By Lekan SOTE
(X:@lekansote1, lekansote.com)
Imagine a “Policeman of the World”. He would be doing more than Atlas, who Greek mythology claimed was condemned to holding the heavens on his shoulders for eternity, for leading the Titans in a war against the Olympians.
Though the Policeman of the World may not be steadying the heavens from falling, he would be imposing order and peace on this tumultuous world, protecting the weak from the rampaging strong, a role that the United Nations has clearly been assigned to perform.
That appears to be the role that America’s meddlesome President Donald Trump wants to play nowadays, as he threatened to come “gun-ablazing into Nigeria” that he lists among rogue states designated as “Country of Particular Concern”, for its inability (or unwillingness?) to contain “Islamic” terrorism, against Nigerian Christians.
But Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi said, “(The marauding) herdsmen… are hardly Muslims. They don’t pray; they smoke Indian hemp. And these Boko Haram people are not even educated in (Islamic) religion. I am telling you, they are agents, a creation of the Pentagon. In fact, they have been trying to cause commotion in Muslim majority states. But Nigeria is different, because we have Christians.”
These are interesting times. Off-kilter President Trump, who spurned disorder in his own country, vows to put order into another, admittedly disorderly, country. The irony is that some individuals, like Sheikh Gumi, allege that America is sponsoring some of the terrorist gangs that the American president wants to wipe off the face of the earth.
Despite President Trump’s unbelievably bad behaviour and wildly boisterous conduct, Nigerians must admit that way too much is wrong with the security system of their country, and that someone needs to call the attention of the government to this deplorable and dangerous condition.
Why would many Nigerian Presidents, who include two retired Generals and former military Heads of State, be unable to keep Nigerians safe and secure in their own country? As it has been said somewhere else, the lack of a political consensus among Nigeria’s political and military elite is the crux of the matter.
If there was a strategic security policy of the Nigerian elite political consensus, it appears that it is to use guns with taxpayers’ resources to protect the elite and secure their access to Nigeria’s commonwealth, while excluding frightened masses who cannot help themselves.
Someone claims that when you walk the streets of Maiduguri, the capital city of embattled and war-weary Borno State in the north-east corridor of Nigeria, you could literally be rubbing shoulders with insurgents and terrorists who are well known and accorded recognition and respect.
In any case, it was reported in a Nigerian newspaper that Nigeria’s maximum military despot, who ruled Nigeria with a tinge of sadism, once said that if there is “any insurgency that lasts for more than 24 hours, a government official has a hand in it!” Toor, as it might have been said in Hausa.
President Trump’s threat may just be the shot-in-the-arm that was needed for the Nigerian government and the heartless political and military elite to take their responsibility to provide a more iron-clad security for the people of Nigeria more seriously.
President Trump’s threat to unilaterally invade Nigeria and bump off Islamic terrorists may have compelled President Bola Tinubu to hold a meeting, which should have been held more regularly, with the military top brass, just a few days ago. There is no doubt that the “Trump Security Elixir” is fast-acting!
President Trump had said, “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it is going to be fast, vicious and swift.” Republican Senator Ted Cruz, possibly prodded by President Trump, is sponsoring a Nigeria Religious Act of 2025 that redesignates Nigeria’s Sharia law as blasphemy law.
That may offend the sensibilities of the Northern Nigerian political establishment that appears to have endorsed the use of the holy religion of Islam to cause violence and death among the peoples and communities of Northern Nigeria.
Among the sanctions that the Act proposes against public officers and religious leaders who may be promoting or tolerating violence against Christians and other minorities are visa bans to America, asset freezes, and financial restrictions. Senator Cruz promised to also “be very explicit about (Nigerian officials who are complicit in the acts)”.
No one should really be surprised that America is trying to play the role of global policeman, even though it is not exactly impartial in carrying out that role. Soon after the Second World War, America maintained military bases in Wiesbaden and other cities in Germany, possibly as a form of police force to ensure that the spirit of Nazi Germany would not rise again.
America and Britain also led the world, through the United Nations, in the peacekeeping efforts in the Congo Republic (after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in the early 1960s), Lebanon, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and other countries.
Nigeria also played the same role when it led the Economic Community of West African States to form the ECOWAS Monitoring Group, the multilateral ECOMOG force, in 1990, which was used for peacekeeping purposes in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau.
According to a former British Prime Minister, Robert Peel, the duty of the police is to prevent crime, keep the peace and uphold the law, but with the consent of the public, and with minimal use of force, to act impartially and, most importantly, not to usurp the duties and authority of the courts.”
Nigerians and their President must ensure that President Trump has no justification to invade Nigeria under any pretext. First, because such a move violates the principle of “par in parem non habet imperium,” Latin for “no authority between equals”. The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia established the sovereignty of every country.
Second, is that countries, like Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen that America “unilaterally invaded” in recent years, albeit under the guise of the United Nations, got even worse and are mainly regarded as failed states at the moment.
The same scenario is playing out against Ukraine in its war, which it will never win, against Russia. Like a hawk, President Trump is looking for ways of exploiting the Ukraine-Russian War to cream off the mineral resources of Ukraine for the benefit of the United States, and he is making no bones about it.
President Tinubu should act swiftly because many Nigerian Christians, other minorities and some Nigerians who feel marginalised within the Nigerian realm, are frightened that some jihadists may push down their doors to rape, maim and kill them.
He should call up the same courage that led him to adopt the drastic, but necessary, economic policies of removal of subsidy from petrol, electricity and foreign exchange, to address the uncomfortable and prolonged insecurity in the country.
In addition, he should have the humility to seek the counsel of Nigeria’s City Fathers — Generals Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Abubakar Abusalami, Theophilus Danjuma and former President Goodluck Jonathan — and send them out as emissaries to seek military assistance from other world leaders.
Finally, he should take swift, concise and comprehensive action against the terrorists, bandits and insurgents who attack both Christians and Muslims. The bloodshed is just too much.
