By Falola Olayinka

The recent proclamation by  U.S. President Donald Trump, threatening a potential invasion of Nigeria under the spurious claim of a “genocide of Christians by Islamists,” is as ludicrous as it is dangerous. It is a narrative manufactured in the forges of American political expediency, utterly bereft of the complex realities on the ground. While we must vehemently reject this false and inflammatory rhetoric, it holds up a mirror to a more profound and domestic threat: the decades of lip service paid by our own leaders to the cancer of insecurity, which has done more to erode our sovereignty than any foreign threat ever could.

President Trump’s accusation is not just false; it is a reckless oversimplification of a multi-headed hydra. The insecurity plaguing Nigeria has no singular religious colouration. In the North-West and Central, bandits—driven by criminal economics, not theology—butcher Muslims and Christians alike. In the North-East, Boko Haram and ISWAP have killed more Muslims than any other group, branding them apostates for participating in a democratic state. In the South-East, IPOB militants target security personnel and infrastructure, their grievance being political marginalization, not religious conquest. To frame this as a religious war is to be either profoundly ignorant or cynically manipulative. History shows us it is often the latter.

America has a well-documented playbook: identify a resource-rich nation, concoct a humanitarian or security pretext, and unleash military might that leaves the nation destabilized, its resources plundered, and its people in a worse condition than before. Look at Iraq in 2003, invaded on the false premise of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The result? The destruction of a state apparatus, the birth of ISIS, the death of hundreds of thousands, and the opening of its oil fields to Western corporations. Recall Libya in 2011, where a UN-mandated no-fly zone was twisted into a regime-change operation. The nation was plunged into a decade of civil war, slave markets, and chaos, its vast oil reserves becoming a prize for warlords and foreign interests. From the ruins of Afghanistan to the ongoing strife in Somalia and Syria, the pattern is unmistakable: American intervention is not a cure; it is a metastatic disease. Nigeria, with its vast oil, gas, and mineral wealth, must not become the next chapter in this tragic anthology.

However, while we must guard against external wolves, we cannot ignore the termites within our own foundation. The greatest threat to our sovereignty is not a blustering  president thousands of miles away, but the consistent, cowardly, and often complicit lip service our political and traditional leaders have paid to insecurity since the return to democracy in 1999.

Let us journey back. The Obasanjo administration (1999-2007) witnessed the seeds of many present crises. It was an era of brutal communal clashes, often with ethno-religious undertones, which were poorly managed. The controversial implementation of Sharia law in some northern states, within a secular federation, created deep social fissures. The Niger Delta militancy was met with a heavy hand, but the root causes—resource control and environmental degradation—were never sincerely addressed. The military invasions of Odi and Zaki Biam remain dark stains, exemplifying a state response that prioritized collective punishment over justice. Most critically, the Boko Haram insurgency, which began as a small sect under Mohammed Yusuf, was not uprooted. Its ideological and operational roots were allowed to fester, setting the stage for a monster that would later consume the nation.

The Jonathan era (2010-2015) was when the monster came of age. A profound incapability at the highest levels of security architecture allowed an insurgency that was once confined to Borno State to spread its tentacles, bombing the United Nations building in the FCT, and striking in Kogi and across the North. This period was marred by one of the most egregious betrayals of the Nigerian people: the “Armsgate” scandal. While our soldiers at the frontlines complained of a lack of basic weaponry and ammunition, officials within the administration were allegedly inflating contracts for military hardware and siphoning billions of dollars meant to fight the war. The nation was not just being attacked; it was being stolen blind under the pretext of defending it.

Then came the Buhari administration (2015-2023), which, while recording gains in the fight against Boko Haram in the North-East, presided over the catastrophic rise of other threats. Banditry in the North-West became an industrial-scale enterprise. Most disturbingly, the government often appeared to look the other way as armed Fulani militias, some allegedly from foreign lands, ravaged farming communities across the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria. The farmer-herder crisis was framed as a conflict over scarce resources, but the sophistication and impunity of the attackers suggested something more sinister. President Buhari himself seemed to lend tactical legitimacy to these invasions with his now-infamous statement justifying the actions of “grazers” whose “traditional grazing routes” had been taken. This perceived bias from the highest office undermined social cohesion and emboldened the perpetrators, leaving our farmlands drenched in blood and our national unity in tatters.

Therefore, the path forward requires a two-pronged approach of sober introspection and strategic diplomacy.

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The Nigerian government must, first and foremost, wake up to its primary responsibility: the security and welfare of its citizens. Fighting insecurity must be treated as a national emergency, demanding a non-partisan, holistic strategy. This includes massive investment in security intelligence, modernizing our armed forces, addressing the root causes of youth unemployment, and ensuring justice and equity for all communities. We must purge our security architecture of corruption and political interference.

In responding to the U.S., aggression is not the answer. Instead of confrontational rhetoric, we must engage in intelligent diplomacy. We should formally collaborate with the U.S. government and the international community, presenting the true, complex picture of our security challenges. We must invite genuine partnership in intelligence sharing, training, and tracking illicit financial flows that fund terrorism, rather than accepting a false narrative that serves foreign agendas.

Conversely, the U.S., NATO, and the West must drop their hypocritical stance. If their concern is genuine, let them help us build capacity, strengthen our institutions, and combat the external jihadist influences spreading across the Sahel. The solution is not to invade and destroy, but to support and stabilize. A sovereign, secure, and prosperous Nigeria is in the interest of global peace and the African continent.

The illogical threat from abroad is a distraction. The real battle for Nigeria’s soul is being waged on our own soil, against the enemies of progress within and the crippling indifference of our leaders. To secure our sovereignty, we must first defeat the internal demons we have, for far too long, been too timid to name.