President Trump’s statement over the weekend declaring that the United States has “largely ended the slaughter of great Christian populations” in Nigeria is alarming. It is dangerous. And it is patently false.
The strikes were real. Credit where it’s due — no president before Trump hit Nigeria’s jihadists at all. The Christmas Day strike on Sokoto and the May 16 strike that killed the world’s number-two ISIS commander were real blows.
But the group doing most of the genocidal killing was never touched.
The Fulani militias — the armed networks that have burned more than 20,000 churches, slaughtered families in the night, and driven twelve million people from their ancestral land — have not been struck. They are forces operating under the protection of the Caliphate structure, loyal to the same ruling elite that has been running this jihad since 1804. They are fully intact, still in the field. And by every visible measure, the situation has not improved — it has gotten worse.
Not just the killing. The government deception. The incompetence, corruption and complicity. The government that denies the existence of millions of displaced people. The Islamic supremacist now rewriting the national school curriculum for fifty million children in what he calls “intellectual jihad.” The Fulani militia commanders who have never faced a courtroom, a drone, or a consequence of any kind.
Now look at the timing.
A ginned-up diaspora “gala” in Washington last week — days before Trump’s disturbing pivot — became a de-facto Tinubu campaign rally. His people worked the room, the “cooperation” between the US and Nigerian governments was celebrated. Contrary voices were silenced. People wined and dined and gave each other awards to celebrate who-knows-what in the middle of an ongoing genocide. Tinubu’s own spokesman was hailed as an “honored guest” and closed the evening at the microphone with an extended infomercial for the corrupt administration.
Days later, President Trump announced the genocide is largely over.
That is not a coincidence. That is a play.
Tinubu just learned he faces no backlash for backing off. Trump learned that the self-appointed voice of the diaspora celebrates his partnership with Tinubu and their “accomplishments.” That is a green light — the movement strategically silenced at the exact time to ensure Washington filed Nigeria under “problem solved.”
It worked. And if it sticks, the results will be catastrophic.
I believe there is still hope to bring this back into the spotlight, to compel Trump to act, but there’s not much time.
Look at what moved Trump the first time: In September, Bill Maher raised the issue of the Nigerian Christian Genocide on national television. Ted Cruz loudly made it a Senate matter. And then days later Trump threatened Country of Particular Concern designation.
Next, my October 14 press conference in Abuja generated billions of impressions and triggered an emergency Senate session. The resulting outcry moved the needle. Days later, Trump promised to come “guns-a-blazin.”
Now the voices have gone soft, become complicit, absorbed into DCI’s swamp — and immediately Trump talks as if he’s turning away.
These are not coincidences. It’s loud public outcry that forced the issue and compelled action.
We need that outcry again right now, louder than ever.
If President Trump has “accomplished” his mission in Nigeria, then his mission was never about stopping the genocide or saving Christians.
We know better. He can do better. But only if we get loud enough that he has to. Right now.
EarthShaker
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