Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Dr. Chidi Amuta is Executive Editor of USAfrica, since 1993
It is Soyinka in his dreadful play, “Madmen and Specialists”, who insisted that “Even poison has its uses… You can use it either to kill or to cure.”.
In a sense, U.S President Donald Trump has fed Nigerians a big dose of hemlock. It is now up to us to die or live by his potion.
The proud and unvarnished Nigerian collective psyche may be used to abuse and shock from our succession of domestic tyrants. But the direct threat of military invasion and humiliation from a powerful foreign leader is an unfamiliar dose of poison for Nigerians. Yet this unusual threat and castigation by the world’s current Number One apprentice autocrat may have its uses after all.
It has already revealed the state of the Nigerian state and society, revealing clear weaknesses in the structure and cohesiveness of our creaky federation. Between the government and the people, there are clear lines of multiple fissures. Trump, who has scant regard for Nigeria and its current leadership had alleged genocide against Christians in the country. He had proceeded, with little verifiable evidence and scanty Congressional authorization (31 out of over 500) to pass judgment on Nigeria as a country in which it is suicidal to profess Christianity. He could hardly disguise the pressure from evangelical conservative lobbyists and their rich Nigerian diaspora and home -based billionaires backers. This is nothing surprising from the Trump factory of serial falsehoods. After all, he had earlier seen anti -white racist genocide in South Africa for which he excoriated the South African president in a White House show of shame. He has since welcomed any number of white supremacist South Africans into the United States as ‘special refugees’. Let us wait and see how many planeloads of his Nigerian Christian brethren he will welcome as special refugees into the United States in the months ahead.
This is not to dismiss the now familiar practice of targeting churches and Christian communities by terrorists and anarchists in some parts of the country. We need to quickly admit that in some parts of the country, it is hazardous to be a follower of certain faiths, either Christianity or Islam. You risk life and limbs by being so identified. But the danger is from fundamentalist rascals and sectarian criminals rather than the result of an officially sanctioned genocidal agenda.
The public response to the Trump threat in Nigeria has been instant and multi-faceted. Nigerians, long immune from any form of external military or other threats since independence in 1960, have only known internal, domestic stress. In a sense, then, the Trump bluster against Nigeria has perhaps been more of a necessary stress test for the Nigerian state and Nigerians. The stress has shown us a mirror image of the state of the nation. For Nigeria under President Bola Tinubu and his neartotalitarian party- the APC, the Trump threat has been more like a sting in the backside of a drunken chimp. Several incoherent statements have since emerged ostensibly from Aso Rock. The government has denied any systematic targeting of any sect in the series of industrial-scale killings that now form Nigerian’s new normal. The Minister of Information has flatly denied the genocide claim while admitting that general insecurity has led to many killings in parts of Nigeria. Commendably, Mr. Tinubu has managed to place his squad of attack hounds and unguarded megaphones on a leash. The usual loudmouths have gone into hiding! Yet there is as yet no systematic diplomatic response to Trump.
Nonetheless, defense and security forces seem to have been roused into a rude awakening. The army is conducting more attacks of terrorist havens. The Air Force is conducting more bombing raids on suspected terrorist and jihadist enclaves. The government has also expressed interest in working with the United States to curtail jihadist activities and general insecurity.
But the dividends of the threat are not limited to the government of the day. Among the vast majority of ordinary Nigerians, however, so much has emerged that speaks volumes about the way we now are. A minority of Nigerians especially among the urban elite who understand a bit of what Nigeria as a nation means, a certain patriotic note is loud and clear. They admit that we may not be in a perfect state but that Nigeria remains the only nation in the context of which the sovereign citizenship of Nigerians makes sense. To that extent, Trump has no right to threaten us without expecting stiff resistance from Nigerians irrespective of creed, ethnicity or political affiliation.
Predictably, among the Muslim youth, the Trump threat is more of an open invitation to resist America and become martyrs in the process. A minority of youth welcome the prospect of an American military presence even in the form of military bases.
Yet many political voices have risen who see the Nigerian federation as a long burden that has blocked the full realization of the full potentials of Nigerians and the communities that make it up. This minority has welcomed the Trump threat as a one way to unbundle the Nigerian leviathan and free the component units from the burden of an unworkable federation. These are people who have chosen to see Trump as something of a messianic figure. Adherents of this view are either separatists or advocates of regionalism. They would want the country to return to the pre-civil regionalism.
To the outright unrepentant separatists, there has been open dancing in the streets. Even among the elite, the threat has been greeted as a shortcut to the separation of the component units of a nation that has refused to work for the good of its citizens. Some see the Trump threat as a pathway to the realization of the many waiting ‘republics’ -Biafra, Oduduwa, Arewa, Niger Delta etc. that separatists have long been angling for.
For the political elite, there is a North-South silent divide. The northern political elite has gone somewhat quiet after the news that the United States is contemplating massive financial sanctions on politicians’ assets hidden in Dubai, Saudi Arabia and London. This category of politicians have gone underground and largely silent. For the political opposition, the Trump threat is just another clear statement of disapproval of the policies and credibility of the government of the day. indictment against the government of the day. There is injustice in the land hence the government has turned a blind eye to the killings along the line. Killers and criminals from certain parts of the country go largely unpunished for religious and cultural reasons. Other political interests insist that Trump has seen the imbalance in Nigeria’s geopolitical configuration and structure of citizenship benefits.
Perhaps the most obvious adverse dividend of the Trump threat has been to underline the absence of an elite consensus among Nigeria’s national elite. Hardly any voices of unanimity have risen to articulate Nigeria’s collective national interest in the face of an imminent external diplomatic and even military aggression. At best, our national elite has been split among ethnic, regional, religious and material interest lines. No one, except perhaps some legacy media outlets have articulated the Nigerian national interest against an external adversary. What does Nigeria mean to its citizens? What does Nigeria mean for our children? What does Nigeria mean for Africa’s economic future and identity? Silence on all fronts, including those who live off the Nigerian state!
Yet, the Trump threat offers Nigeria many diplomatic advantages. We need to strengthen our Africa-centredness. We need to become a stronger voice in BRICS. We need to free our economy progressively from its long-standing dependence on the Bretton Woods institutions and the clutch of Wall Street banks. Above all, we need to convert our ties with China into a better-structured relationship.
In all this, there is an urgent call for Nigeria to become more mature in its diplomatic and political links with the rest of the world. But the necessary precondition to this is internal cohesiveness based on reinforced secularity and impeccable internal security.
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