Nigeria with Andrew

the most populous countries in the world. Over two hundred and thirty nine million people called Nigeria home, and the Nigerian aspora is well over ten million strong. Like much of Africa, Nigeria is rich in natural resources, particularly petroleum natural gas, but heavily exploited by international and local capital. Thus much of its population. By some estimates, over half

of its population is considered multi dimensionally poor. Modern Nigeria will stitch together from the British protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria and again its political independence only recently in nineteen sixty and become a republic in nineteen sixty three. That North South divide is particularly relevant because it continues to define Nigerian politics today. Nigeria split almost evenly between its Christian population, which dominates the South, and its Muslim population,

which dominates the North. Alongside ethnic, linguistic and other political divisions, corruption and all the other backage of a typical Neo colony has made Nigerian politics quite the powderkeg of some time.

They have been tragic and deadly episodes of political and religious violence throughout Nigeria's history, going in both directions, including the nineteen eighty seven crisis in Karduna State, and the early two thousands had several notorious riots and massacres as well, including the Yelowa massacre and the Josh riots, linking the

show notes for the details on those. Since two thousand nine, however, militant Islamist group Bokoharam has engaged in a protracted insudency against Nigerian government and terrorized the Christian and Muslim population through bombings, assassinations and abductions with the overall intent of

establishing an Islamic breakaway state in North Nigeria. For the past few months, there has been a considered effort to paint a narrative of Christian genocide in Nigeria, a narrative that has long been co signed by the likes of Donald Trump. So back in twenty eighteen, Trump had actually called out the killing of Christians in Nigeria, yet stop

short of calling to genocide. But according to an article by Ayula Babbolula on the myth of Christian genocide, it was not long after Nigeria and Vice President Kashim Shatima's September twenty twenty five remarks at the eightieth session of the UN General Assembly, where he reasserted Nigeria's long standing saudiarity with Palestine, that the Western, largely pro Israel far right began the campaign of claiming Christian genocide in Nigeria.

In his address, Shatima did mention the problem with Anigeria has happened with extremism, but these commentators are run with a much more specific narrative. The same people who deny the past Ddian genocide and prop up the mythical white genocide in South Africa have gone on to push this

Christian genocide story. Bill Meyer, the guy who still can't prove the claims he made about October seventh, has gone on to tell people that what's happening in Nigeria is, to paraphrasee so much more of a genocide than what's

happening in Khaza end code. In late October and lead November twent twenty five, Trump tweeted that Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria, name Nigeria as a country of particular concern and announced to the United States was ready, willing and able to save our great Christian population around the world. And for some reason, Nicki Minaj is out there back in Trump's Christian persecution narrative as well. Perfect why are you in it?

continues to allow the killing of Christians. Then in December twenty five, according to another BBC report, the US has launched strikes on the twenty fifth of December as a Christmas present against Montans in the Islamic State Group in northwestern Nigeria. What should be noted though, is they did not strike Bokoharam, which is based in northeast Nigeria.

thousand member counter terrorism force. So there's a lot of military action happened in West Africa right now, coming from the inside and the outside. In a January twenty twenty six report, Trump claimed quote, I'd love to make it a one time strike, but if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many times strike. End Coode. Trump has also accused the Nigerian government as I said of

repeatedly failing to protect Christians. So Trump is a known liar to take everything he says with a grain of salt, as is the rest of his administration generally really characterist politicians and pundits. So let me break down what is actually happening in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has said that Muslims,

Christians and those of no faith alike are targeted. According to Ayula Aawaalula, the government of Nigeria is indeed failing to adequately address the devastation being rught against communities in Nigeria. But critically, it is not religious nature, or rather religion is only a part of the picture. It can't be used to explain the whole story on the ground. So there are several groups where you can have in northern Nigeria. You have a few different Islamic state affiliated groups, yeah

Fokoharam which is the main one. And you also have the conflict between the Fulani herdsmen who are mostly Muslim and various farming groups who may be Christian or Muslim. So whether hoodsmen are considered that kind of conflict has actually been taking place between the hooders and the settled people for literal centuries. The only difference is that now you have them carrying AK forty sevens in serves just

sticks and machetes. Yeah, how they got those AK forty sevens is really thanks to the history of the West's intervention in Africa, but we'll get to that in a moment. Critically, though, if you step outside of the religious freeman, you would see a criminal, economic, and political motivation behind these actions. They may be going after land, or want to extract ransom, or pursue a particular political goal. The Muslims in North

Nigeria are not safe just because they're Muslim. Bokoharam's victims are mostly Muslim because Bokharam's target is anyone who stands between them and their political aims. Everyone who isn't Pokoharam or aligned with Islamic state West African Province is considered an enemy. One article on Trump's beef with Nigeria by Yusuf Bangura talks about six types of violence in the country.

We have the Bokoharam is Limits inspired violence in the Northeast, whose means terms of Muslims who reject the groups is themist ideology. They have the banditry in the Northwest which affects Muslims and Christians, and equal measure, they have the herd of farmer conflict in the Middle Belt which affects Christians and Muslims, or the reports indicated Christians are the main victims of that violence. You have the herder farmer violence in the Northwest, which is distinct from the hood

of farmer violence in the Middle Belt. So the one in the northwest has full Lani hooders reports they pitched against Hauser farmers and both groups are Muslim. You have the violence inflicted by the indigenous people of Biafra and bandits in the east against their own people, Ebos, who are Christian. And you also have general panditry in large parts of the country which has rendered traveling by roads

between cities very risky. So there's been a lot of Western attention drawn suggest some of the victims the churches, the church leaders, and the Christian communities, even though mosques and imams and Muslim communities and animists have also been devastated, to turn their multifaceted violence into a narrative of targeted anti Christian violence, seemingly at least from the Trump and Zionist camp for the purpose of demonizing Muslims, and I

guess in some convoluted way weaken in global support for Palestinians because Partians are also Muslims, so they're all the same. I don't know, that's just speculation on my part. Even Christian leaders in Nigeria have been calling out this framant, though Archbishop Matthew man OsO Ndagoso was quoted extensively in an article for Aid to the Chase and Need, which

is an international Catholic organization. Rather than pinning the blame on Islam, he said, in the Northwest, the farmers are mostly Muslims and they also have conflicts with the Fulani. As moved the Middle Belt, it is enhancing most by Christians, so there will most likely be a Christian farm. Religion and ethnicity have very sensitive problems in Nigeria. They're always used for convenience, but primarily this conflict is not religious.

I am absolutely sure. If you apply for a job and you don't get it, you might say you were rejective because you are a Christian, and the same for Muslims. Opportunists such as politicians use these factors to their own advantage, but if you go to the route, you discover is little or nothing to his religion end.

source of money for a ransom. So he's emphasizing there that it's really about the money that the churches perceived to be able to provide to these caidnappers, more so than any religious targeting in particular. Of course, that is only one archbishop's perspective on the situation. I think Bablo makes an important point in his article on the myth that I would like to quote as well. Crucially, Christians

at times become the chosen targets in particular assaults. Churches have been attacked during worship pre subducted, and entire Christian villages raised in Plateau, Venu and southern Karduna. These episodes are not separate from the general crisis, but are rather moments when Christian identity is weaponized to mark a community for terror. In this sense, Christians bear both the general weight of insecurity is shared by all Nigerians and the

sharper trauma of faith based targeting in sytant attacks. But Babla doesn't forget that these groups terror as a severe impact on the Muslims as well. The fact he makes an important comparison I wanted to highlight, which is that in areas ravaged by armed groups, the first victims tend to be those who have religious or ethnic groups in common with the militants, killed because they are seen as infidels or not noble enough or not committed enough to the idea of that movement. If you look at the

history of Zionism, it's released. For example, before they found in of the state of Israel, there were bombings of several Jewish heritage sites across the Middle East, and records have later showed that they were carried out by terroristic Jewish gangs who sort to instill a fair in Jewish communities across the region, to so discord between the Jewish communities and their neighbors for the purpose of forcing them to abandon these released on states and relocate to Israel

to further Israel's economic and geopolitical codes. Yeah, so it's not unheard of for a group to target its own correligionists for its geopolitical economic combusshures.

cannot build. In many of these states, you don't allow the teaching of Christianity. Get the government employees and pays emams to teach in schools every year. They have money to build mosques in the budget, but they will not let you build churches. If I stay, there's a university and across the street there are five mosques, no church. Who wanted to build one, they didn't allow it. If you build the church with a permission, the government can

tear it down. And this is what we are going through. It is serious. We want our government to be held accountable for people to be treated equally end quote. So again, religious conflict is still part of the picture, but not

in the way that Western governments are painted. What's happening is these issues of being amplified by opportunists and far right lobbyists, and as I established earlier, we should be addressed in way these terror groups have even come from, because the West's hands are not clean in that picture either.

Groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State have known connections in their history to Western medland An American policy in Africa has at least indirectly on these groups thanks to the fall of Gadaffi in Libya and the American lede stabilization of other Muslim countries in Southwest Asia and North Africa. The death squads are this Akys that is boost across the Sahel region, victimizing Africans of world faith or at least some of their firepower to that Western

inter venture. To the flow of arms coming out of Libya. The West has repeatedly shown that it's our ka of people's lives. So what is the real beef that Trump and co. Have with Nigeria? While according to Bangoura's article, Trump is not feeling the fact that the US is dependent on China for where it is and Nigeria is very resource rich when it comes to earths like lithium, cobalt,

nickel and all that other stuff. Chinese companies have invested more than one point three billion US dollars in Nigeria's lithium processing industry, and Russia has growing leverage in the region thanks to their involvement with Nizia, Bikina, Fasso, and Mali. So in an effort to wean America all of China, Trump's been trying to after the deal the situation, so he signed agreements in Southeast Asia to increase the production

and processing of raves and exports to the US. He stepped into a broker peace deals code and code between the DRC and Rwanda's the US can invest more in the DRC's minerals. And what Trump rido like in Nigeria's case is that Nigeria's President Tuinubu is not playing ball with him, at least in this case. In Trump's eyes too, will you not do enough to reverse Ja's military coup? And ton Woo do not let the US relocate the

Nigerian military base to Nigeria. Tunubu also didn't let Trump relocate deportees to Nigeria, even when Ghana, Rwanda, Esportini, Telzadan and Uganda all accepted them. Furthermore, as established before, Nigeria continues to condemn Israel's genocide in Gaza now when it wants to, the US can intervene in other countries without the talk of humanitarian itself. Because look at Guatemala nineteen fifty four when they tried to implement some ladder reforms

and that went against the United Food Company's interests. So the US invaded, and you also had the US willing to simply support whatever opposition exists in the country, like in the Congo in nineteen sixty one against Patriciala Mumba, in Chile in nineteen seventy three against savadoy Inde, and in Iran in nineteen fifty three against Mohammad Mosleg So they will use humanitarian talk. Whether they use that talk or not, the results tend to be disastrous for the

people in those countries. US intervention sucks pretty much everywhere Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and more. Besides, so we can count on whatever Trump attempts in Nigeria being an abject failure. More recently, the United States announced it will be sending a military team to Nigeria after a string of recent attacks that'd be in two hundred troops. So we'll see what happens next. But it's clear that US intervention is not the solution.

Its intentions are definitely malicious. So what can the future be for the people of Nigeria? How can its people be free? Obviously, the battle against these reactionary forces rages on, but military solutions and militarization will not be enough. In fact, it carries some serious risk in the region as a

whole in terms of escalation. An article by ayodele o'labi in Altazeerra recognize that with Nigeria's entanglement with the US and the two hundred and sixty eight thousand strong Equa's force, the AES is going to feel threatened, you know, as it's trying to keep Western influence out of the region. So there's a danger of future EQUAS deployments overlapping with

AS operations and potentially lead into clashes. And if there isn't a the escalation of tensions between Equas and AS, we can end up seeing interstate wars that would devastate communities in the region and gave the insurgents opportunities to expand it could very well set up another roxy battleground for global powers and some kind of new caused war.

So they have to find some way of avoiding this clash and see if they can build a cooperative, security free move despite their vastly different interests.

kill its own civilians and its counter terrorism operation. Like, all of this just makes life less livable for people who already like on the thick end of climate change for one thing, and have suffered under centuries of colonialism for another.

at another time. But by the time we got to the Ensar's movement in twenty twenty, left forces were present but didn't have the level of organization and strategy necessary to rise the occasion. But according to the article in Progressive International by A. Eula Babbalola, there's potential for a resurgence. The End Bad Governance movement had demonstrations in August October twenty twenty four which saw leftist groups like Take It Back and the Socialist Workers League play a central role

in organizing and mobilizing protests. Unlike earlier moments, these groups are ticket related, clearer demands, coordinated protest strategies, and attempted to provide ideological direction. This is in spite of facing crackdowns and arrests of key figures and left and progressive spaces. Of course, not everyone mobilizing against Nigeria's struggle in economic and political conditions are committed to left or left adjacent ideas. Still,

the question remains unresolved. Can this renewed street level influence be transformed into lasting organizational power, or will repeat the cycle of vocalization followed by fragmentation that has littered movements before it. This violence taking place in Nigeria is bound up with the violence taking place across the world. Is bound up in imperialist interests and capless interest, in status interests,

and in petty tyrant's interests. From Nigeria to Congo to Sedan to Palestine, violence and suppression tactics wheeled in one place often brought to another. Biblelula says in his article that coult a genuine pursuit of justice must confront proximate perpetrators as well as the transnational systems of power that sustain them. What we must not allow is for the global perpetrators of criminality and terror to tell the world

where to focus its attention and good. In other words, to all at the perpetrators of these violences tell you where to focus. We must look everywhere, look holistically at what's happening, and put the power and solarity in the hands of the people affected to resist that violence. That's all I have to say. As usual, all powers, all people peace.