncrasies of the English language.

“Mind Your Language” featured memorable characters like the amiable Jeremy Brown played by Barry Evans who passed in 1997, the habitual parodist Ranjeet Singh (Albert Moses passed in 2017) and the utterly exasperating Ali Nadim (Dino Shafeek passed in 1984) not forgetting the racy French Danielle Favre (Francoise Pascal surprisingly from the African island nation of Mauritius) and the dry humoured stern Miss Courtney, a taciturn feminist and proud spinster played by Zara Nutley (1924-2016) among others.

But underneath all that entertaining laughter in that TV show the producers neatly camouflaged many prejudices including false dichotomies and selective framing.

Little wonder one gets a sense of déjà vu of that sitcom from our halcyon days against the background of the quantum of dissimulation recently in our public space concerning the raging “Christian genocide” narrative and counter-narratives.

By the way how imprudently different is the conditional military ultimatum of Mr. Trump to Nigeria with the kind of war mongering in President Bola Tinubu’s letter to the National Assembly read at plenary in the Senate chamber on August 4, 2025?

“Following the unfortunate political situation in Niger Republic culminating in the overthrow of its President, ECOWAS under my leadership condemned the coup in its entirety and resolved to seek the return to a democratically elected government in a bid to restore peace.”

Didn’t the Nigerian leader go even ahead to demand from the legislature the necessary approval for a Nigerian, “military build-up and deployment of personnel for military intervention to enforce compliance of the military junta in Niger should they remain recalcitrant”?

Curiously, Mr. Trump’s claims of “White genocide” in South Africa did not come with military threats. Or any grandiloquence. This is obviously because Pretoria’s Union Buildings atop Meintjeskop resorted to diplomatic proactiveness. The Sarcastic Sunday offering of November 9, 2025 speaks presumptive volumes on the Villa’s template;

“With no ambassadors across 109 countries. Welcome to Nigeria’s foreign service where diplomacy is outsourced to Twitter spaces and YouTube channels. Other nations send ambassadors. We send prayers, acting officers, and PowerPoint slides. And yet, the Presidency insists there’s no diplomatic vacuum. Of course not. Abroad, we used to have envoys who wrote policy memos. Now, we have TikTok warriors who write threads.” – Mohammed Bello Doka

Discerning Nigerians wonder with consternation on the abysmal lack of continuum for a decade from 2015 to 2025 particularly against the background of Tinubu’s 2023 presidential campaign promise “We will continue with the developmental program of APC. It will not stop.”

How so?

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is the second largest circulating newspaper in the United States with an average of 4.1 million and 473,700 digital and print subscribers daily. Published 6 days weekly in New York, WSJ extensively covers international news, business and finance to a global readership for the last 134 years.

In its 20th December, 2019 edition the French public intellectual, Bernard-Henri Levy stated in his column;

“Nigeria’s Christians are under siege. And the world pays no attention. Few in the United States or Europe have reported on it. Shall we wait, as usual, for the disaster to be done before waking up? These are the stakes behind my voyage to the heart of Nigerian darkness. This is the meaning of the campaign to save Nigeria’s Christians that I hope I am launching today.”

These same words were reproduced worldwide in various prominent publications including Levy’s own 2021 book entitled The Will to See: Dispatches from a World of Misery and Hope pp. 93-104

Fast forward to the Truthsocial.com comments of President Trump of Friday, October 31, 2025 reportedly posted after watching a Fox News TV broadcast on the plight of Nigerian Christians. Even if it is more than a coincidence that WJS and Fox News are both owned by the same News Corp conglomerate owned by the 94-year-old Rupert Murdoch, what if “when pigs fly” (apologies to one of my takeaways from Mind Your Language) and American troops eventually deploy to Nigeria?

While the question is more hypothetical than even the kind of diplomatic posturing embedded in our title by Churchill it remains more of political hyperbole than involving any strategic substance or even military relevance. That notwithstanding the answer is obviously that Americans of Nigerian extraction would be deployed in various combat and non-combat capacities.

That is what should frighteningly worry each and every one of us irrespective of our polarized positions in the “Christian genocide” debate.

Back in 1993 when the US then under President Bill Clinton intervened in Somalia under the auspices of UNOSOM (United Nations Operations in Somalia) a certain artillery subaltern, Hussein Farah Aidid of the 2nd Battalion, 9th US Marine Regiment was among the first boots on ground “guns-a-blazing,” paradoxically the Somali-Born son of the main antagonist, General Mohammed Farrah Aidid.

How did the Americans get to pit a son against his father one of the major factional leaders?

A Somali adage speaks volumes;

“I and Somalia against the world. I and my clan against Somalia. I and my family against the clan. I and my brother against the family. I against my brother.”

Will the application of the immediate foregoing Horn of Africa dictum be any different when the boots of Nigerian-American service men and women hypothetically land in Nigeria?

The question is pertinent against the background of the open confession of US Marines Major-General Smedley Butler in his 1935 treatise entitled War is a Racket;

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

Who are the Nigerians reminiscent of Hussein Aidid likely to be deployed to Nigeria for by Pentagon for “fast, vicious, and sweet,” operations?

Between the Odocha siblings in the US Army as subalterns Chioma, Tochi, and Kelechi are US Marines Halima Hussein and Shamsiyya Jibo respectively from Imo and Kano States. Elsewhere beyond the attached picture are also the very high ranking likes of Kelechi Ndukwe, Commanding Officer of a US Navy guided-missile warship now a Commodore and Amanda Azubuike a Brigadier-General in the US Army.

Reminiscent of the younger Aidid and Smedley are they not all also uniformed muscle men and women defending American big business interests in the overall context?

The designation of Nigeria first by the 45th President of the United States as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) in 2020 subsequently in 2025 as America’s 47th did not both just fall out of the sky. It took “thinking strategically and acting tactically” completely missed by President Tinubu and his insiders perhaps why Senator Mohammed Ndume in not too complimentary terms describe Villa apparatchik as “kakistocrats and kleptocrats.”

Apparently, the current chief tenant of the Villa has increasingly become too distracted with the political build-up of 2027 to closely monitor the international dynamics around him.

The glaring contradiction between Levy’s 2019 “voyage to the heart of Nigeria’s darkness” and the “The slaughtering of Christian worshippers’’ post on President Tinubu’s verified handle dated 29th January 2014 in retrospect currently locates him between a rock and hard place not only in the international arena but also domestically .

The Nigerian Foreign Affairs minister’s recent embarrassing attempt to internationally roll back the “Christian genocide” narrative on Piers Morgan Uncensored has already produced an embarrassing blowback currently trending.

Though not a career diplomat albeit Nigeria’s ambassador to Germany 2017-2023, Yusuf Tuggar did not need to box himself into such a controlled-chaos corner on his X handle post-interview by co-guest Goldie Ghamari.

While the insults she heaped on the honourable minister need not be reproduced here there is need to nonetheless properly understand that all over the world;

“Grand strategy sits at the highest level of national security decision-making, where judgements over a state’s overarching objectives and interests, as well as its security environment and resource base, are made.”

If so, does Nigeria have any such template under Tinubu?

The Americans obviously do under Trump.

Continued in Part II

The Hypocrisy That Keeps Nigeria Bleeding

By Samuel Ateh Stephen

There is a kind of hypocrisy that kills faster than bullets, the hypocrisy of selective outrage. It does not pull the trigger, yet it creates the emotional climate in which murder becomes ordinary. It numbs the conscience, erodes shared humanity, and replaces moral judgment with identity based loyalty. Nigeria has become a nation where the value of a human life fluctuates depending on the victim’s ethnicity, religion, or region. Once empathy becomes tribal, morality becomes political, and a society where morality is political is already in decay.

When sixteen northerners were killed in Edo State, the reaction was swift and coordinated. Northern elders voiced outrage. Delegations traveled. Traditional institutions were stirred. The Governor of Edo State, Monday Okpebholo, traveled to Kano to meet with families and northern leaders. The killings were framed as an assault against identity. The value of the victims was elevated not simply because lives were lost, but because those responsible were perceived as coming from another side of Nigeria’s divide.

A similar pattern emerged when Fatima and her four children were murdered in Anambra by suspected IPOB elements. The state government moved quickly to calm tensions. Security efforts were strengthened. Leaders spoke firmly across ethnic and religious lines. And when a northern dominated market in Ibadan was attacked, the reaction from northern governors was immediate. The late Governor Rotimi Akeredolu responded with empathy, arrests, and reconciliation. These moments show that Nigeria is capable of moral clarity when it chooses to be. They demonstrate that the country can act decisively when violence threatens established boundaries.

Yet the same nation becomes quiet when the victims are from Southern Kaduna, Benue, Plateau, or Taraba. Entire villages are wiped out in cycles of violence. Families are buried in mass graves. Children are left without parents in numbers too large to count. These tragedies pass as routine news. There are no national delegations. No unified outrage. No sustained public grief. The silence reveals a dangerous truth. Some lives are implicitly considered less worthy of mourning.

Why does outrage depend on who the killer is, rather than the fact that a life was taken? A nation that mourns selectively has lost its sense of moral order. This is not justice. It is a collapse of conscience.

When perpetrators share our ethnic, religious, or cultural identity, many suddenly become restrained and diplomatic. The same people who demand justice in one circumstance immediately demand nuance or silence in another. Violence becomes tolerable if it comes from our own. But when the roles are reversed, the same individuals rediscover moral clarity and the language of condemnation. This shifting morality is the machinery that sustains cycles of revenge.

No society can endure when truth itself is filtered through ethnic or religious loyalty. If the killers are Muslims, they must be condemned. If the killers are Christians, they must be condemned. If they are Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Tiv, Fulani, Jukun, Bachama, or from any other group, they must be condemned. Silence, excuse, or justification is complicity. Evil has no tribe. Evil has no religion. It only has defenders.

The real threat to Nigeria is not the bandit in the forest or the terrorist with a rifle. The real threat is the citizen who excuses him, protects him, rationalizes him, or refuses to condemn him because of shared identity. Healing will begin the day Nigerians mourn every victim as though the victim came from their own family.

Until then, the country will continue to bleed from wounds we refuse to acknowledge, from injustices we refuse to confront, and from a conscience that speaks only when it is convenient.

As Nigerian elites panic over Trump’s military threat, the victims of two decades of massacre ask: where were you when we were being slaughtered

The response from Nigeria’s political class, thought leaders, and commentators has been predictably indignant. They warn of sovereignty violations, speak ominously of chaos and instability, invoke the specter of Libya and Iraq, and counsel caution about external military intervention. These concerns sound measured, reasonable, even patriotic.

But they ring hollow to the communities that have buried their dead by the hundreds while Nigeria’s government looked the other way.

The View from the Killing Fields

As someone who has spent over a decade documenting the ongoing massacre in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, interfacing directly with survivors, photographing mass graves, and listening to testimonies that would break the hardest heart, I can tell you this with certainty: the direct victims of these terrorist atrocities have reached a point where they no longer care where help comes from. When your government has abandoned you to slaughter, sovereignty becomes an abstract concept with little meaning.

Benjamin Badung, a 40-year-old father of five from Bangai district in Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State, will not be pondering the geopolitical implications of American intervention. On May 20, 2025, his wife Kangyan was slaughtered by Fulani militants. He is raising five children alone, living in fear that the attackers will return to finish what they started. If American military action means his children stay alive and can thrive on their ancestral land, Benjamin Badung will not object on grounds of national sovereignty.

The survivors in Yelwata, Benue State, who I have visited 3 times since they buried 258 people, mostly women and children on June 14, 2025, are not concerned about the precedent of foreign military intervention. They watched their loved ones massacred over four hours of sustained attack while military barracks sat less than 20 miles away. They know their attackers. They know where the terrorists are camped, less than five miles away in Kadarko, Nasarawa state. Yet no arrests have been made. No camps have been bombarded. No justice has been served. If Trump’s threat galvanizes action against those who butchered their families, they will welcome it.

The people of over over 30 communities in Bokkos, who mourned over 200 dead on Christmas Day 2023, are not writing think pieces about the dangers of American military adventurism in Africa. They are wondering why their Christmas celebration became a massacre, why their churches were burned, why their government failed to protect them despite warnings of impending attacks.

The residents of Zikke in Miango, massacred while soldiers stationed less than four miles away remained motionless, are not worried about Nigeria’s international image. They are haunted by a more fundamental question: why did their own military refuse to defend them?

The peace loving people of Bindi in Tahoss district, Riyom LGA, a community of about a thousand people I have also visited and interacted with three times since the July 15 attack that left 27 people mostly women and children dead don’t really care if natural resources is stolen by America provided their farms become safer.

The list goes on. Community after community. Massacre after massacre. Mass grave after mass grave. And through it all, the Nigerian government has offered nothing but excuses, denials, and appeasement of the very terrorists carrying out these atrocities.

The Sudden Awakening of Nigeria’s Military

It is remarkable, and deeply cynical that in the 168 hours following Trump’s threat, the Nigerian military has suddenly flooded social media with posts about victories against terrorists in different parts of the country. Where was this energy for the past two decades? Why did it take an American president’s threat to spur action that should have been ongoing as a matter of national duty?

The message is unmistakable: Nigeria’s government is capable of fighting terrorism when sufficiently motivated. The capacity exists. The resources are available. What has been missing is political will. Trump’s statement has apparently provided that motivation in 168 hours, revealing what victims of these attacks have known all along, the failure to protect communities has been a choice, not an inability.

The Questions That Still Demand Answers

Even as the military scrambles to demonstrate competence in the Northeast and northwest, the fundamental questions about the Fulani jihadist insurgency in the Middle Belt remain unanswered.

The immediate past Chief of Defense Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa, stated during an August 2025 interview on Channels TV that the process of identifying and prosecuting terrorism financiers in Nigeria is ongoing, citing legal complexities. But who are these financiers? Why, after two decades of attacks involving sophisticated weapons and coordinated operations across multiple states, has not a single major financier been publicly identified, arrested, and prosecuted?

Where do the Fulani ethnic militants operating in the Northwest and Middle Belt acquire military-grade weapons? These are not crude hunting rifles; survivors describe AK-47s, AK-49, RPGs, general-purpose machine guns, and in some cases, anti-aircraft weapons. Such arsenals require supply chains, logistics, and financing. Yet the Nigerian government claims inability to trace these obvious channels.

How is it possible that terrorists appear in public, sometimes armed and in the presence of security agents, without arrests? Recent videos from Guga Ward in Bakori Local Government Area of Katsina State show armed Fulani militants attending “peace talks” with weapons visible, surrounded by traditional rulers and, disturbingly, security personnel. In any functional state, such gatherings would result in mass arrests. In Nigeria, they result in photo opportunities.

Why is the Nigerian National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, bent on appeasing Fulani terrorists instead of allowing the military to treat them as the terrorists they are? His alleged championing of peace deals that demand no disarmament, no accountability, and no cessation of violence represents either profound incompetence or something more sinister.

The Martyr They Created: General Christopher Musa’s Warning

Perhaps the most telling aspect of this entire crisis is what happened to General Christopher Musa. Just five days before his removal as Chief of Defence Staff, General Musa issued a stark warning to Nigerians about peace deals with terrorists.

“We therefore urge everyone: do not make peace with them. We do not support these bandits or any peace agreement with them. If they genuinely want to stop, they should lay down their weapons and surrender. If they surrender, we will take them into custody, screen and investigate them thoroughly; that’s the proper approach,” General Musa stated clearly.

He continued with even more pointed language: “But sitting down with a bandit and asking ‘Why did you pick up a gun?’ is pointless. It’s driven by greed, and greedy people will not give up. They will never stop. So there should be no truce with them.”

This was a military leader articulating sound counterterrorism doctrine: no negotiations with active terrorists, demand for unconditional surrender, thorough screening and investigation of those who lay down arms, and absolute rejection of the peace deal charade that has characterized Nigeria’s approach to both Boko Haram and the Fulani militants insurgency.

In the same month, General Musa issued a directive to troops to eliminate any terrorist killing civilians and destroying property nationwide. This was exactly the kind of aggressive posture needed to confront groups that have operated with impunity for two decades.

The response from certain Northern elites and Islamic clerics was immediate and hostile. They objected vehemently to this directive, advocating instead for continued peace deals with terrorists. Shortly thereafter, General Musa was removed from his position.

The message sent was chilling: a Chief of Defence Staff who takes a hard line against Islamist terrorists will not be tolerated. Those who advocate for crushing terrorist groups rather than accommodating them will definitely be removed. We saw it happen to Gen Ihejerika at the peak of the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast. The political will to confront the Fulani jihadist insurgency does not exist at the highest levels of Nigeria’s government, and anyone who attempts to act decisively will be neutralized.

General Musa’s removal, following immediately after his public rejection of terrorist appeasement, reveals the fundamental rot at the core of Nigeria’s counterterrorism strategy. It explains why, despite a capable military that has successfully conducted peacekeeping operations in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and other conflict zones, Nigeria cannot or will not crush armed groups terrorizing its own citizens.

The Elite Panic vs. The Victims’ Reality

The panic among Nigeria’s political and intellectual class over Trump’s threat is instructive. Where was this passionate defense of Nigerian sovereignty when communities were being wiped out and some occupied by terrorist elements? Where were the think pieces and television appearances when churches were being burned and farmlands destroyed? Where was the outrage when peace deals legitimized terrorists?

For two decades, Nigeria’s elites have been largely silent as communities in the Middle Belt faced systematic extermination. They characterized genocide as “farmer-herder clashes.” They blamed victims for not “accommodating” their killers, they blamed climate change. They counseled patience and reconciliation while bodies piled higher.

Now, suddenly, they have found their voices, not to demand protection for vulnerable communities, but to object to the prospect of someone else providing that protection.

This is not patriotism. This is complicity masquerading as principle.

What Trump’s Threat Reveals

Whether President Trump follows through on his threat or not, his statement has accomplished something the Nigerian government has failed to achieve in two decades: it has forced a conversation about the true nature of violence against Christians and other religious groups in Nigeria.

The euphemisms are no longer working. The world is no longer accepting “farmer-herder clashes” as explanation for systematic religious persecution. The fiction that these are spontaneous conflicts over resources has been exposed. The pretense that Nigeria’s government is doing everything possible to protect all citizens has collapsed.

Trump’s threat as crude as it may sound to diplomatic ears speaks a language that Nigeria’s government apparently understands: consequences. For years, international partners issued strongly worded statements, expressed concern, called for dialogue. Nothing changed. Now, facing potential military intervention and aid cutoffs, the Nigerian military suddenly discovers operational capacity it has denied possessing for years.

The Path Nigeria Must Take

If Nigeria’s government wishes to avoid the humiliation of foreign military intervention on its soil, the solution is straightforward: do your job. Protect your citizens. Crush the terrorists. End the appeasement.

Specifically:

Remove Nuhu Ribadu as National Security Adviser and replace him with someone committed to defeating terrorism rather than accommodating it.

Reinstate General Christopher Musa’s directive to eliminate terrorists killing civilians, and ensure military commanders face consequences for failure to act.

Officially designate armed Fulani militia groups as terrorist organizations and prosecute them accordingly under Nigeria’s terrorism laws.

Launch coordinated military operations to clear terrorist camps in the Middle Belt, starting with all known locations.

Arrest and prosecute terrorism financiers instead of citing endless “legal complexities” as excuse for inaction.

End all peace deals with active terrorist groups and demand unconditional surrender as the only acceptable path for those who wish to lay down arms.

The authorities should arrest and prosecute Sheikh Ahmed Gumi and other clerics who defend and justify atrocities committed by terrorists, individuals the government and media have euphemistically labeled as “bandits.”

Provide justice and reparations for the millions of victims who have lost family members, homes, and livelihoods.

These are not impossible demands. They are basic functions of government. That they seem radical in the Nigerian context reveals how far the government has strayed from its fundamental duty to protect citizens.

A Message to Nigeria’s Elites

Your sudden concern about sovereignty and stability would be more credible if you had shown similar concern when your fellow citizens were being massacred. Your warnings about the dangers of foreign intervention would carry more weight if you had demanded domestic action when it could have prevented this crisis.

You cannot remain silent while communities are exterminated and then clutch your pearls when someone else threatens to act. You cannot characterize genocide as economic conflict and then object when others call it what it is. You cannot accommodate terrorists for two decades and then suddenly discover principles when faced with consequences.

The victims of Fulani jihadist terrorism are not impressed by your geopolitical analysis. They are not moved by your concerns about precedent. They are not comforted by your counsel of patience. They have been patient for twenty years while you did nothing.

If you do not want foreign intervention in Nigeria, then demand that your government intervene to protect Nigerians. If you object to Trump’s threat, channel that energy into demanding that Tinubu’s administration crush the terrorists. If you care about sovereignty, insist that Nigeria exercise sovereignty by defending all its citizens, not just those whose deaths are politically inconvenient to acknowledge.

Conclusion: When Survival Trumps Sovereignty

I do not know if President Trump will follow through on his threat. I do not know if American military action in Nigeria would succeed or fail, bring peace or chaos. What I know is this: for communities that have buried their dead by the hundreds while their government looked away, the calculation is simple.

They have tried trusting their government. Their government failed them.

They have tried appealing to national authorities. National authorities ignored them.

They have tried documenting atrocities to force action. The documentation was dismissed as exaggeration.

They have tried international advocacy. It was characterized as unpatriotic.

Now, finally, someone with real power is threatening consequences for their government’s failure to protect them. And Nigeria’s elites are upset, not at the government that abandoned these communities to slaughter, but at the foreign leader threatening to act where Nigeria will not.

The people of the Middle Belt are watching this reaction, and they are drawing conclusions about who their real enemies are. It is not just the terrorists pulling triggers. It is also those who create the conditions for those triggers to be pulled with impunity, and those who object more strenuously to the prospect of justice than to the reality of genocide.

Trump’s threat may be crude, it may be controversial, it may be problematic in numerous ways. But to the husband who buried his wife, to the community that buried its children, to the survivors waiting for the terrorists to return, it is something else entirely: it is acknowledgment that their lives matter, that their suffering is seen, and that someone, somewhere, is willing to act.

That is more than Nigeria’s government has given them in twenty years.

Picture: cooking pots abandoned by fleeing residents during Islamic Fulani terrorists attack in Januwa village, Yangtu Development Area, Taraba state. Credit: Steven Kefas

…Steven Kefas is an investigative journalist, Senior Research Analyst at the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, and Publisher of Middle Belt Times. He has documented religious persecution and forced displacement in Nigeria’s Middle Belt for over a decade.

Nigeria’s Mining Policy Failures: A Sector Tilted Toward China, Strangling Small Miners and Fuelling Illicit Operations

By Biliyaminu Suraj

biliyasuraj247@yahoo.com

Introduction

Nigeria’s mineral wealth — highlighted by lithium, gold, tin, and rare earths — has the potential to diversify the economy beyond oil. Yet despite high-profile policy announcements and international investment pledges, the country’s mining sector remains mired in structural contradictions: rising foreign dominance, weak enforcement, and an increasingly hostile environment for domestic small-scale miners.

Under Minister Dele Alake’s tenure at the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, policy reforms have been headline-grabbing and frequent, almost to the degree of weekly announcements. They are invariably framed as transformative but lack detail and wreak of a poor understanding of the mining industry. Critics argue the so-called policy reforms are reinforcing dependency on Chinese capital, penalising local miners through excessive regulation and fees and failing to stem a surge in illegal mining and attendant insecurity.

There are four critical fault-lines that define Nigeria’s current mining policy confusion.

1. Policy Failures Favouring Chinese Interests

Since 2023, the Nigerian government has aggressively courted Chinese investors in the mining and mineral-processing sector. During a recent visit to China, Minister Dele Alake announced that Chinese-backed companies have invested over US $1.3 billion in Nigeria’s lithium-processing industry since September 2023. According to Ministry-sourced reports, Nigeria was expected to commission four major Chinese-funded lithium-processing plants by 2025 representing a combined investment of about US $800 million.

While the investment figures are large in headline terms, the actual number of plants currently built and operating remains very limited. One facility in Nasarawa State has been commissioned — a Chinese-led plant processing lithium at “4,000 metric tonnes per day” capacity was inaugurated. Its likely capacity is closer to 3,000 tonnes per day if and when it reaches full production. At this point it is not in production.

But many of the other announced plants — such as the US$600 million facility near the Kaduna-Niger border and the US$200 million outside Abuja — are still described as “slated for commissioning this quarter” or “nearing completion”. To be clear, they are not yet in production and, if they are anything like the Chinese processing plants in Australia, may never come into economically viable production. Australia has been badly caught out by the promises of large-scale Chinese mineral processing facilities. Australian companies have invested billions of dollars in Chinese technology to process critical minerals only to now find that their investments may have to be written off.

In effect, Nigeria’s mineral governance model risks sliding into what analysts describe as neo-extractivism: the state aligning with foreign capital to extract rents, without building sustainable domestic capacity or transparent oversight. Meanwhile, local and small-scale operators continue to face bureaucratic hurdles. “We have seen preferential treatment for Chinese firms, while local miners struggle to get licences or financing,” said a member of the Miners Association of Nigeria.

2. Licence Revocations and the Expansion of Illegal Mining

The Alake-led ministry’s campaign to “sanitise” the sector through aggressive licence revocations has generated uncertainty. Hundreds of exploration and small-scale mining titles have been revoked on technicalities or administrative delays, often without due consultation. While the government insists this will curb speculative holding and non-compliance, the result has been the opposite: a vacuum in tenure security that has encouraged illegal mining and worsened insecurity in mineral-rich regions.

Displaced operators and unemployed artisanal miners are migrating into informal mining camps, some of which are now dominated by Chinese buyers and middlemen.

3. Inflated Chinese Lithium Investments and the Mirage of Local Value Addition

Nigeria’s lithium boom should be a strategic opportunity to enter the global electric-vehicle supply chain. However, the scale and structure of the Chinese-backed investments invite scrutiny.

The announced figures — US$800 million for four processing plants, plus the broader corporate claim of over US$1.3 billion invested by Chinese firms — are large. Yet comparators suggest that many of these plants are not yet fully built or operational. The publicly-known, functioning facility is the one in Nasarawa, and even that raises questions about transparency of terms, local-content obligations and community benefit.

Analysts at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) warn that the Nigerian government has not published the contracts, environmental-impact assessments or local-content rules tied to these deals. Without such transparency, inflated valuations may conceal excessive profit repatriation or tax waivers favouring the investors.

The contradiction is stark: while the government revokes hundreds of local mining licences in the name of efficiency, it signs opaque, billion-dollar deals with foreign conglomerates that may offer minimal technology transfer or local capacity-building.

Nigeria risks falling into a pattern familiar across resource-rich African economies — outsourcing its industrial future to external partners while celebrating “investment” headlines that disguise long-term dependency. Worse still, history across Africa and Asian countries tells us that massive scale Chinese infrastructure development comes with massive repayment obligations which, when defaulted, see national assets under Chinese ownership.

4. Small-Scale Miners Punished by Escalating Tenement Fees

In mid-2024, the Ministry announced a sweeping revision of mining-licence fees and annual service charges hitting small and indigenous miners hardest. For example, the annual service fee for a Small-Scale Mining Licence (SSML) jumped to ₦260,000, while renewal fees rose to ₦420,000.

For artisanal and small-scale miners – who produce over 70 percent of Nigeria’s solid minerals – the impact has been devastating. Many operate on thin margins and lack access to formal finance. “These new rates are impossible for us,” said a gold miner from Niger State. “They want to push us out so the big companies can take over.”

Industry lawyers have also criticised the abrupt fee escalation, warning it could drive legitimate operators underground and worsen illegal mining. By making formalisation unaffordable, the policy undermines its own objective of bringing artisanal and small-scale miners into the regulated economy.

Meanwhile, Chinese-backed operations appear largely unaffected, as their capital base allows them to absorb or negotiate favourable terms. The asymmetry reinforces perceptions that Nigeria’s mining reforms are designed to privilege Chinese state-owned investors at the expense of Nigeria’s domestic enterprise.

Conclusion: Reform or Regression?

Nigeria stands at a crossroads. Mining reforms under Minister Alake have been long on rhetoric and short on delivery. The government’s mining policies, though couched in the rhetoric of reform and industrialisation, risk deepening structural inequities. The tilt toward Chinese capital — with announced investment amounts well into the billions but very few operational processing plants so far — is a key concern. Coupled with opaque licensing decisions and punitive costs for small miners, the reforms collectively undermine the stated goal of building a resilient, inclusive mining economy.

For Nigeria to truly benefit from its mineral wealth, three principles are essential: transparency, local empowerment, and institutional capacity. Contracts with foreign investors must be publicly disclosed; fee regimes must reflect economic realities, not bureaucratic revenue targets; and the state must strengthen regulatory oversight to curb illegal mining rather than punish small-scale operators. Without such shifts, the mining sector will remain a cautionary tale-–of a nation rich in minerals, yet poor in governance.

Nigeria, Listen!: Your Walls Have Cracked Wide Enough For Foreign Boots To Land

By Luka Binniyat

“America only cares about its personal interest… any country they invade is left worse.” That’s the new hymn of social media patriots and half-informed commentators who believe repeating clichés equals wisdom and hindsight.

“Look at Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Iran and see how the U.S messed them up! … it’s all about Nigeria’s oil, Solid minerals and envy” they scream, beating their chests online as if hashtags could resurrect the thousands of dead killed by Islamists. Some, probably high on something, swear they’ll defend Nigeria from any “invading ‘imperialist’ force”, with what?

Nonsense!: Whoever has seen American Corporations dropping by parachutes anywhere and start drilling resources!

To me, these scare mongering and bravados are not just empty; they are insults. I take it as deep, stinging insults to the survivors of genocide I’ve covered since 2012. They reek of persons of privilege untouched and immuned of the pains the millions whose lives are being wasted in affected areas of the on going genocide in Nigeria.

Yes, there is Genocide against ethnic Chritians in Nigeria Middle Belt by Islamists! I am a witness to that evil.

So, come closer. Let’s leave Twitter. Let’s walk through what’s left of the parts of the Middle Belt, through the smoke, ruins and the silence where laughter once lived.

If your father and mother were slaughtered like rams before your eyes, killers screaming “Allahu Akbar,” your siblings cut down, your home torched, and your village erased, folks, what the heck do you care about sovereignty? If you’ve ever buried the charred remains of toddlers and grandmothers whose only crime was to be Christian, to be native, to be alive, then maybe, just maybe, the sound of an American helicopter hovering over to terrorists camps might not strike you as ‘imperialism’ but as overdue justice.

From Southern Kaduna to Plateau, from Benue to Niger, from Southern Kebbi to Kwara, and down to Southern Borno — I have covered stories of blood and betrayal. These are areas I can speak for having been on ground there.

I’ve walked through bubbling communities that exist now only on old maps. I’ve interviewed mothers clutching photos of daughters still missing after mass abductions. My team was in Chibok. We heard it all!

What of cases where entire communities were flattened, their ruins claimed by the bush and their ancestral lands now owned and occupied by the terrorists. If it’s in the Middle Belt, Nigeria Press called it “Banditry.” But, to God be the Glory: The world calls it by its real name today: Ethnic cleansing; Christian genocide! – selective elimination of a people as a result of their faith, race, ideology et al.

And what of the survivors? Visit the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps — those unending rows of misery in the Middle Belt. There you’ll meet children who were six when the first attacks came in 2010. They are 26 now, still uneducated, still in tents, still watching politicians fly over their heads to campaign rallies. Their memories are sharp as blades: the night raids, the gunfire, the screams, the running barefoot into the dark. They have become adults in a country that forgot them.

You think they care about sovereignty?

Now imagine the final insult: the Nigerian government spending billions of naira to “rehabilitate” the same terrorists who wiped out their families. Men who emerged from forests, tired of killing, are cleaned up, dressed up, and declared “repentant.” They are given homes, trained, and paid monthly stipends — all while their victims rot in forgotten camps. I saw it myself in Maiduguri, May 2023, with my colleague Mike Odeh. Government officials smiled for the cameras as “former” Boko Haram fighters were reintegrated into society – sometimes to the same communities they once burned. Some of these “repentant” men now live with the Christian girls they kidnapped, raped, converted by force, and impregnated and raise a family with in government provided homes in Maiduguri. The parents of the girls, scattered to the four directions of the winds, can do nothing. The story is even more heartbreaking than this. Can there be a greater mockery of justice?

Even our gallant troops — the true patriots — feel betrayed. Many of them fought in the forests and mountains, losing comrades in battles against the same terrorists now embraced by the state. Soldiers have whispered to me in bitterness and disbelief: “We watched our friends die fighting these killers. Now the government calls them good guys and pays them maybe as much as we earn.” Their morale bleeds. The army’s honour is humiliated by a system that rewards terror and punishes sacrifice. The have an annoying phrase for it – Non Kinetic! Imagine facing gunfire in Zamfara or Borno, only to see your enemy pardoned, housed, and celebrated at a “peace talk.” Some of these killers even flaunt their weapons at government-sponsored parley events, strutting before police, DSS, and politicians who dare not raise a finger. What message does that send to the soldiers risking everything on the frontlines? What do the civilians that the most vulnerable think of their country. They are not thinking of it as sovereign. It’s captured! and by rag-tag illiterate Islamists fighters, not the U.S Army!

So tell me — if you were a survivor, a displaced farmer, a widow, or even a disillusioned soldier — how would you receive the news of America declaring Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” and hinting at intervention? Would you beat your chest in defence of sovereignty? Or would you whisper a prayer that someone, anyone, might finally bring order, justice, and peace to this bleeding land?

Because here’s the truth: Nigeria has failed millions of its citizens. The state has become a spectator to its own disintegration. When governors in the North West hold peace talks where mass murderers attend fully armed with the approval of Office of the National Security Adviser; when killers and génocidiars become celebrities of “repentance” and “rehabilitation” — sovereignty becomes a cruel joke in the psyche of all men and women of conscience.

Those shouting “no foreign boots on our soil” should first visit the ashes of Gwoza, mass graves in Bokkos, the tragedy of Guma, the mass waste of human and material in Wasagu/Danko, the cruel living conditions of our IDPs Cameroon; in the FCT.

Let them stand among these ruins, conjure the wailing souls of the innocent and ask themselves: whose soil is left to protect?

What is sovereignty worth when it shelters genocide and rewards impunity?

Make no mistake: when I say survivors will welcome the Yankees, it’s not a cry for colonisation. It’s a cry for help. It’s the plea of people abandoned by their own nation. For them, the U.S. flag on terrorists sites would not symbolize imperialism — not exploitation, but the faint hope of justice.

Nigeria must wake up!.

It must choose to defend its citizens, not their killers. If it doesn’t, the cracks in our national wall; in our hearts, will widen until foreign powers walk right through them — not with necessary with armour tanks, but with moral authority that traumatized citizens approve.

As someone who has walked through the smoke, heard the wails, and seen the graves, I can tell you this without hesitation: the survivors — millions of them — and millions more who stand in solidarity, will not cry over lost sovereignty. They will whisper, “At last, someone came.”

And when that happens, don’t be surprised if they stand at the roadside, waving at the incoming foreign troops — not as conquerors, but as deliverers — and say with quiet relief, “Welcome, Yankees

Breaking Down the CPC Designation: How Government Appeasement of Terrorists Led to International Sanction

By Steven Kefas

Yesterday, the United States designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for severe violations of religious freedom, a long-overdue recognition of the systematic persecution of Christians and other vulnerable communities that has claimed tens of thousands of lives over the past two decades. This designation didn’t emerge from vacuum; it reflects years of documented evidence, mounting international pressure, and most critically, the lack of political will by successive Nigerian governments to confront the Fulani jihadist insurgency decimating indigenous communities across the Middle Belt and beyond.

Understanding the CPC Designation

A Country of Particular Concern designation under the International Religious Freedom Act represents one of the most serious diplomatic rebukes the United States can issue. It signals that a government has either engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. For Nigeria, this designation specifically addresses the government’s failure to prevent, investigate, or prosecute mass atrocities against Christian communities, particularly those carried out by armed Fulani militia groups operating with apparent impunity across multiple states.

The designation comes with potential consequences including sanctions, travel restrictions on government officials, and limitations on security assistance. More significantly, it places Nigeria alongside countries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea on a list of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom, a devastating blow to Nigeria’s international reputation and a clear message that the world is no longer willing to ignore the bloodshed.

The Fulani Jihadist Insurgency: An Unacknowledged Genocide

For over two decades, armed Fulani militia groups have waged a systematic campaign of violence against predominantly Christian farming communities across Nigeria’s Middle Belt states including Plateau, Niger, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, Taraba, Adamawa, and Southern Kaduna. These attacks follow predictable patterns: midnight raids on sleeping villages, mass shootings, burning of homes and churches, destruction of farmland, kidnapping for ransom, and forced displacement of entire communities from their ancestral lands.

The Nigerian government and many media outlets have persistently characterized this violence as “farmer-herder clashes” driven by competition over land and water resources, a narrative that deliberately obscures the religious and ethnic dimensions of these attacks. This framing ignores overwhelming evidence that these are coordinated military-style operations targeting Christian communities specifically, not spontaneous conflicts between economic groups. Survivors consistently report attackers shouting “Allahu Akbar” during raids, specifically targetingChristian farming communities.

International organizations including Genocide Watch, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and Open Doors have repeatedly warned that the violence against Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt exhibits markers of genocide according to the UN Convention on Genocide. Yet the Nigerian government continues to downplay the religious dimensions, refuses to designate perpetrating groups as terrorists, and has failed to arrest or prosecute those responsible for these atrocities despite thousands of documented attacks.

The Paradox of Invisible Terrorists

During my own incarceration in Kaduna Custodial Center (prison), in the very heart of the region most affected by Fulani terrorist violence, I made a disturbing observation: despite thousands of documented attacks, mass killings, and the displacement of millions, I never encountered a single Fulani terrorist among the prison population. The prisons were filled with common criminals, political detainees, and individuals accused of various offenses, but conspicuously absent were members of the armed groups terrorizing communities just kilometers away from the prison walls.

This glaring absence raises fundamental questions about the Nigerian government’s commitment to justice and accountability. If Fulani militias are genuinely criminal groups operating outside state control, why aren’t security forces arresting them? If they’re terrorists threatening national security, why aren’t they being prosecuted? The most troubling explanation is that these groups operate with official protection or at minimum, deliberate tolerance from elements within Nigeria’s security architecture.

Multiple credible reports document security forces arriving hours after attacks despite communities alerting authorities during ongoing raids, refusing to pursue fleeing attackers, and in some cases, actively preventing communities from defending themselves. Some survivors report security personnel withdrawing from areas just before attacks occur, suggesting foreknowledge if not coordination. This pattern of complicity extends to the judicial system, where rare arrests of suspected Fulani militants typically result in quiet releases without prosecution.

The Nuhu Ribadu Problem: Peace Deals That Embolden Terrorists

At the center of Nigeria’s failed counterterrorism strategy sits National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, whose approach to the Fulani jihadist insurgency has been characterized by appeasement rather than confrontation. Ribadu has allegedly championed “peace deals” with armed Fulani groups in the North West that require no genuine disarmament, demand no accountability for past atrocities, and impose no meaningful conditions on participants.

Most disturbingly, these peace meetings have become theatrical displays where armed terrorists attend openly carrying weapons, not as surrendered arms but as symbols of their continued power. Rather than being disarmed and arrested, these individuals are feted, given platforms to air grievances, and often provided government resources ostensibly for “rehabilitation” that never materializes into genuine transformation. The message sent is clear: terrorism pays, and the Nigerian state will negotiate with you while you remain armed and dangerous.

This approach represents a fundamental misunderstanding of counterinsurgency principles. Genuine peace processes require that armed groups demonstrate commitment to peace through verifiable disarmament, cessation of violence, and accountability for past crimes. Ribadu’s peace deals offer none of these, instead legitimizing terrorist groups as stakeholders in governance while their victims remain displaced, traumatized, and vulnerable to renewed attacks.

For communities that have lost thousands of family members, seen their villages burned repeatedly, and remain displaced years after initial attacks, these peace deals represent a betrayal. They watch their attackers attend government-sponsored meetings with full military regalia while they languish in IDP camps with no justice, no compensation, and no protection against future violence. This is not peace; it is surrender disguised as reconciliation.

The Controversial Defense Appointment: Signaling Priorities

The Tinubu administration’s appointment of former Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle Minister of State for Defence sends a chilling message about the government’s priorities regarding the Fulani jihadist insurgency. Matawalle’s tenure as Zamfara governor was marked by controversial policies toward armed bandits and terrorists operating in the state, including peace deals that critics argue emboldened rather than deterred violence.

Under Matawalle’s governorship, Zamfara became infamous for its approach of negotiating with terrorists while often taking harsh measures against communities advocating for self-defense. His administration faced accusations of sympathizing with armed groups while failing to protect vulnerable populations. Now elevated to a key defense position at the federal level, Matawalle’s appointment suggests either profound tone-deafness about the optics of placing a terrorist sympathizer in charge of national defense, or a deliberate signal that the government’s appeasement approach will continue.

This appointment is particularly offensive to Christian communities in the Middle Belt who have borne the brunt of Fulani terrorist violence. It communicates that their concerns about religious persecution are not taken seriously, that their calls for justice fall on deaf ears, and that those who accommodate terrorists are rewarded with higher office while their victims remain forgotten.

The Broader Context: Why Accountability Matters

The lack of accountability for religious persecution in Nigeria extends beyond the Fulani insurgency, though that remains the deadliest manifestation. It includes the Boko Haram and ISWAP insurgencies in the Northeast that have killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, primarily targeting Christians and moderate Muslims. It encompasses discriminatory Sharia law implementation in Northern states that criminalizes Christian evangelism while permitting Islamic proselytization. It involves systematic discrimination in government appointments, educational opportunities, and economic development that favors Muslims over Christians in Northern states.

This pattern of impunity has convinced perpetrators that targeting Christians carries no consequences. When terrorist commanders remain free after documented massacres, when government officials who facilitate violence face no sanctions, when security forces who fail to protect vulnerable communities receive no discipline, the message is clear: Christian lives don’t matter in Nigeria’s calculus of power.

The CPC designation represents the international community finally saying: we see what you’re doing, we will no longer accept your excuses, and there will be consequences for continued inaction. This is not interference in Nigeria’s internal affairs; it is a response to a government’s failure to protect its own citizens and uphold its obligations under international human rights law.

What Must Change: A Roadmap for Action

For Nigeria to address the concerns underlying the CPC designation and genuinely protect religious freedom, several immediate actions are necessary:

First, National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu must be removed and replaced with a competent, no-nonsense security official committed to crushing jihadist insurgencies rather than accommodating them.

The current appeasement approach has demonstrably failed, emboldening terrorists while failing to provide security for vulnerable communities. Nigeria needs security leadership that understands counterterrorism, respects human rights, and prioritizes protection of all citizens regardless of religious identity.

Second, armed Fulani militia groups must be officially designated as terrorist organizations and prosecuted accordingly.

The fiction that these are mere “herders” involved in resource conflicts must end. These are organized armed groups conducting systematic attacks on civilian populations with religious and ethnic motivations. They must be treated as the terrorists they are, with full application of Nigeria’s terrorism laws including arrests, prosecutions, and asset freezures.

Third, a comprehensive program of arrests and prosecutions of terrorist commanders must be implemented immediately.

Years of documented attacks have produced extensive evidence aboutsponsors, operational patterns, and specific perpetrators. This evidence must be acted upon with coordinated operations to arrest sponsors, dismantle networks, and bring perpetrators before courts. This requires political will from the highest levels of government to overcome resistance from those who benefit from the status quo.

Fourth, the appointment of controversial figures like Bello Matawalle to key security positions must be reversed.

These appointments signal that the government is not serious about confronting religious persecution. Replacing such officials with individuals who have demonstrated commitment to protecting all Nigerians regardless of religious identity is essential for restoring confidence in government intentions.

Fifth, a comprehensive program of justice and reparations for victims must be established.

Millions of displaced persons need pathways to return home safely, rebuild destroyed communities, and receive compensation for losses. Survivors of attacks need access to trauma counseling and medical care. Communities need assurance that their security will be prioritized and that future attacks will be prevented.

The Trump Factor: Why This Time Is Different

While I sympathize with President Tinubu’s administration, which inherited these problems when taking office just two years ago, the reality is that the lack of political will to confront Fulani jihadists predates his presidency and continues under his watch. Previous U.S. administrations issued strongly worded statements about religious persecution in Nigeria but took limited concrete action. The Trump administration has demonstrated willingness to move beyond rhetoric to consequences, as evidenced by the CPC designation.

This represents a potential turning point. Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States has signaled that the days of endless massacre of Christians without accountability are over. The CPC designation is likely just the beginning, with targeted sanctions, visa restrictions, and other measures potentially forthcoming if Nigeria fails to demonstrate genuine progress on protecting religious freedom.

For Nigerian officials who have operated with impunity while facilitating or tolerating religious persecution, this should serve as a wake-up call. The world is watching, documentation is being compiled, and accountability mechanisms are being activated. The comfortable assumption that international outrage will never translate into consequences is no longer valid.

A Message to the Nigerian Government

You have lied to the world about the nature of violence against Christians in Nigeria, characterizing genocide as “farmer-herder clashes” and systematic religious persecution as resource competition. You have protected perpetrators while abandoning victims. You have appointed terrorist sympathizers to defense positions while imprisoning those who dare to defend themselves. You have negotiated with armed terrorists while refusing justice to their victims.

The world is watching, and your lies are no longer accepted. The CPC designation is deserved, and more actions will follow if you continue on this path. It is time to act and act very fast. Crush the jihadists, protect the lives of Christians and other vulnerable communities, demonstrate through concrete actions rather than empty rhetoric that you are committed to religious freedom, and the USA will undesignate Nigeria with immediate alacrity.

The choice is yours: continue the current path of appeasement and complicity and face increasing international isolation and consequences, or demonstrate genuine political will to confront religious persecution and restore Nigeria’s standing in the community of nations that respect human rights.

Conclusion: Hope Amidst Darkness

Despite the grim realities documented above, there is reason for cautious hope. The CPC designation represents international recognition that has eluded victims of religious persecution in Nigeria for decades. It validates their suffering, acknowledges their testimonies, and signals that they have not been forgotten by the wider world.

For those of us who have documented these atrocities, advocated for victims, and refused to accept official narratives that obscure the truth, this designation represents vindication. Our work has not been in vain. The evidence we have compiled, the testimonies we have preserved, and the advocacy we have undertaken has finally broken through the wall of denial and reached decision-makers willing to act.

The question now is whether the Nigerian government will respond with genuine reform or with defiance and denial. The path forward is clear: accountability, justice, protection, and genuine commitment to religious freedom for all Nigerians. Whether Nigeria’s leadership has the wisdom and courage to take this path remains to be seen, but one thing is certain—the world is watching, and the days of impunity are numbered.

…Steven Kefas is an investigative journalist, Senior Research Analyst at the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, and Publisher of Middle Belt Times. He has documented religious persecution and forced displacement in Nigeria’s Middle Belt for over a decade