The Thunderbolt We Refused to Heed
In 2014, the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) went pleading to the American Government to designate Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern,” seeking international sympathy to stop the unchecked carnage then spreading across the land.
Baraje, a strong party loyalist, later confessed that Islamic militias were imported to help the APC win the 2015 election.
Buba Galadima, a close associate of Muhammadu Buhari, told the world that their choice of Buhari before the 2015 election was to stop the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) from reclaiming Ilorin from Fulani control.
The intelligence on Islamic terrorism was clear; the gory images pouring out of Nigeria were traumatizing the world.
Buhari’s emergence was expected to end that trauma.
Bad as it was, the Muslim/Christian presidential ticket of Buhari/Osinbajo at least offered a symbolic religious balance; but in practice, nothing was truly balanced.
Tinubu and Shettima, in defiance of national sensitivity, advanced the long-standing agenda of an Islamic political hegemony with their Muslim–Muslim presidential ticket and carried on as if it were no big deal.
Our cup of folly is full
In pursuance, politics became policy; power, not principle, guided every decision.
In hindside, a similar debacle of same faith presidential ticket was truncated after 1993 election with attendant unpleasantries.
Curiously, the insidious wranglings that crippled the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was laid bare in the political arena but was jeered and called politics.
The political class went into a frenzy in celebrating the author of insensitively unbalanced presidential ticket as a so-called “god of politics” from Lagos, collapsing the democratic ethics of balance.
They pledged, before the world’s witness, to stand on Bola’s ‘mandate’ rather than uphold the stipulations of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Through it all, the oldest democracy in the world — the United States of America — was watching.
And when our cup of folly was full, President Donald Trump thundered that America would no longer watch the desecration of the democratic ideals bequeathed to the world by its founding fathers.
Trump announced Nigeria’s redesignation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for persecution of Christians.
That initial action has now been followed by a more severe warning: the U.S. will “stop all aid and assistance” and send “guns-a-blazing” into our land if the killings continue.
This is no idle rhetoric.
It is a real diplomatic lightning bolt — one we invited by tolerating the decay of our institutions, the collapse of our security architecture, and the betrayal of our highest responsibilities.
A Label, not a Sentence – But Still a Weighty Warning
Yes, the CPC designation is not the end of Nigeria’s story. But it is a grave alarm.
President Trump’s latest warning is unmistakable:
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance… and may very well go into that now disgraced country, “guns-a-blazing,” to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
This is not just about America — it is about the world’s moral judgment on Nigeria.
If we do not act, we risk being defined by our failures rather than by our potential. Shall we continue to let our national identity be stolen by silence, subversion, and neglect?
The Real Crisis Is Ours, Not Theirs
We must own the truth: the concern is not America’s criticism of Nigeria, but Nigeria’s obligation to itself.
We watched villages burn, Christians including Muslims slaughtered, and faith communities terrorized.
Leaders called on survivors for calm instead of justice and issued condolence messages rather than arrests and prosecution of culprits.
We turned our security agencies into protectors of power, not people. We replaced reform with propaganda, and substance with spin.
Terrorists are only one part of the equation; the greater evil is the system that sustains them.
Until we dismantle the structures of impunity and discrimination, the killings will continue, and our nation will keep exporting shame while importing sanctions.
What President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Must Do Now
President Tinubu must rise above defensiveness and act decisively. The world may judge but Nigeria must perform. Four urgent imperatives stand before the president:
Protect Every Citizen Equally: Show that no life is disposable because of tribe, creed or region.
Reform Security Institutions: Re-engineer the security architecture to protect citizens, not preserve power.
Redesign Diplomacy: Let our embassies project truth and progress, not excuses. Diplomacy begins at home.
Institute a Truth and Justice Incentive Framework: Revisit every unresolved act of sectarian violence and deliver both justice and restitution; and, eschew selective rehabilitation of culprits over survivors.
Tinubu’s moment is now. The “guns-a-blazing” warning is not bravado.
It signals that time is of the essence and not just short, and the world’s patience is thin and at snapping point.
A Prophetic Moment, A National Choice
When God told Samuel, “Behold the man … this same shall reign over My people” (1 Samuel 9:17), it marked a convergence of divine timing and human responsibility.
Nigeria now stands at such a prophetic crossroads.
Heaven has prepared vessels for renewal, but they can only emerge when the Church repents of the deceit and corruption that have enthroned chaos.
The CPC redesignation is a mirror held to our face.
We can either smash that mirror in denial — or wash the face and begin again.
The Church and civil society cannot remain spectators while the nation’s soul bleeds.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and its operational organs including constituents must move from reactive and perverse press statements to rehabilitative strategies — engaging policy, law, and diplomacy with unity and clarity.
Civil society must reclaim its prophetic voice from partisan trenches and speak truth to both altar and throne.
This is not a partisan battle — it is a moral war for the conscience of a nation.
A Call to Conscience
CPC is not America’s curse, it is Nigeria’s chance.
A chance to reform governance, reclaim our humanity, and restore dignity before the nations.
We must stop exporting denial and start exporting dignity.
We must stop hiding behind tribal sentiment, partisan rhetoric, and institutional excuses.
The world’s concern will fade the day Nigeria rediscovers her conviction.
The day we do what we say we believe: uphold justice, transparency, religious freedom, and the rule of law.
When that day comes, we will no longer be a “Country of Particular Concern” but a Country of Particular Courage — one that faced its failures and found its future again.
In Service to God and Country, Citizen Bolaji O. Akinyemi, Apostle & Nation Builder; Convener, Apostolic Round Table.
