The New York Times’ Fame To Infamy: A Journalism Disaster on the Nigeria “Genocide”
By Erasmus Ikhide
The New York Times’ recent report, “How a Screwdriver Salesman Helped Fuel U.S. Airstrikes in Nigeria,” published on January 18, 2026, is not just a failure of journalism; it is a calculated attempt to rewrite a decade of bloody history. By reducing the complex, harrowing reality of Christian genocide in Nigeria to the “misleading ideas” of a single shopkeeper in Onitsha, the Times has chosen to prioritize a divisive narrative over the corpses of thousands of victims.
The NYT attempts to delegitimize the Christmas Day 2025 airstrikes by claiming President Donald Trump acted solely on “unverified” data from Emeka Umeagbalasi. This is a barefaced charade, parading journalism. The New York Time’s story is based on its own prejudices and the colouring of its imagination while believing that everyone would be pigeon-holed with such foul and sullen propaganda.
The U.S. government’s decision to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) and subsequent military action was the result of years of mounting evidence. To suggest that Senator Ted Cruz, Rep. Riley Moore, and Rep. Chris Smith—veteran lawmakers with access to classified briefings—were “hoodwinked” by a tool salesman is an insult to the intelligence community. In fact, Rep. Riley Moore and others have personally visited regions like Benue State, where they witnessed the scorched-earth remains of Christian villages long before the 2025 strikes were ever authorized.
The New York Times article conveniently ignores the systemic failures and provocative policies of the previous administration that set the stage for this tragedy. For eight years, under President Muhammadu Buhari government, the Nigerian state was not a protector, but an enabler of displacement.
As I have argued in my previous works, most notably in my 2021 piece “Extolling Open Grazing in the 21st Century,” the presidency’s insistence on reviving archaic cattle grazing routes was an “aberration in modern societies” and a direct threat to the lives of agrarian communities. During that era, the official government line was a chilling ultimatum: Nigerians were told by presidential spokesmen, Femi Adesina to choose between their ancestral lands and their lives. This was not a policy of peace; it was a blueprint for land-grabbing and geographical hegemony.
The Times attempts to portray the conflict as a simple “misunderstanding” over resources, but they fail to account for the “occupation agenda” I exposed in “Buhari’s Obnoxious Open Grazing Routes.” By pushing for Cattle Colonies and Ruga, the administration essentially told the victims of the Middle Belt that their safety was conditional upon the surrender of their heritage.
To now suggest that the data on Christian genocide is “fallacious” is to ignore the 1.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Benue State alone—people I have consistently advocated for, whose only “crime” was refusing to give up their farms for open grazing. The NYT should be asking why these citizens are still in dehumanizing camps, rather than attacking those who finally brought their plight to the attention of the world stage.
The NYT now seeks to frame the response to this terror as an “attack on the Muslim North,” ignoring the fact that the Lakurawa group targeted in Sokoto is a recognized ISIS-affiliated terror cell that has terrorized both Christians and Muslims alike. By framing a counter-terrorism strike as a sectarian provocation, the NYT is the one “igniting crisis,” not the American missiles.
The most damning indictment of the current administration is not found in the pages of the New York Times, but in the ledgers of Washington lobbying firms. Recent reports have exposed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, through the Office of the National Security Adviser and private intermediaries, has committed a staggering $9 million to the DCI Group and other U.S.-based lobbyists. This “scandalous” expenditure, as described by opposition voices and civic leaders, is a masterclass in misplaced priorities. At a time when the Nigerian security architecture has effectively collapsed, leaving millions of citizens at the mercy of terrorists and bandits, the government is choosing to “outsource diplomacy” to foreign PR firms to launder its battered image.
Wouldn’t it have be more noble for NYT to start championing the stoppage of payment of $750,000 per month to foreign lobbyists and immediately rechannel these billions of Naira into fixing the domestic security gaps that necessitate such “image laundering” in the first place. President Tinubu’s administration should be advised to use these humongous sums to facilitate the safe return of the millions of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Benue, Plateau, and throughout the Middle Belt to their ancestral homes. Instead of paying foreigners to “explain” the protection of Christians and Muslims, the government should invest in the actual protection of these lives. No amount of expensive lobbying can substitute for the visceral reality of insecurity faced by Nigerians on the ground.
The administration must provide a clear account of why a private law firm, Aster Legal in Kaduna was used to facilitate this $9 million contract, bypassing traditional diplomatic and ministerial channels.
The New York Times may have its own agenda in framing the recent U.S. strikes as a sectarian crisis, but the Tinubu administration is equally guilty of playing a dangerous game of “transactional propaganda.” Nigeria’s prestige cannot be bought in Washington D.C.; it must be earned through the safety and prosperity of its citizens at home.
By that objectionable article of distraction, NYT simply confirmed what has become public awareness of its existence: an enfeebled and exhausted lapsed media empire unable to come to terms with modern practice. This is what happens when elite media outfit run out of the limits and limitations of its talent and endowments, become overwhelmed by current circumstances beyond it remit.
Here is the consuming tragedy of a dying newspaper like NYT trying to stay afloat by trading its perilous prestige for a seat at the table of division in the era of New Media. The NYT must be educated pointedly that the old order is gone, and that a new generation of savving and visionary journalism has taken a new deal on extant realities and facts in news reporting. By mocking the data of local activists and ignoring the physical evidence of genocide seen by U.S. lawmakers on the ground, they have become an accessory to the ongoing tragedy in Nigeria. The Christmas Day strikes were a late response to a decade of silence—a silence the New York Times is now trying to reinforce.
Erasmus Ikhide contributed this piece via: ikhideluckyerasmus@gmail.com
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