KIDNAPPED, NEGOTIATED, OR RESCUED?

By George Omagbemi Sylvester | Published by saharaweeklyng.com

“The messy politics behind the release of Kebbi’s schoolgirls and why Nigeria’s silence fuels banditry.”

On November 17, gunmen brazenly stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School (GGCSS), Maga, in Danko-Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State, killed a school official and whisked away 25 female students. For a week the country waited and then on November 25–26 the girls were reported freed. What should have been a straightforward moment of national relief instead exposed Nigeria’s deepest vulnerabilities: conflicting official narratives, a combustible mix of secrecy and rumor and the unmistakable risk that negotiation as policy will continue to fatten criminal cartels.

The federal government and state authorities insist the girls were rescued through a coordinated security operation. President Bola Tinubu spoke of a successful rescue; Kebbi’s governor, Nasir Idris, declared no ransom was paid and lauded the military, the Department of State Services (DSS) and other agencies for bringing the girls home unharmed. Those are the accounts the state has chosen to burn into the public record.

As almost immediately a competing story re-emerged: circulating video footage and statements attributed to the abductors claim otherwise. In the clips and in commentary that followed, armed men who held the girls are heard saying the students were released because a NEGOTIATED UNDERSTANDING (not a military raid) CONCLUDED the MATTER. One bandit in the footage reportedly mocked government claims of a forceful rescue and told the girls they were being returned “based on peace deals.” If authentic, that footage tells a familiar story: the state insisting on a clean, kinetic narrative while shadow deals with criminal actors are quietly sewn up.

This contradiction matters. It is not a mere semantic skirmish between the rhetoric of rescue and the fact of negotiation. Negotiations and ransom payments change incentives. They transform violent entrepreneurs into providers of “security” and convert abduction into a profitable, repeatable enterprise. Academic and policy studies have documented how ad hoc settlements and clandestine payments enable bandit networks to consolidate territorial footholds and expand targeting strategies. A 2025 DIIS (Danish Institute for International Studies) analysis and other field studies warn that repeated, opaque deals with armed gangs institutionalize impunity and hollow out state authority.

Voices across Nigeria have responded with fury and alarm. Some parliamentarians now openly demand sanctions for officials who negotiate with bandits. Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu has proposed criminal penalties for government officials who engage in ransom negotiations or unstructured amnesty deals through an effort to place legal guardrails around what many believe has become an unofficial marketplace for peace. If adopted, such a law would be an admission that informal bargaining has become frequent enough to warrant formal prohibition.

Civil society and security experts make the same blunt point: paying or tacitly allowing negotiations may save lives in the short term, but it also invites more abductions. Hannatu Pamela Ishaya of the Hannis Foundation memorably warned that ransom payments “empower” kidnappers and encourage repetition — a paradox of mercy that ends up imperilling more children. That observation is not rhetorical; it is borne out by the steady tempo of school kidnappings across the northwest and middle belt — regions where criminal gangs treat abduction as a core revenue stream.

Two immediate consequences flow from the government’s mixed messaging. First, credibility is eroded. When the public receives one version from the presidency and another from footage and eyewitnesses, trust in official institutions suffers. Trust is the fragile currency of state legitimacy; once spent, it is difficult to restore. Second, ambiguity undermines accountability. If deals are cut in shadow, neither legislatures nor oversight bodies can properly scrutinize who authorised payments or why soldiers were allegedly withdrawn from vulnerable outposts shortly before attacks; a charge Kebbi’s governor has demanded the military investigate, till date we’ve not heard any report come back. Nigeria is business as usual.

We must also confront the operational reality: in many rural theatres the security architecture is simply inadequate. Intelligence gaps, poor logistics and shallow troop deployment create conditions in which negotiating becomes a tactical default. That does not excuse covert deals; rather, it underscores the need for a coherent national strategy that combines prevention, prosecution and protection. Researchers who have mapped bandit networks across northwest Nigeria show that without integrated community intelligence, economic alternatives, and credible prosecution, tactical rescues or transactions will not stop the cycle.

So what should Nigeria do now is beyond expressions of relief? First, transparency. If negotiations occurred, the public is entitled to a full accounting: who negotiated, under what authority and what concessions (if any) were made. A blank wall of silence invites speculation, corrodes trust and allows destructive bargains to be normalized. If no ransom was paid and military action achieved the rescue, the security agencies must present verifiable evidence (timing, assets deployed, chain of command) to restore confidence. Either way, concealment is not a policy.

Second, law. The House’s proposal to penalise officials who negotiate with bandits is blunt but necessary if implemented judiciously. The state must remove perverse incentives. Where local governments or individuals have previously paid ransoms, the federal government must step in with legal clarity and victim support, not punishment alone. Criminal prosecutions should target the kingpins and the corrupt enablers who profit from prolonging insecurity.

Third, prevention. Military and policing responses must be married to community resilience: better roads and surveillance, reliable communications in rural areas, community policing that integrates local trackers and credible witnesses, education investments that harden boarding facilities, and economic programmes that shrink the recruitment pool for bandit groups. As scholars note, an exclusively kinetic response is necessary but insufficient. Lasting security requires reducing the economic and social conditions that produce banditry.

Finally, moral clarity. Nigerian leaders must decide whether they will accept a trade in which safety is bought one incident at a time. The alternative is uncomfortable: deny payment, risk lives in the short run and reckon with the political cost; or concede payment and let the market for lives expand. Neither choice is painless. Though continued secrecy and equivocation will only worsen the calculus for future victims.

The return of the Kebbi girls must be celebrated and their welfare prioritised such as medical checks, counselling and swift family reunification are imperative; but the celebration must not mute inquiry. Every rescued child carries the story of how she was taken and how she came back. If those narratives are shaped by statements of both state rescue and bandit negotiation, Nigerians deserve the truth in full. The nation cannot both claim strength and tolerate shadow commerce in human freedom.

If Nigeria hopes to end the steady procession of school abductions, it must start by refusing the convenience of half-truths. RESCUE without ACCOUNTABILITY is a REPRIEVE, not a SOLUTION. Negotiation without oversight is a subsidy to crime. And silence in the face of conflicting accounts is the state’s most expensive currency. The girls are home but let that not be the last chapter. Let it be the moment when POLICY, LAW and COURAGE converge to make sure no more classrooms fall silent.

THE WORDS OF THE KING OF MAR A LAGO

 

“I think Nigeria is a disgrace. The whole thing is a disgrace. They are killing people by the thousands. It is a genocide and I am really angry about it. The Government has done nothing. They are very ineffective and they are killing Christians at will. We will come in guns ablazing and it will be short, vicious and sweet”- President Donald Trump, 21st November 2025.

 

 

 

Is it not strange that each time this ill-bred, ill-informed, racist and recalcitrant war-monger opens his foul mouth more attacks, killings and abductions take place in Nigeria?

 

Has it not occurred to anyone that he is actually fuelling the insurgency with his words and constant denigration of our people, our Armed Forces and our Government?

 

Is this not an attempt to create a clear justification for what they really wish to do to us: namely invade and bomb us to kingdom come and then divide our country.

This is the same way they demonised the Government of Sudan before unleashing the UAE-funded Janjaweed militia known as the RSF on them and creating carnage in Darfur.

This is what they did to Congo DRC too before releasing the Rwanda-funded M23 militia and the butchery started.

Is it not strange to you that the man that says he wants to deliver and protect Christians in Nigeria welcomed into the White House with open arms the greatest butcher of Christians on earth by the name of Ahmed Al Sharaa (AKA Julani) who is the newly-installed President of Syria, only the other day and even gave him and his wife a bottle of “sweet” perfume in the full glare of the media.

Apparently he loves the Christians of Nigeria but hates the Christians of Syria.

 

He also hates the Christians of Gaza and the Palestinian West Bank who have suffered immensly in the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Zionist State of Israel.

 

What an interesting paradox and contradiction this is and only a village idiot will be fooled by it.

Claiming that the King of Mar A Lago cares about Nigerian Christians is like claiming that the proverbial “big bad wolf” cares about Little Red Riding Hood or that Count Dracula cares about beautiful women. Believe such balderdash and poppycock at your own peril.

The Orange Man’s motivation for expressing concern about the plight of Christians at the hands of the terrorists in Nigeria is gain and not love and as for the plight of the Muslims he couldn’t care less.

 

The script is clear: stoke, provoke and fund chaos, discredit and weaken the sitting Government, incite the people, engender regime change and spark off a civil war which will enable you to pick up the spoils and plunder the nation dry.

Their evil eye is now on Nigeria. They say we have done nothing to stop the killing but they won’t tell you what they have done to stop supporting, enhancing and encouraging it for the last fifteen years?

They won’t tell you why they do not sell us the arms we need to fight the war or share the necessary intelligence with us.

They won’t tell you why they refused to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation until 2015.

They won’t tell you why they imposed an arms embargo on Nigeria.

They won’t tell you why they have refused to offer even the smallest assistance to our Armed Forces in this war over the last few years and up till now.

They won’t tell you why USAID was funding ISWAP and Boko Haram.

 

They won’t tell you that they covertly established and utilised Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Al Shabab, Al Nusra, Ansaru, ISWAP and Lakurawa right from the outset whilst pretending to fight them.

They won’t tell you the carnage that they unleashed on Libya, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Congo, Sudan, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Gaza, Yemen, Palestine, Ukraine, Central African Republic, Venezuela, Mali, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso and elsewhere either directly or through their local proxies and sponsored militias.

 

They won’t tell you why they have now focused on Nigeria and why they are attempting to do same to South Africa.

 

Nigeria’s case is even more pitiful and alarming and we are clearly being set up for the kill.

 

Every time we make progress economically those that do not wish us well from outside our shores undermine the efforts of our Government and they do so in collaboration with members of the opposition.

 

It happened when President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Umaru Yar’adua, President Goodluck Jonathan and President Muhammadu Buhari were in power and now it is happening under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

 

These dark and sinister forces which are led and supported by what the Holy Bible describes as “bloodthirsty and evil men” have no loyalty and offer no fidelity to any African nation or leader.

 

As a matter of fact they hate us with what the Holy Bible describes as “a perfect hatred”.

 

Consequently for the last 65 years Nigeria has been the victim and target of a vicious, well-planned, well-funded, well-orchestrated international conspiracy and the ugly events of the last fifteen years and particularly the last few weeks and months prove that.

 

During Obasanjo’s time when I was in Government the American State Department even went as far as to publicly and boastfully proclaim that by 2015 we would no longer be one nation.

 

That was their projection, hope and aspiration and they did everything in their power to achieve it but God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, kept us together and put them to shame.

 

Today as we attempt to cosy up to them despite their threats and insults my advice and counsel is that we guard our hearts jealously for we trust them at our own peril.

 

Men of blood and violence are incapable of honoring agreements and reciprocating friendship. And when they do they cannot sustain it.

 

In this respect the words of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, are instructive.

 

A few days ago he said, “the war in Ukraine started because of U.S. interference and now they are imposing a 28-article plan on the country they themselves dragged into the war. The Americans BETRAY even their own friends. They support the Zionist criminal regime, are ready to ignite wars anywhere in the world for oil and underground resources and today this war has reached Latin America. Undoubtedly, such a state is unworthy of having a Government like the Islamic Republic seek ties and cooperation with it.”

 

Can anyone dispute the veracity of Khamenei’s words?

The truth is that the Americans are pathologically unreliable and unscrupulously treacherous.

 

What this means is that if, God forbid, things get out of hand in our country they may end up supporting the head of Boko Haram and ISWAP as our President. As far as they are concerned today’s terrorist is tomorrow’s leader. It really is that bad and if anyone doubts it they should find out what happened in Syria and Afghanistan!

 

Yet no leader has encapsulated the American disease better than President Gustavo Petro of Colombia when he said,

 

“A clan of pedophiles wants to destroy our democracy. To keep Epstein’s list from coming out they send warships to kill fishermen and threaten our neighbor with invasion for their oil. They want to turn the region into another Libya, full of slaves.”

 

This insightful and incisive contribution cannot be dismissed or ignored because it is rooted in truth.

 

To those that still trust the Americans despite all these observations I say “caveat emptor” which, for those who never had the privilege of learning or studying latin, means “buyer beware”.

 

For the record I am aware of the formation of the U.S./Nigeria Working Group which was established a few days ago.

 

I have implicit confidence in the National Security Advisor, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, who leads it and it’s other members who, in my estimation, are loyal and distinguished patriots like my old friend and brother and our Foreign Minister, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar.

 

Despite the confidence I have in them I urge them, for all our sakes, to be cautious of those they are working and collaborating with from the American side.

 

As they say, when you dine with the devil it is wise to do so with a long fork and knife.

 

Again as the Roman poet Virgil wrote in his literary masterpiece thousands of years ago titled ‘The Aeniad’, “beware of the Greeks, especially when they bring gifts”.

 

The Trojans learnt that lesson the hard way: let us hope that we do not.

 

What makes it worse is that now that they are reviewing the ‘Green Cards’ of nationals of all the ‘Countries of Concern’ as a result of the tragic shooting of two National Guard officers (one of whom has died) by Afghan nationals near the White House, this makes the matter even more dicey and complicated.

 

The Americans are now literally foaming at the mouth and looking for who to blame for their many self-inflicted woes so we must be cautious.

 

The bitter truth is that every time we take ten steps forward they band together with their local co-conspirators and take us twenty steps back because their greatest nightmare is a strong, independent, united, flourishing Nigeria that brings pride and dignity to Africa and the black race.

 

Any Nigerian that takes pleasure in the security challenges we are facing in our country today is either a sadist, a masochist, insane or simply naive and unpatriotic. This is not about Tinubu but about our country.

 

The terrorists are being funded and supported by a dark, sinister and relentless foreign force that seeks to tear us apart, destroy us, humiliate us, rob us, occupy our land, steal our resources, pillage our rare earth minerals, erase our identity, distort our heritage, re-define our history and control the entire globe.

 

They are doing the same thing in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, South East Asia and much of the world.

 

Those that applaud that evil force and encourage it to enter our shores “guns-ablazing” and bomb us in the name of trying to help us fight the terrorists that they themselves are funding do not understand world politics and have no knowledge of modern history.

There is not one country that the Americans have entered with bullets, bombs and violence and left better than the way they found it.

 

Outside of that once we lose our sovereignty we will never get it back.

 

Once we rely on another country to fight our battles for us we are no longer a nation but a vassal state of cowardly slaves.

 

The solution to the problem is to support and encourage our Government and Armed Forces to face the challenge squarely and win this war.

 

Whatever it takes it is their obligation and duty to do this and with our support and understanding they surely will.

 

There is room for criticism and even anger but there is no room for disloyalty to the national cause or betrayal and collaboration with those that want to bring our country to her knees.

Things are tough and the enemy appears to be gaining ground but we must keep faith with God and have confidence that our President can and will turn things around.

This is a time to pray for Nigeria and to pray for our leaders and Armed Forces and not to gloat or cheer on those who mock, despise, undermine and insult us and seek to subvert their efforts.

 

This is a time to show those that have described us as being “a disgrace” that we are more than able to handle our own affairs and solve our problems despite their obvious malice and acts of sabotage.

This is a time to have faith in our country and our people and remember God’s promise and word that Nigeria shall be great again.

This is a time to line up behind our President and let him know that despite all that is happening we still have confidence in him and that he is not alone.

 

Thankfully there is light on the horizon. For example it is great news that the 24 female students that were abducted by terrorists from Government Girl’s Comprehensive Secondry School in Maga, Kebbi state have all been rescued.

 

Kudos to President Tinubu, our Armed Forces and our security agencies.

 

When we couple this with the fact that just a few days earlier every single one of the 33 worshippers that were abducted by terrorists from a Church in Eruku, Kwara state were also rescued and 50 of the 303 male and female students that were abducted from St. Mary’s school in Papiri, Niger State regained their freedom it rekindles our joy and gives cause for hope.

 

We still have a long way to go and our joy cannot be full until every single person that has been abducted is rescued and regains their freedom and until every terrorist has been killed but these efforts are promising and noteworthy and put a lie to the tactless assertion by Trump that we are a “disgraced country” which should be shamed, insulted, threatened and brought to her knees before the entire world.

 

Anyone that believes that a man like that who violates international law and all the norms of decency and civilisation by bombing and blowing small fishing boats out of the Atlantic ocean and murdering innocent, defenceless and faceless Venezuelan fishermen in cold blood on the grounds that they are supposedly carrying hard drugs into his country, is sane or capable of fighting for Christians in Nigeria is uninformed and unintelligent.

 

Again anyone that believes that if and when Trump starts dropping bombs on Northern Nigeria in the name of delivering Christians from terrorism and persecution that he will make a distinction between Christians and Muslims when those bombs start flying is a dullard.

 

A few days ago Professor Wole Soyinka, the literary giant and Nobel Laureate, described him as a “mad man”.

 

He went further by saying “Trump said he would come to Nigeria ‘guns ablazing’ and that it would be ‘fast, vicious and sweet'”.

He concluded by asking, “do these words sound like those of a sane person to you?”

 

On another occassion he referred to him as “a petty dictator” and “a white version of Idi Amin”.

Soyinka is absolutely right.

On his part Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, a respected former Minister of Foreign Affairs said,

 

“when the most powerful man in the world threatens you with his own troops the devil is at the door knocking. We don’t want that devil to come in.”

I concur.

 

To compound the point one of the few intelligent and rational American commentators left on earth, Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Colombia University, in his reaction to Trump not turning up to the G20 meeting in South Africa, said the following to a South African audience the day before the meeting started.

 

He said, “why isn’t Donald Trump coming tomorrow? Because he has a four year old mentality and he is having a tantrum”.

 

This is apt.

Imagine a man with a “four year old mentality” that is given to “tantrums” having control over the worlds largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and being the Commander in Chief of the most powerful army in human history.

Only God can save us from such a creature.

If anyone has any doubts about the accuracy of Sachs’ categorisation of Donald Trump’s infantile and fragile state of mind I urge them to consider the following words which he posted on his X handle on November 28th, after few days after the successful conclusion of the G20 meeting in South Africa, and which graphically reflects his vindictive, petty and puerile disposition. He wrote,

 

“The United States did not attend the G20 in South Africa, because the South African Government refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific Human Right Abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers. To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people, and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them. Perhaps, worst of all, the soon to be out of business New York Times and the Fake News Media won’t issue a word against this genocide. That’s why all the Liars and Pretenders of the Radical Left Media are going out of business! At the conclusion of the G20, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our U.S. Embassy, who attended the Closing Ceremony. Therefore, at my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the Great City of Miami, Florida next year. South Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

If this vile, disrespectful and nonsensical verbiage does not betray the mindset of a spoilt, ill-bred and delusional four year old brat whose toys have been taken away from him then I don’t know what will.

Jeffrey Sachs, together with men and women like Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Lt. Colonel Scott Ritter, Chris Hedges, Abby Martin and Candace Owens are amongst the few that have the courage to call out Trump and his MAGA movement and still speak truth in America today.

They are the saving grace and redeeming factor of the American intellectual space.

The rest are mostly Yankee cowboys and cowgirls with little or no intelligence that are only interested in extending the boundaries of American hegemony and that present a very real danger to the peace and stability of the civilised world.

 

Recent events in Gaza, Darfur, Congo, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Venezuela prove that.

 

When it comes to his threats against Nigeria we must consider the fact that such is the level of Trump’s utter depravity that he is quite capable of blowing up a whole town with ALL the people in it, both Christian and Muslim, in the name of targetting and killing terrorists and saving Nigeria’s Christians.

 

His agenda is not hidden. Trump is attempting to demonise and dehumanise us ALL so that he can come in and slaughter us without consequence.

 

That is what we are toying with when we urge him to come and have his wicked way with us.

 

 

In case anyone is in any doubt about this I urge them to consider his words, spoken on the 5th of November.

He said, “we don’t lose wars. Sometimes, we don’t fight to win. We’ll stay around a country for 15 years, just bomb the hell out of everybody, make everybody miserable. Nobody knows why we’re there. You know the wars that never end — that wasn’t me. That was the stupidity of the people before me”.

 

He says that wasn’t him and describes the people that were in power before him as “stupid” but frankly none of them has been as brutal and brazen as he has been when it comes to killing innocent people and deploying military force and economic coercion against not just his own people but also the rest of the world.

Even his countries’ traditional allies have not been spared of his insults, threats, mockery and blackmail.

 

Those that believe his “that wasn’t me” mantra do so at their own peril.

 

Those that are praying for Trump to come and “save us” in Nigeria remind me of the proverbial turkey that is praying for Christmas and the proverbial ram that is praying for Sallah.

 

In the end, after their prayers have been answered, they will be slaughtered and devoured on that day but due to their low intelligence quotient they don’t see it coming despite all the evidence.

 

There is a reason that Rev. (Dr.) Munther Isaac of the Orthodox Church, Bethlehem in the West Bank said, “we Palestinians prefer to die and be martyred than to have someone like Trump defending us”.

 

I urge every Nigerian Christian, especially the excitable ones that claim to love Trump, that see him as their saviour and that insist on calling themselves Biafrans, to ponder on this.

 

You do not invite satan in to solve your problems. You do not invoke a demon to provide a solution for your challenges.

 

It is better for us to solve our problems ourselves and fight our own battles as Christians than to rely on Trump and the Americans to come and fight them for us.

 

A word is enough for the wise.

 

Before ending this contribution permit me to address the fundamental issues.

 

The question is whether we really do have a Christian genocide problem in Nigeria and the answer is ‘yes, we do’.

 

Again the question is whether we have a Muslim genocide problem in Nigeria and again the answer is ‘yes we do!’

 

Both Christians and Muslims are the victims of the terrorists and anyone that says otherwise is a pernicious and specious liar.

 

Any assertion that seeks to deny this incontrovertible fact is nothing but perfidy and deceit.

 

The final question is what can we do to solve these problems and the answer is as follows.

 

Firstly, we must resolve to kill every single terrorist and make it a criminal offence punishable by death to assist, collaborate, encourage, support, negotiate or pay ransoms to them.

 

Secondly we must resist every attempt by the Americans or any other group of foreigners and their local collaborators to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims in our country.

 

Thirdly we must get the Federal Government to provide the necessary security, do their job properly, keep them on their toes and hold them to account.

 

Fourthly we must inspire, motivate, encourage and equip our soldiers and security agencies and give them all the weaponry, resources and support that they need to do the job.

 

Fifthly we must urge our President to reach Lt. Colonel Eebyn Barlow, the highly acclaimed, celebrated, experienced and respected retired South African Special Forces officer that scored great successes against Boko Haram when President Goodluck Jonathan brought him and his company, Executive Outcomes, into our country in 2014 to assist and support our Armed Forces.

 

And finally we must get President Tinubu to reach out to President Vladimer Putin, enter a defence pact with the Russian Federation and urge the Russians to assist our Armed Forces in our fight against the terrorists.

 

We must also build greater, deeper and stronger economic ties with China and consolidate our friendship and diplomatic ties with the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the European Union.

 

What we must NOT do is trust the Americans or rely on them for ANYTHING.

 

We cannot trust a nation whose President has publicly referred to ours as “a shithole” and “a disgrace”, who has contempt for us, who constantly threatens us and says he will withdraw all the aid they have been giving us and who has a clear and distinct psychopathic disposition.

 

This seems to me to be basic logic.

 

Let us hope that someone is listening.

 

 

Permit me to end this contribution with the words of Trump himself which will give even his greatest and most ardent supporters in Nigeria and indeed throughout Africa and the Global South pause for thought and an insight into just how dark and sinister the inner recesses of his complex mind really are.

 

In a long post on his X page on Thanksgiving Day he wrote, inter alia,

 

“even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process. Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for: you won’t be here for long!”

 

After reading this if you still believe that Donald Trump is our friend I wish you luck!

THE WORDS OF THE KING OF MAR A LAGO

 

“I think Nigeria is a disgrace. The whole thing is a disgrace. They are killing people by the thousands. It is a genocide and I am really angry about it. The Government has done nothing. They are very ineffective and they are killing Christians at will. We will come in guns ablazing and it will be short, vicious and sweet”- President Donald Trump, 21st November 2025.

 

 

 

Is it not strange that each time this ill-bred, ill-informed, racist and recalcitrant war-monger opens his foul mouth more attacks, killings and abductions take place in Nigeria?

 

Has it not occurred to anyone that he is actually fuelling the insurgency with his words and constant denigration of our people, our Armed Forces and our Government?

 

Is this not an attempt to create a clear justification for what they really wish to do to us: namely invade and bomb us to kingdom come and then divide our country.

This is the same way they demonised the Government of Sudan before unleashing the UAE-funded Janjaweed militia known as the RSF on them and creating carnage in Darfur.

This is what they did to Congo DRC too before releasing the Rwanda-funded M23 militia and the butchery started.

Is it not strange to you that the man that says he wants to deliver and protect Christians in Nigeria welcomed into the White House with open arms the greatest butcher of Christians on earth by the name of Ahmed Al Sharaa (AKA Julani) who is the newly-installed President of Syria, only the other day and even gave him and his wife a bottle of “sweet” perfume in the full glare of the media.

Apparently he loves the Christians of Nigeria but hates the Christians of Syria.

 

He also hates the Christians of Gaza and the Palestinian West Bank who have suffered immensly in the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Zionist State of Israel.

 

What an interesting paradox and contradiction this is and only a village idiot will be fooled by it.

Claiming that the King of Mar A Lago cares about Nigerian Christians is like claiming that the proverbial “big bad wolf” cares about Little Red Riding Hood or that Count Dracula cares about beautiful women. Believe such balderdash and poppycock at your own peril.

The Orange Man’s motivation for expressing concern about the plight of Christians at the hands of the terrorists in Nigeria is gain and not love and as for the plight of the Muslims he couldn’t care less.

 

The script is clear: stoke, provoke and fund chaos, discredit and weaken the sitting Government, incite the people, engender regime change and spark off a civil war which will enable you to pick up the spoils and plunder the nation dry.

Their evil eye is now on Nigeria. They say we have done nothing to stop the killing but they won’t tell you what they have done to stop supporting, enhancing and encouraging it for the last fifteen years?

They won’t tell you why they do not sell us the arms we need to fight the war or share the necessary intelligence with us.

They won’t tell you why they refused to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation until 2015.

They won’t tell you why they imposed an arms embargo on Nigeria.

They won’t tell you why they have refused to offer even the smallest assistance to our Armed Forces in this war over the last few years and up till now.

They won’t tell you why USAID was funding ISWAP and Boko Haram.

 

They won’t tell you that they covertly established and utilised Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Al Shabab, Al Nusra, Ansaru, ISWAP and Lakurawa right from the outset whilst pretending to fight them.

They won’t tell you the carnage that they unleashed on Libya, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Congo, Sudan, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Gaza, Yemen, Palestine, Ukraine, Central African Republic, Venezuela, Mali, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso and elsewhere either directly or through their local proxies and sponsored militias.

 

They won’t tell you why they have now focused on Nigeria and why they are attempting to do same to South Africa.

 

Nigeria’s case is even more pitiful and alarming and we are clearly being set up for the kill.

 

Every time we make progress economically those that do not wish us well from outside our shores undermine the efforts of our Government and they do so in collaboration with members of the opposition.

 

It happened when President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Umaru Yar’adua, President Goodluck Jonathan and President Muhammadu Buhari were in power and now it is happening under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

 

These dark and sinister forces which are led and supported by what the Holy Bible describes as “bloodthirsty and evil men” have no loyalty and offer no fidelity to any African nation or leader.

 

As a matter of fact they hate us with what the Holy Bible describes as “a perfect hatred”.

 

Consequently for the last 65 years Nigeria has been the victim and target of a vicious, well-planned, well-funded, well-orchestrated international conspiracy and the ugly events of the last fifteen years and particularly the last few weeks and months prove that.

 

During Obasanjo’s time when I was in Government the American State Department even went as far as to publicly and boastfully proclaim that by 2015 we would no longer be one nation.

 

That was their projection, hope and aspiration and they did everything in their power to achieve it but God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, kept us together and put them to shame.

 

Today as we attempt to cosy up to them despite their threats and insults my advice and counsel is that we guard our hearts jealously for we trust them at our own peril.

 

Men of blood and violence are incapable of honoring agreements and reciprocating friendship. And when they do they cannot sustain it.

 

In this respect the words of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, are instructive.

 

A few days ago he said, “the war in Ukraine started because of U.S. interference and now they are imposing a 28-article plan on the country they themselves dragged into the war. The Americans BETRAY even their own friends. They support the Zionist criminal regime, are ready to ignite wars anywhere in the world for oil and underground resources and today this war has reached Latin America. Undoubtedly, such a state is unworthy of having a Government like the Islamic Republic seek ties and cooperation with it.”

 

Can anyone dispute the veracity of Khamenei’s words?

The truth is that the Americans are pathologically unreliable and unscrupulously treacherous.

 

What this means is that if, God forbid, things get out of hand in our country they may end up supporting the head of Boko Haram and ISWAP as our President. As far as they are concerned today’s terrorist is tomorrow’s leader. It really is that bad and if anyone doubts it they should find out what happened in Syria and Afghanistan!

 

Yet no leader has encapsulated the American disease better than President Gustavo Petro of Colombia when he said,

 

“A clan of pedophiles wants to destroy our democracy. To keep Epstein’s list from coming out they send warships to kill fishermen and threaten our neighbor with invasion for their oil. They want to turn the region into another Libya, full of slaves.”

 

This insightful and incisive contribution cannot be dismissed or ignored because it is rooted in truth.

 

To those that still trust the Americans despite all these observations I say “caveat emptor” which, for those who never had the privilege of learning or studying latin, means “buyer beware”.

 

For the record I am aware of the formation of the U.S./Nigeria Working Group which was established a few days ago.

 

I have implicit confidence in the National Security Advisor, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, who leads it and it’s other members who, in my estimation, are loyal and distinguished patriots like my old friend and brother and our Foreign Minister, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar.

 

Despite the confidence I have in them I urge them, for all our sakes, to be cautious of those they are working and collaborating with from the American side.

 

As they say, when you dine with the devil it is wise to do so with a long fork and knife.

 

Again as the Roman poet Virgil wrote in his literary masterpiece thousands of years ago titled ‘The Aeniad’, “beware of the Greeks, especially when they bring gifts”.

 

The Trojans learnt that lesson the hard way: let us hope that we do not.

 

What makes it worse is that now that they are reviewing the ‘Green Cards’ of nationals of all the ‘Countries of Concern’ as a result of the tragic shooting of two National Guard officers (one of whom has died) by Afghan nationals near the White House, this makes the matter even more dicey and complicated.

 

The Americans are now literally foaming at the mouth and looking for who to blame for their many self-inflicted woes so we must be cautious.

 

The bitter truth is that every time we take ten steps forward they band together with their local co-conspirators and take us twenty steps back because their greatest nightmare is a strong, independent, united, flourishing Nigeria that brings pride and dignity to Africa and the black race.

 

Any Nigerian that takes pleasure in the security challenges we are facing in our country today is either a sadist, a masochist, insane or simply naive and unpatriotic. This is not about Tinubu but about our country.

 

The terrorists are being funded and supported by a dark, sinister and relentless foreign force that seeks to tear us apart, destroy us, humiliate us, rob us, occupy our land, steal our resources, pillage our rare earth minerals, erase our identity, distort our heritage, re-define our history and control the entire globe.

 

They are doing the same thing in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, South East Asia and much of the world.

 

Those that applaud that evil force and encourage it to enter our shores “guns-ablazing” and bomb us in the name of trying to help us fight the terrorists that they themselves are funding do not understand world politics and have no knowledge of modern history.

There is not one country that the Americans have entered with bullets, bombs and violence and left better than the way they found it.

 

Outside of that once we lose our sovereignty we will never get it back.

 

Once we rely on another country to fight our battles for us we are no longer a nation but a vassal state of cowardly slaves.

 

The solution to the problem is to support and encourage our Government and Armed Forces to face the challenge squarely and win this war.

 

Whatever it takes it is their obligation and duty to do this and with our support and understanding they surely will.

 

There is room for criticism and even anger but there is no room for disloyalty to the national cause or betrayal and collaboration with those that want to bring our country to her knees.

Things are tough and the enemy appears to be gaining ground but we must keep faith with God and have confidence that our President can and will turn things around.

This is a time to pray for Nigeria and to pray for our leaders and Armed Forces and not to gloat or cheer on those who mock, despise, undermine and insult us and seek to subvert their efforts.

 

This is a time to show those that have described us as being “a disgrace” that we are more than able to handle our own affairs and solve our problems despite their obvious malice and acts of sabotage.

This is a time to have faith in our country and our people and remember God’s promise and word that Nigeria shall be great again.

This is a time to line up behind our President and let him know that despite all that is happening we still have confidence in him and that he is not alone.

 

Thankfully there is light on the horizon. For example it is great news that the 24 female students that were abducted by terrorists from Government Girl’s Comprehensive Secondry School in Maga, Kebbi state have all been rescued.

 

Kudos to President Tinubu, our Armed Forces and our security agencies.

 

When we couple this with the fact that just a few days earlier every single one of the 33 worshippers that were abducted by terrorists from a Church in Eruku, Kwara state were also rescued and 50 of the 303 male and female students that were abducted from St. Mary’s school in Papiri, Niger State regained their freedom it rekindles our joy and gives cause for hope.

 

We still have a long way to go and our joy cannot be full until every single person that has been abducted is rescued and regains their freedom and until every terrorist has been killed but these efforts are promising and noteworthy and put a lie to the tactless assertion by Trump that we are a “disgraced country” which should be shamed, insulted, threatened and brought to her knees before the entire world.

 

Anyone that believes that a man like that who violates international law and all the norms of decency and civilisation by bombing and blowing small fishing boats out of the Atlantic ocean and murdering innocent, defenceless and faceless Venezuelan fishermen in cold blood on the grounds that they are supposedly carrying hard drugs into his country, is sane or capable of fighting for Christians in Nigeria is uninformed and unintelligent.

 

Again anyone that believes that if and when Trump starts dropping bombs on Northern Nigeria in the name of delivering Christians from terrorism and persecution that he will make a distinction between Christians and Muslims when those bombs start flying is a dullard.

 

A few days ago Professor Wole Soyinka, the literary giant and Nobel Laureate, described him as a “mad man”.

 

He went further by saying “Trump said he would come to Nigeria ‘guns ablazing’ and that it would be ‘fast, vicious and sweet'”.

He concluded by asking, “do these words sound like those of a sane person to you?”

 

On another occassion he referred to him as “a petty dictator” and “a white version of Idi Amin”.

Soyinka is absolutely right.

On his part Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, a respected former Minister of Foreign Affairs said,

 

“when the most powerful man in the world threatens you with his own troops the devil is at the door knocking. We don’t want that devil to come in.”

I concur.

 

To compound the point one of the few intelligent and rational American commentators left on earth, Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Colombia University, in his reaction to Trump not turning up to the G20 meeting in South Africa, said the following to a South African audience the day before the meeting started.

 

He said, “why isn’t Donald Trump coming tomorrow? Because he has a four year old mentality and he is having a tantrum”.

 

This is apt.

Imagine a man with a “four year old mentality” that is given to “tantrums” having control over the worlds largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and being the Commander in Chief of the most powerful army in human history.

Only God can save us from such a creature.

If anyone has any doubts about the accuracy of Sachs’ categorisation of Donald Trump’s infantile and fragile state of mind I urge them to consider the following words which he posted on his X handle on November 28th, after few days after the successful conclusion of the G20 meeting in South Africa, and which graphically reflects his vindictive, petty and puerile disposition. He wrote,

 

“The United States did not attend the G20 in South Africa, because the South African Government refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific Human Right Abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers. To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people, and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them. Perhaps, worst of all, the soon to be out of business New York Times and the Fake News Media won’t issue a word against this genocide. That’s why all the Liars and Pretenders of the Radical Left Media are going out of business! At the conclusion of the G20, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our U.S. Embassy, who attended the Closing Ceremony. Therefore, at my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the Great City of Miami, Florida next year. South Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

If this vile, disrespectful and nonsensical verbiage does not betray the mindset of a spoilt, ill-bred and delusional four year old brat whose toys have been taken away from him then I don’t know what will.

Jeffrey Sachs, together with men and women like Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Lt. Colonel Scott Ritter, Chris Hedges, Abby Martin and Candace Owens are amongst the few that have the courage to call out Trump and his MAGA movement and still speak truth in America today.

They are the saving grace and redeeming factor of the American intellectual space.

The rest are mostly Yankee cowboys and cowgirls with little or no intelligence that are only interested in extending the boundaries of American hegemony and that present a very real danger to the peace and stability of the civilised world.

 

Recent events in Gaza, Darfur, Congo, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Venezuela prove that.

 

When it comes to his threats against Nigeria we must consider the fact that such is the level of Trump’s utter depravity that he is quite capable of blowing up a whole town with ALL the people in it, both Christian and Muslim, in the name of targetting and killing terrorists and saving Nigeria’s Christians.

 

His agenda is not hidden. Trump is attempting to demonise and dehumanise us ALL so that he can come in and slaughter us without consequence.

 

That is what we are toying with when we urge him to come and have his wicked way with us.

 

 

In case anyone is in any doubt about this I urge them to consider his words, spoken on the 5th of November.

He said, “we don’t lose wars. Sometimes, we don’t fight to win. We’ll stay around a country for 15 years, just bomb the hell out of everybody, make everybody miserable. Nobody knows why we’re there. You know the wars that never end — that wasn’t me. That was the stupidity of the people before me”.

 

He says that wasn’t him and describes the people that were in power before him as “stupid” but frankly none of them has been as brutal and brazen as he has been when it comes to killing innocent people and deploying military force and economic coercion against not just his own people but also the rest of the world.

Even his countries’ traditional allies have not been spared of his insults, threats, mockery and blackmail.

 

Those that believe his “that wasn’t me” mantra do so at their own peril.

 

Those that are praying for Trump to come and “save us” in Nigeria remind me of the proverbial turkey that is praying for Christmas and the proverbial ram that is praying for Sallah.

 

In the end, after their prayers have been answered, they will be slaughtered and devoured on that day but due to their low intelligence quotient they don’t see it coming despite all the evidence.

 

There is a reason that Rev. (Dr.) Munther Isaac of the Orthodox Church, Bethlehem in the West Bank said, “we Palestinians prefer to die and be martyred than to have someone like Trump defending us”.

 

I urge every Nigerian Christian, especially the excitable ones that claim to love Trump, that see him as their saviour and that insist on calling themselves Biafrans, to ponder on this.

 

You do not invite satan in to solve your problems. You do not invoke a demon to provide a solution for your challenges.

 

It is better for us to solve our problems ourselves and fight our own battles as Christians than to rely on Trump and the Americans to come and fight them for us.

 

A word is enough for the wise.

 

Before ending this contribution permit me to address the fundamental issues.

 

The question is whether we really do have a Christian genocide problem in Nigeria and the answer is ‘yes, we do’.

 

Again the question is whether we have a Muslim genocide problem in Nigeria and again the answer is ‘yes we do!’

 

Both Christians and Muslims are the victims of the terrorists and anyone that says otherwise is a pernicious and specious liar.

 

Any assertion that seeks to deny this incontrovertible fact is nothing but perfidy and deceit.

 

The final question is what can we do to solve these problems and the answer is as follows.

 

Firstly, we must resolve to kill every single terrorist and make it a criminal offence punishable by death to assist, collaborate, encourage, support, negotiate or pay ransoms to them.

 

Secondly we must resist every attempt by the Americans or any other group of foreigners and their local collaborators to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims in our country.

 

Thirdly we must get the Federal Government to provide the necessary security, do their job properly, keep them on their toes and hold them to account.

 

Fourthly we must inspire, motivate, encourage and equip our soldiers and security agencies and give them all the weaponry, resources and support that they need to do the job.

 

Fifthly we must urge our President to reach Lt. Colonel Eebyn Barlow, the highly acclaimed, celebrated, experienced and respected retired South African Special Forces officer that scored great successes against Boko Haram when President Goodluck Jonathan brought him and his company, Executive Outcomes, into our country in 2014 to assist and support our Armed Forces.

 

And finally we must get President Tinubu to reach out to President Vladimer Putin, enter a defence pact with the Russian Federation and urge the Russians to assist our Armed Forces in our fight against the terrorists.

 

We must also build greater, deeper and stronger economic ties with China and consolidate our friendship and diplomatic ties with the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the European Union.

 

What we must NOT do is trust the Americans or rely on them for ANYTHING.

 

We cannot trust a nation whose President has publicly referred to ours as “a shithole” and “a disgrace”, who has contempt for us, who constantly threatens us and says he will withdraw all the aid they have been giving us and who has a clear and distinct psychopathic disposition.

 

This seems to me to be basic logic.

 

Let us hope that someone is listening.

 

 

Permit me to end this contribution with the words of Trump himself which will give even his greatest and most ardent supporters in Nigeria and indeed throughout Africa and the Global South pause for thought and an insight into just how dark and sinister the inner recesses of his complex mind really are.

 

In a long post on his X page on Thanksgiving Day he wrote, inter alia,

 

“even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process. Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for: you won’t be here for long!”

 

After reading this if you still believe that Donald Trump is our friend I wish you luck!

 

May the Lord defend and protect the Federal Republic of Nigeria!

 

(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Minister of Aviation, the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba of Joga Orile, the Aare Ajagunla of Otun Ekiti and a former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Olusegun Obasanjo)

May the Lord defend and protect the Federal Republic of Nigeria!

 

(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Minister of Aviation, the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba of Joga Orile, the Aare Ajagunla of Otun Ekiti and a former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Olusegun Obasanjo)

By FEMI OYEWALE