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nigeria
Trump's Reckless War Drums in Nigeria Stink of Islamophobia and Imperial Arrogance
For the sake of Nigerian lives and the American soul, we must not allow Trump to drag America into a quagmire of his own making.
Nov 07, 2025
In yet another display of the same divisive rhetoric that defined his first term, US President Donald Trump has once again pulled the United States into the crosshairs of global instability, this time by saber rattling over Nigeria’s complex ethnic and religious conflict. Trump not only threatened to slash US aid, but he also said he might order “fast and vicious” military strikes against what he calls “Islamic terrorists” slaughtering Christians. Aside from the fact that Trump is wrong, he is ranting xenophobic ideas, platforming American exceptionalism, and demonstrating a blatant disregard for the lives of millions caught in the cross fire of what is simply a resource war with colonial-era grudges.
Let’s be clear: The violence taking place today in Nigeria is heartbreaking and must end. Boko Haram’s extremism, clashes between farmers and herders, and general hooliganism have claimed over 20,000 civilian lives since 2020. It is true that Christian communities in the north-central regions have suffered unimaginable horrors as raids have left villages in ashes, children murdered in their beds, and churches reduced to rubble. The April massacre in Zike and the June bloodbath in Yelwata are prime examples of the atrocities taking place in Nigeria. These incidents are grave reminders that the international community must pay more attention to this crisis.
But Trump’s response is crude and wrong. Painting all Muslims as genocidal monsters is not the answer. Calling Nigeria a failed state ripe for American liberation is not the solution, especially since the data shows otherwise. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, more Muslims than Christians have been targeted in recent years. Boko Haram has massacred worshipers in mosques, torched markets in Muslim-majority areas, and threatened their own co-religionists.
The crisis in Nigeria is not a holy war against Christianity. Instead, it’s a devastating cocktail of poverty, climate-driven land disputes, and radical ideologies that prey on everyone and not just any distinct group. By framing Nigeria’s conflict as an existential threat to Christians alone, Trump is not shining a spotlight on the victims. Instead, he is weaponizing right-wing conspiracy theories to stoke Islamophobia, the same toxic playbook he used to fuel his ban on Muslims, and which left refugee families shattered at America’s borders.
Americans must reject Trump’s imperial fantasy and instead demand congressional oversight on any military action.
Nigeria’s leaders are right to be astonished and furious. Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga said he was “shocked” over Trump's invasion musings, while President Bola Tinubu decried the religious intolerance label as a distortion of their "national reality." Even opposition voices, like Labour Party spokesperson Ken Eluma Asogwa, admit the government's security lapses but reject Trump's extermination narrative as baseless fearmongering.
Trump should indeed be viewed as a warmonger, seeking every opportunity to sow discord and destruction in his wake. He sees every crisis as a photo op for his machismo and self-promotion. His first term was a disaster and now, in his second term, he wants to unleash drones and troops on Africa’s most populous nation, destabilizing a key partner in counterterrorism and migration management.
Unilateral strikes will only inflame the conflict’s root causes like resource scarcity and ethnic tensions. If anything, Trump’s misguided ideas to resolve the crisis will only exacerbate it by creating new waves of refugees and sowing even more discord throughout Nigeria. The country needs real solutions, not Trump’s wrong-headed conspiracy theories. He should be saving those who are vulnerable, not bombing them into submission.
A real solution would involve surging humanitarian aid to displaced families, partnering with the United Nations and African Union for joint security training, and pressuring Nigeria’s government through incentives, not threats. Real strength is in building bridges. Trump shows his weakness by building bunkers.
The Nigerian crisis is a clarion call for the world, but especially for America. Trump’s rhetoric is not just wrong; it is a betrayal of American values. Americans must reject Trump’s imperial fantasy and instead demand congressional oversight on any military action. America must recommit to a foreign policy that heals rather than divides. The world is watching, and for the sake of Nigerian lives and the American soul, we must not allow Trump to drag America into a quagmire of his own making. Nigeria deserves better.
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'Long-Overdue' Trial to Begin After Decades of Shell Polluting Nigeria
"The spills have terribly affected the Bille community," said one Nigerian plaintiff. "Our ecosystems are dead. Our livelihood depends on fishing."
Feb 10, 2025
After years of delay tactics, Shell is set to go on trial in London this week over claims that hundreds of spills caused by the fossil fuel giant have destroyed Nigerian communities and violated their residents' rights to a clean and healthy environment.
Critics say Shell has managed to avoid accountability for despoiling the environment in and around Bille and Ogale communities in the Niger Delta. Ten years ago, residents of these communities sued Shell, claiming inhabitants' livelihoods, homes, and environment had been devastated by Shell oil spills, which killed fish and vegetation and left thousands of people without access to clean drinking water.
As Bille and Ogale communities attempted to fight London-based Shell in U.K. courts, the company repeatedly delayed the case, claiming it was not legally liable for the pollution caused by its subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. However, in 2021 the U.K. Supreme Courtruled that the High Court should hear the case, and last December, the country's Court of Appeals allowed it to be heard.
"The Bille and Ogale communities of Nigeria's Niger Delta oil-producing region have been living with the devastating impact of oil pollution for so long," Amnesty International Nigeria director Isa Sanusi said in a statement Monday. "Oil companies, particularly Shell, exposed them to multiple oil spills that have done permanent damage to farmlands, waterways, and drinking water—leaving them unable to farm or fish."
Ten years ago, residents from the Bille and Ogale communities in Nigeria claimed their livelihoods had been destroyed by hundreds of oil spills caused by Shell. The pollution caused widespread devastation to the local environment and left thousands without access to clean drinking water.
— Amnesty International (@amnesty.org) February 10, 2025 at 4:00 AM
"Water contamination and other impacts affect even babies that are in some cases born with deformities," Sanusi added. "These communities have been deprived of a good standard of living. They deserve justice and effective remediation, and I hope this long-overdue trial goes someway to providing it."
In 2023, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled in a separate but related case that it was too late for Nigerian plaintiffs to sue a pair of Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 spill of an estimated 40,000 barrels of oil.
Amnesty International has called the Niger Delta "one of the most polluted places on Earth."
Accountability has been rare, but in 2021 Shell agreed to pay $111 million for oil spills in the Niger Delta. This, in a year in which the company reported adjusted 2020 earnings of nearly $5 billion.
Last December, Nigeria's Ministry of Petroleum Resources approved Shell's sale of $2.4 billion in offshore and shallow-water assets to Renaissance Group, a Nigerian firm, marking the end of nearly a century of Shell's operations in the African nation. The Nigerian government is also currently in talks with local communities about resuming oil production in Ogoniland, which has been devastated by spills over the past half-century.
Responding to the U.K. Court of Appeals' greenlighting of the case set to be heard later this week, Bille Chief Bennett Okpoki said in December that "this has taken a very long time as Shell has been delaying for around 10 years."
"The spills have terribly affected the Bille community," he continued. "Our ecosystems are dead. Our livelihood depends on fishing. After the oil spills, we have found it very difficult to survive and people are not finding it easy. We hope it continues, so we can have a final victory over Shell, at least for them to come and do the cleanup, to put us in the place we were before."
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In New African Protest Movements, the Youth Are Leading the Way
African youth, leveraging social media and operating without funding, have emerged as a powerful force for change, echoing the historical independence movements of the mid-20th century.
Dec 15, 2024
“Africa is Rising!”—or so the narrative goes. But the sun of economic growth does not shine on everyone. African youth face record-high unemployment, political underrepresentation, and limited access to resources. In 2024 alone, 19 African countries have held elections, yet young people—one-third of the continent’s population—remain largely excluded from leadership. So, it isn’t surprising that in this same year, African youth, mobilizing on digital platforms, have come out loud and clear against economic hardship and government inaction.
The first time we felt digital and social media mobilization in Kenya was in 2019 in the weeks leading up to the 2019 International Women’s Day. Feminists in Kenya planned and digitally mobilized nationwide protests against femicide to draw attention to the rising cases of femicide and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in the country that went with no arrests of the perpetrators or the government addressing the issue. The protests were mobilized on social media under the hashtag #EndFemicideKE/#TotalShutdownKE.
As seen in the #RejectFinanceBill protests in Kenya, the #FearlessOctober protests in Nigeria, and youth-led movements in Uganda and Mozambique, today’s youth are not merely reacting to the rising cost of living but are pushing for profound systemic change.
Between August and October, the Kenya National Police Service reported 97 cases of femicide. The real numbers must be higher since some of the cases don’t get reported to authorities. During the 16 Days of Activism 2024, Kenyans across the country held forums to highlight the femicide issue. This culminated in nationwide protests held across the country on the International Human Rights Day 2024, calling on the president to declare femicide a national disaster. As usual the peaceful protests were met by police brutality, with the police teargassing innocent protestors.
This social youth-led movement, started by Gen Z protesters in Kenya in June, has now spread to Uganda, Nigeria, and Mozambique. Waves of young people are rising to challenge electoral malpractices, bad governance, corruption, and tax hikes. African youth, leveraging social media and operating without funding, have thus emerged as a powerful force for change, echoing the historical independence movements of the mid-20th century. With the majority of the protests driven by men and women under 30, there’s significant potential to create long-lasting momentum for good governance, economic justice, an end to corruption, and better electoral management.
#RejectFinanceBill2024 in Kenya
The weeks leading up to the first physical #RejectFinanceBill2024 protests in Kenya on June 18 and 19 were dominated by general discontent with proposed taxes on basic commodities like sanitary products, cooking oil, and bread. Social media platforms were abuzz with calls of “enough is enough” as platform users explained how much the bill would drive up the cost of living for most average citizens. The general feeling was “we need to do something” about this bill before life got much more difficult than it already was.
Within days, users had circulated a date, venue, and dress code on social media and were downloading the Zello walkie-talkie app en masse. What followed next was historic as young Kenyans in all parts of the country took to the streets to protest the Finance Bill in what became known as the #RejectFinanceBill2024 and #OccupyParliament protests.
Uganda, Nigeria, and Mozambique: Social Media and Youth
Following Kenya’s example, anti-corruption protests erupted in Uganda in July. Then August and October saw Nigeria’s #EndBadGovernance protests and #FearlessOctober protests against the cost-of-living crisis and bad governance. In Mozambique, citizens took massively to the streets to protest against electoral malpractices following the October 9 elections.
As in Kenya, all these protests have more in common than how violently they were dealt with: excessive police force, extra-judicial killings, abductions, torture, and hundreds of injuries.
The vast majority of protesters are young people, and social media played a pivotal role in getting them out on the street. It helped them facilitate real-time updates, coordinate demonstrations, counter misinformation, and obtain legal aid by crowdfunding for arrested activists. By circumventing traditional media, young activists exposed abuses and united communities, forcing authorities to confront this digitally-savvy and highly organized force.
Leaderless, Tribeless, Classless and Fearless
Historically, Kenyan politics has been divided along ethnic and tribal lines, with voting blocs often rallying behind leaders from their communities. The Gen Z movement, however, has broken this mold. Young activists have shifted the focus from ethnic loyalty to broader issues like equality, social justice, and government accountability.
Under the “tribeless, leaderless, party-less” tagline, the #RejectFinanceBill protests shunned traditional political affiliations and adopted a spontaneous, decentralized model. This approach gave the movement flexibility to adapt quickly to changing circumstances, such as evading police by frequently shifting protest sites. Without a clear hierarchy, the protests continued despite arrests, as authorities struggled to suppress an ever-evolving, leaderless movement.
The Kenyan protests took the government by surprise. Previously, youth complaints were confined to social media. Now, they were on the streets nationwide, transcending tribal and party lines. The government’s response was violent, resulting in dozens of deaths and abductions. Even today, police isolate and kidnap perceived protest leaders, many of whom end up dead or traumatized from their experiences. The Kenya Police Service has however denied this.
Rejecting Savior Politics
Africa’s political history is marked by leaders who position themselves as “saviors” promising utopia while failing to build sustainable systems. This narrative has bred disillusionment as youth recognize the need for systemic change, not just individual leaders. Gen Z activists across Africa are increasingly demanding transparency and accountability, emphasizing structures that outlast personalities and prevent corruption.
This year’s protests also signal another shift: African youth are questioning whether their leaders’ personal politics align with the principles of justice, equality, and inclusion. This younger generation is looking beyond mere representation to evaluate leaders on their stance against patriarchy, homophobia, and tribalism. Are they committed to redressing historical injustices and fighting systemic oppression? Activists believe these questions should determine the support any leader receives.
The Future of Youth-Led Activism in Africa
With the majority of activists under 30, Africa’s Gen Z is set to reshape the political landscape. Supporting these young Africans, rather than depending on traditional “savior” figures, is essential. Leaderless, decentralized movements have proven to be effective at disrupting the status quo.
As seen in the #RejectFinanceBill protests in Kenya, the #FearlessOctober protests in Nigeria, and youth-led movements in Uganda and Mozambique, today’s youth are not merely reacting to the rising cost of living but are pushing for profound systemic change. By combining digital activism with physical presence on the streets, African youth are demonstrating their commitment to a transformed and empowered continent and broader systemic change.
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