The Nigeria problem is multifarious, a country divided along tribe, religion, class, and colour (between bleached and dark skins). The people who live on the mainland have a greater stake in the massive Nigerian economy than the Odogwu’s on the Islands. There is fierce competition, corruption, and greed.
Nigerians do not trust their leaders.
Even among Christians, there are deep suspicions, just as the Igbos and Yorubas have watched over their shoulders since Biafra.
Shithole Christians
When last week Donald Trump threatened “to do things” to Nigeria, promising a “fast, vicious and sweet” invasion of Islamic extremists, I decided to wear my Nigerian Senator Agbada in solidarity with my ECOWAS big brothers.
Mr Trump described Nigeria as a “disgraced country”, regretting why the political leadership had superintended the massacre and near annihilation of Christians by Boko Haram.
In the books of the American Government, “Nigeria is a country of particular concern”, and more than the Americans, Ghana must be concerned, too.
Whatever their interest, and whatever American Exceptionalism means these days, if a rich country with a GDP of $30 trillion and a $56 trillion market capitalisation feels concerned about Christians in Nigeria, then Ghana must evaluate these two reasons: Christians in Ghana have more in common with Christians in Nigeria than with the Christians in America.
Second, Ghana is already managing a Nigerian problem on our soil, trying to break Nigerian criminal gangs behind internet fraud, armed robbery, prostitution, and drugs.
Ghana is not ready to absorb the huge exodus of Nigerians into our small country when war breaks in Kaduna or Jos.
Is President Donald Trump concerned about the safety of Christians in Nigeria, because he professes the Christian faith and enjoys the support of evangelicals, or is he convinced by the Holy Spirit to rescue a ‘shithole’ country?
The slave traders may have come in as missionaries and given us the Bible as some of their civilising props.
We have always had some suspicions that they had a different Bible, which made them rich, while ours merely taught us to build our faith in poverty and underdevelopment, to inherit a richer place after death.
The American Christian does not pray for never-ending hours for water and electricity.
In Nigeria and Ghana, we are fighting God in a war for basic needs. Trump need not bring us another war.
Denial and betrayal
Initially, Nigerian politicians played down or may have suppressed the news about the scale of Boko Haram’s destabilisation of the Christian community, and the actual human lives lost in the struggle.
Like the stages of grief, the Nigerian political class had denied the reports about the killings and had actually been angered by the persistence and campaigns of Christians for answers.
They began to bargain for some kind of compromise on the way forward, but soon went cold and relaxed on their security measures until the Christians really became depressed.
Finally, Donald Trump has brokered some acceptance with his threats.
What do the Christians in Nigeria look like? And why are Christian lives under threat by Islamic extremists in a country whose President is Muslim and his wife is a Christian and a Reverend Minister?
President Tinubu’s Vice President is also Muslim. Unlike Ghana, where Christian-Muslim marriages are unpopular, religion and faith do not seem to stand in the place of love in Nigeria, even though a Yoruba Muslim would rather marry a Yoruba Muslim than a Yoruba Christian.
Nigeria is a multi-tribal and multi-faith country, and generally, there is a lot more that unites Nigerians than divides them.
Like everywhere, suspicions always linger, sometimes brutally.
With a GDP of $568 billion and a huge population of 250 million, Nigeria should be able to stand if America cuts aid, as Trump has warned.
Like many African economies, corruption and graft have eaten away any prospect of Nigeria standing without American help. Nearly 46% of Nigerians are Christians, and churches spring up faster in street corners than ‘Mama Put’ eatery places.
Yet the Nigerian Christian is as corrupt as the kidnapper who kills for ransom.
Men of God fake miracles and literally sell Jesus under the banner of the prosperity gospel, to foot their extravagant lifestyles.
There are no Christians here. Trump may save his bullets.
Trump came late
Christians in Nigeria put their best foot forward during democratic elections, where rigging, manipulation, destruction and death become the gospel.
We have worked with the worrying arithmetic that the people we elect in Africa to lead us are not necessarily the products of honest debates and sincere arguments.
They represent the calculus with deep pockets and shiny shoes who have a way with numbers.
So while NEPA has refused to guarantee power supply, unemployment soars, and insecurity thrives in a country that devotes incalculable hours to praying in supersized auditoriums. Christians in America build factories and invest in technology.
Presently, the American Department of War may be assembling artillery and ammunition for the Nigerian Boko Haram onslaught. Unbeknownst to the Americans, they will be coming to a battlefield that is already active with wars fought yesteryears whose reverberations are felt today in every sphere of Nigerian life.
The unspoken history is that after it was discovered that the Igbos were behind the 1966 coup, the North and the South agreed to create the Nigerian NAIRA, which stands for ‘Never Allow Igbo Rule Again’, and the KOBO, ‘Kill Ojukwu Before Others’.
This may pass for a joke in every Nigerian pub, but it underlies the Nigerian problem.
Mr. Trump’s war came a little late. The sickness expired with the cure.
Tissues Of The Issues
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