Trump is quietly preparing to defend Nigerian Christians
Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
Every Nigeria observer has watched in frustration as the Iran war consumed Washington for six weeks. Because Trump had been moving — and the clock was running.
On October 31 of last year, the Trump administration designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern — the most serious religious freedom label the U.S. government issues. Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.V.) was tasked to investigate.
Congress introduced HR 7457 with sanctions language targeting complicit Nigerian officials by name. Christmas night: The USS Paul Ignatius struck jihadist camps in Sokoto State with Tomahawk missiles — the first U.S. strike on Nigerian soil.
The Nigerian government provided the coordinates — in the far north, nowhere near where the genocide is actually happening. Make of that what you will. Then Iran took Trump’s attention. And the killing in Nigeria accelerated.
From November through Palm Sunday, the body count was relentless — more than 400 kidnapped in November, miners slaughtered near Jos in December after specific advance warnings were publicly dismissed.
A New Year’s Eve massacre. Forty-two men tied up and killed at a market in January. More than 160 dead in Kwara State in February. More than 100 dead at Ngoshe in March — Nigerian soldiers retreated without firing a shot.
Then Palm Sunday: 53 Christians murdered across three attacks. Easter Sunday: 17 more killed before dawn in Benue State.
In response, Rep. Moore quoted his boss: “President Trump has been very clear that if the Nigerian government will not address this genocide, we will address it for them.”
The same week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) announced the U.S. is actively tracking Nigerian officials suspected of sponsoring terrorism.
Meanwhile Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s government has spent more than $10 million on Washington lobbyists — including Trump’s own former State Department adviser, now a registered foreign agent for Nigeria — to manage the narrative.
Tinubu seems to have concluded Washington is manageable and decided to wait out Trump’s term. He may have badly miscalculated.
Two hundred U.S. troops have been at Bauchi Airfield since February. MQ-9 Reaper drones were deployed in March. The USS Paul Ignatius is still in the Gulf of Guinea.
For two months, American eyes have been over northern Nigeria. We know where the terrorists are. Sen. Cruz says we know who funds them, and an Iran ceasefire could free up a president who doesn’t like to lose.
I’ve been saying for years that Nigeria is the epicenter of anti-American global forces — radical Islamists, Chinese mineral extraction, and deep-state protection rackets that have run cover for the killing from Washington for decades.
Trump’s recent mention of Nigeria tells me he already knows it too.
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