Yet on the threats of Donald Trump, by Ayuba Ahmad
Donning the garbs of a modern-day crusader setting out to protect Christians and Christianity against persecution by “Islamic terrorists” in Nigeria, USA President Donald Trump has launched, in recent times, a barrage of vitriolic and diplomatic assaults on Nigeria.
On the issue of alleged “existential threat” against Christians, Donald Trump fired the first salvo against Nigeria on 31st October, with the classification of the country as a “Country of Particular Concern,” CPC.
The status of CPC entails, among others, restrictions on American aid and grants as well as obstructing Nigeria from accessing loans or grants from international financial institutions. The status of CPC could also stretch to the denial of a USA visa to Nigerian government officials and all those deemed to be complicit or culpable in the alleged crime of genocide. It could further mean the confiscation of assets and freezing of accounts.
On the 5th of November, Mr Donald Trump, a fascist, a bully and a war monger, came out to unabashedly threaten the use of military force against Nigeria:
“Either the Nigerian government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic terrorists who are committing these terrible atrocities.
“If we attack, we may very well go into that disgraced country ‘guns-a-blazing to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists.”
Speaking through its Publicity Secretary, Professor Abubakar Didere, the Northern Elders Forum dismissed Mr Trump’s threat as empty and a “personal arrogant outburst that is not an official policy of the USA.” This perception is shared by many Nigerians who, clearly out of patriotic fervour, believe that, America knows enough to dare engage their country the way it did in Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan.
On the other hand, there are also a huge number of Nigerians who are excited and are looking forward to the actualisation of the US President’s threats. Nnamdi Kanu, the embattled leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra, has written a letter of solidarity to President Trump.
Asking Mr Trump in a letter to use the US military might to enforce a “supervised referendum on self-determination in Nigeria”, Nnamdi Kanu said the alleged Christian massacres in the North, also included “a hidden genocide against Judeo-Christians in the Southeast.”
While we at Neptune Prime align with the stance of all the opinions against the expressed intention of the USA, we are not, however, on the same page with those who dismiss President Donald Trump as issuing empty threats.
We are guided by the recent bombing of the sites of the Iranian nuclear energy facilities following Trump’s issuance of warnings to do so. With his manifested undemocratic, despotic and tyrannical propensities, it does not seem beyond him to launch an invasion without parliamentary support.
Our stance is also against the backdrop of the historical fact that the USA does not have historical antecedents of venturing into any wars in which it had no economic or strategic military interests at stake. Multiple enlightened opinions converge on the analysis that neither Christianity nor Christians in Nigeria are the real motives behind the prevailing designs of the USA under Donald Trump towards Nigeria.
Read also:Dangers inherent in the ongoing waves of defections in the country, by Ayuba Ahmad
It has been suggested by many of the nation’s security experts that, a military base in Nigeria is one of the burning strategic objectives of Trump’s USA. Curiously, Port Harcourt is said to be a location of choice for such a military base.
Why Port Harcourt? Is it the Niger Delta oil fields or the Christian populations of the north that are the attraction for a US military base in Nigeria? An even more ominous postulation on the US motive for a military expedition in Nigeria, is the desire to clip the soaring wings of the country through its balkanisation.
We have a foreboding that America can yet strike at Nigeria in spite of the absence of a rational basis for doing so. For instance, on trumped-up allegations of Saddam Hussein’s stockpiles of “weapons of mass destruction,” the USA launched a gruelling war against Iraq in 2003. At the end of the day, there were no weapons of mass destruction found. But, Iraq to date, is still reeling from the havoc wreaked by the invasion.
Libyans under Muammar Gaddafi, were simply among the happiest people on earth. But today, after the invasion and ruination of the country by the United States of America and allies, Libya is immersed in turmoil with its people, living wretched and miserable lives.
Despite the repeated verifications and testaments by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA that the Iranian nuclear energy programmes were for peaceful purposes, Donald Trump, all the same, went on to rain bombs on all the sites of the Iranian nuclear energy facilities. That act of unprovoked aggression was based on the blatant lies that Tehran was building nuclear weapons.
We believe that, whichever way it is couched, plans by Mr Trump to take up arms in defence of Nigerian Christians against the so-called Islamic terrorists, are a hoax and nothing but a veneer behind which are objectives with catastrophic consequences against Nigeria. The entire West African subregion will be engulfed.
It is, therefore, incumbent on all patriotic Nigerians to rise up and be united against what is palpably the gathering of a storm with the potential force of an Armageddon. It is a tumultuous whirlwind, the aftermath with the potential of reducing every one of the nation’s components into smithereens.
In other words, instead of “an American supervised referendum” that will birth Nnamdi Kanu’s dream of a Biafra Republic, an American invasion is most likely to leave in its trail, a Southeast embroiled in a protracted civil strife and in conflicts across the region’s borders.
Similarly, in contrast to the anticipated ‘uhuru’ of the Christian minority populations in the North, the region might be plunged into an intricate web of crises resulting in an unimaginable magnitude of disasters.
China and Russia have expressed their concerns differently over Donald Trump’s threat of military force against Nigeria. In a strong statement, China has cautioned: “We oppose any country’s interference in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of religion or human rights. We oppose the wanton threat of sanctions and use of force.”
And just last Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry also declared in unequivocal terms: “We are watching this very closely and call on all parties involved to strictly comply with international legal norms.”
The emerging scenario is that of Nigeria becoming a theatre of war between the strongest military powers of the world. This brings up the picture of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine or that of South and North Korea, a divided nation.
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