FOREIGN INFLUENCER PROPAGANDA, AND THE DANGEROUS ROAD TO ANOTHER NIGERIAN WAR
By Ahmed Magem
Nigeria must be very careful.
Every generation has its own merchants of emotion. They do not always come with guns. Sometimes they come with microphones, foreign accents, religious language, selective tears, and dramatic slogans that sound like truth but are carefully designed to divide people, inflame anger, and push a nation toward disaster.
That is why Nigerians must pay attention to the kind of narratives being pushed by people like Mike Arnold.
This is not about denying the suffering of Christians. It is not about pretending that innocent people have not been killed, churches have not been attacked, villages have not been destroyed, or families have not been displaced. Any Nigerian with conscience knows that Christians have suffered terribly in different parts of the country.
But truth must never be replaced with propaganda.
The danger begins when a complex national security crisis is deliberately reduced to one simplistic religious story: “Muslims are killing Christians,” “Nigeria is conducting a Christian genocide,” “the state is backing jihad,” “the country must break,” and “foreign powers must intervene.”
That kind of language may excite angry people online, but in real life, it can burn a country down.
Nigeria’s crisis is not a cartoon. It is not one straight line of Muslims versus Christians. Boko Haram and ISWAP have killed Muslims, Christians, traditional rulers, imams, pastors, soldiers, women, children, farmers, travellers, aid workers and entire communities. In the North East especially, Muslim communities have also been among the worst victims of terrorism. To erase their suffering because it does not fit a preferred propaganda script is not justice. It is dishonesty.
Even Mike Arnold’s own published position on Biafra shows the dangerous emotional framing: Nigeria is described as a country “designed to fail,” while the crisis is framed around a “jihad-genocide machine.” He also urges people not to divide the “army” in the middle of war, while centering the conversation on religious warfare. That kind of language may sound spiritual to some, but politically, it is combustible.
This is how propaganda works.
It takes genuine pain and weaponizes it.
It takes real victims and turns them into political ammunition.
It takes the anger of grieving communities and redirects it toward collective hatred.
It tells one group: “You are the only victims.”
It tells another group: “You are the enemy.”
It tells outsiders: “Come and save us.”
And before people realise what has happened, neighbours who once traded together, schooled together, married each other, and protected each other begin to see themselves as enemies.
Nigeria has passed through this road before. We know where it leads. We know the graves it leaves behind.
The most dangerous propaganda is not the one that is entirely false. The most dangerous propaganda is the one that contains enough truth to attract wounded people, then mixes that truth with exaggeration, omission, religious manipulation, and political ambition.
Yes, Christians are being killed.
Yes, Muslims are being killed.
Yes, the Nigerian state has failed many communities.
Yes, security agencies have made terrible mistakes.
Yes, there are criminals, terrorists, extremists and ethnic militias who must be confronted.
But no, Nigeria must not allow foreign activists, ethnic entrepreneurs, religious opportunists, or online war merchants to rewrite our crisis into a simple script that prepares the ground for another civil conflict.
We must also ask hard questions.
Who benefits when Nigeria is presented abroad as a country where one religion is exterminating another?
Who benefits when Nigerians are encouraged to see each other as permanent enemies?
Who benefits when foreign intervention is marketed as salvation?
Who benefits when the pain of victims is used to push separatist, sectarian or geopolitical agendas?
Who benefits when the world is told that Nigeria is no longer a troubled country needing reform, justice and security, but a battlefield requiring external rescue?
These are not innocent narratives.
They are dangerous.
Once a conflict is framed as genocide, holy war, or civilizational war, compromise becomes betrayal. Dialogue becomes weakness. Peacebuilders become suspects. Moderates are insulted. And extremists on all sides become louder.
That is how societies collapse.
Nigerians must reject both denial and propaganda. We must not deny the killings. We must not deny the suffering of Christian communities. We must not deny the trauma of Muslim communities. We must not deny the failures of government. But we must also not allow anyone to manipulate our pain into a sectarian war.
The truth is this: Nigeria needs justice, not propaganda. Nigeria needs security, not sensationalism. Nigeria needs accountability, not foreign theatre. Nigeria needs healing, not imported narratives that deepen suspicion among citizens.
Those who genuinely care about victims should be demanding protection for all communities, prosecution of terrorists, compensation for displaced families, rebuilding of destroyed villages, reform of security institutions, and serious action against hate preaching and ethnic incitement.
But anyone who reduces Nigeria’s tragedy into a one-sided religious story is not helping us. They are pouring fuel on a country already surrounded by fire.
Mike Arnold and others like him must be watched carefully — not because every concern they raise is false, but because the framing is dangerous. It is the framing that turns pain into hatred. It is the framing that turns victims into weapons. It is the framing that prepares ordinary people psychologically for conflict.
Nigeria does not need another war.
We have buried enough people.
We have created enough widows.
We have produced enough orphans.
We have seen enough blood.
Let no foreign voice, no religious propagandist, no ethnic extremist, no political actor and no online influencer push us into another national tragedy.
We can tell the truth about killings without lying about the nature of the conflict.
We can defend Christians without demonising Muslims.
We can defend Muslims without dismissing Christian suffering.
We can condemn terrorism without turning Nigeria into a religious battlefield.
We can demand justice without calling for national suicide.
The duty of every responsible Nigerian today is to resist propaganda, protect truth, defend victims on all sides, and refuse every narrative that seeks to make war look inevitable.
Because once Nigeria burns, the people pushing these narratives from comfortable places abroad will not be the ones to die.
It will be ordinary Nigerians.
And that is why we must be wise.
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