THE BLAME GAME HAS BEGUN: HOW A NATION IS TRYING TO MAKE IGBOS THE FALL GUY FOR AMERICAS “CPC” DESIGNATION OF NIGERIA.
The headlines are back and the scapegoat is familiar. Suddenly, Trump has re-designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, airstrikes have landed in Sokoto, Washington has reactivated its interest in our security architecture, and like clockwork a section of the commentariat has begun whispering the same tired accusation: it is the Igbo. It is Biafra. They lobbied America against the system.
This is the great Nigerian art of blame shifting. When the world finally asks why bodies are piling up in Benue, why Catholic priests are being abducted in Kaduna, why churches are being burned in Plateau, and why entire Christian communities are being displaced by men on motorcycles in Sokoto and Zamfara, the political reflex is not to ask how we got here. The reflex is to find a convenient internal enemy and dump everything on them. Historical laziness masquerading as analysis.
Let us be clear. If there was a Biafra lobby shining torches in Washington, it has not been active in years. The lobby that has been shaping Western discourse recently is not Eastern. It is Middle Belt Catholic and Northern Christian. It is the burnt churches of Southern Kaduna, the mass graves of Benue, the terrorised villages of Plateau, and the community displacement in Sokoto. The documentary evidence sits in the open. The testimonies from bishops, priests, missionaries, NGOs, and civil society have been in congressional hearings, UN reports, and Western think tank memos for more than a decade.
The US did not drop bombs in Ihiagwa, Enugu, Abiriba or Nkwerre. The drones struck ISIS linked camps in Sokoto. The casualty map that triggered a decade of Western pressure runs from Borno to Yobe to Southern Kaduna to Benue to Plateau to Niger to Zamfara to Katsina. No serious analyst puts Onitsha or Aba or Owerri at the center of the American religious freedom file. The geography alone exposes the fraud in the narrative being pushed by those who are eternally committed to blaming the same tribe for everything wrong with Nigeria.
So why the sudden resurrection of the Biafra card. It is very simple. Once America turns the light on Nigeria, the Nigerian political class hates to look in the mirror. So they turn the mirror outward and say someone tattled. Instead of asking why the world keeps reporting our massacres, we ask who reported the massacres. Instead of asking why priests are being killed, we ask who complained about it. Instead of asking why terrorists are flourishing, we ask who carried the story to Washington.
This is how nations collapse. Accountability becomes ethnic treason. Truth becomes sabotage. And those who warn become the enemy of the state while those who kill become invisible.
There is also a strategic angle that people are pretending not to understand. Trump did not re-designate Nigeria and deploy drones because of some diaspora Facebook activist shouting Biafra in Boston. Washington has geopolitical interests in Nigeria. Nigeria is the demographic anchor of West Africa, the energy hinge of the Gulf of Guinea, the mineral door to the future, and the battlefield where America, Russia and China are quietly contesting influence as the Sahel burns. It is a chessboard for counter terrorism, maritime security, shipping routes and strategic minerals. The Christian persecution narrative is the moral wrapper around a much bigger geopolitical reality.
Nobody in Washington will waste Reaper missiles on behalf of a pressure group that no longer commands serious bandwidth. America moves only for interests. The Christian narrative activates domestic Evangelical and Catholic passions at home. The terrorism narrative satisfies Pentagon doctrine. The CPC designation builds leverage over Abuja. The drones satisfy the strategic community. Only Nigerians would believe that a superpower just moved because a few Igbos whispered into some corridor in DC.
Let us also be frank. This attempt to place the burden of global pressure on the Igbo is not about Biafra. It is about maintaining the Nigerian habit of turning Igbos into the national sponge that absorbs all failures. When the economy collapses, blame the traders. When political equity is demanded, blame the agitators. When the world complains, blame the lobbyists. When terrorists burn churches and foreign governments respond, blame Biafra. Soon, they will blame the Igbo for climate change.
The people pushing this line know the truth. They have seen the casualty charts from Benue. They have seen the videos from Plateau. They have read the communiques from the Catholic Bishops Conference. They have seen the displacement data in Southern Kaduna. They have read the UN Human Rights reports. They have seen the testimonies of missionaries who fled the North West. They know who the victims are. They know that the Eastern region was not the epicenter of the crisis that pulled America back into our orbit.
So here is the uncomfortable truth that Nigerians must face. The CPC designation did not disgrace Nigeria because of any tribe. It disgraced Nigeria because Nigeria is failing to protect its citizens. It disgraced Nigeria because terrorists and bandits operate with impunity. It disgraced Nigeria because religious cleansing has gone unpunished. It disgraced Nigeria because the world finally ran out of excuses for us.
Until Nigeria confronts the root of its security failure, it will look for new enemies at home to blame for every external embarrassment. Today it is Igbos. Tomorrow it will be Middle Belters. The day after it will be Southern Catholics. The cycle will continue because the alternative is to ask hard questions about leadership, governance, impunity and state capture.
We can try to rewrite the narrative and pin this on a non existent lobby. But drones have no tribal bias. Reaper missiles do not check ethnic census before they strike. International law does not scan Nigeria for domestic scapegoats. America did not bomb Sokoto because of a rumor in Abuja or a whisper in Houston. America bombed Sokoto because the Sahel is collapsing, ISIS is expanding, churches are burning, priests are being abducted, villages are being displaced, and Nigeria is still debating what to call bandits.
The sooner we accept this, the sooner we stop scapegoating and start governing.
By Hon. Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
Duruebube Uzii na Abosi
www.oblongmedia.net
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