Andy Ezeani
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Nigeria is always in denial. Deliberately. The ruling elite, especially the elements around the corridors of power at any point in time, do this to mislead the rest of the society.
Unfortunately, the majority among the generality of Nigerians play the same game on themselves,too. They equally delude themselves about the reality of their country, manifesting a predilection to clutch on to a notion of what ought to be as what is.
Take the matter of sovereignty, for instance. The core elements on which the sovereignty of a nation is anchored have grossly been eroded in Nigeria. The people are, ordinarily, the ultimate sovereign.
In practice, the citizenry cedes authority to their representatives through the mechanism of democratic election. Now, even that power for the people to choose who they prefer to wield the sovereignty is consistently denied them through sham elections.
As it appears, however,having been dispossessed and disempowered of most of their rights, the citizens now express their discontent by detaching themselves from patriotic attachment to country.
If, for instance, a foreign entity launches an attack on their country, a development that ought to rouse intense patriotic reaction from citizens, the most likely response of the ordinary Nigerians will be, “serves them right”. It is “them,” not “us.”
The Nigerian does not appear to know, any more, whose country Nigeria is. In truth, there seems to be those who own the country.
The bombing of a terrorist hold in Sokoto, Northwest Nigeria, by the United States of America’s military, on December 25,2025, has brought to sharp relief, once more, the bifurcated citizenry in Nigeria.
Indictment of a government for abdication of its primary responsibility at home does not get weightier than the situation where citizens hail a foreign leader for invading their land to save them from a present danger.
Officials of the Nigerian government were merely entertaining themselves when they embarked on the task of telling whoever wanted to hear that President Donald Trump directed the military strike in Sokoto with the approval of President Bola Tinubu.
As always, the officials failed to appreciate that Nigeria’s security situation is too precarious at the moment for such feel-good theatrics.Something very serious is at hand.
The attempt by government officials to spin the yarn that Tinubu gave a go-ahead for Trump to go where he had already arrived is, at best, comical. That granting approval slant of their line was irrelevant.
The reality is that from America, Trump was able to do in Nigeria what Tinubu has failed to do. Giving a nod for a foreign leader to bomb a location in your domain is not part of the job schedule of any Commander-in-Chief.
Immediately the U.S military struck Sokoto, Trump characteristically took to his X handle to inform the world that he acted as the Commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces, that he directed the US military to act in Nigeria.
He also gushed about the reach and heroism of his troop. Then he satisfactorily wished the scums that were obliterated in Sokoto a happy Christmas. Trump said he did what he had warned that he would do.
Except that he did not and possibly could not have given the exact number of the decimated terrorists, Trump was clear about every aspect of his communication.
The strike was so successful that no trace of casualties was left, at least immediately after the incident. It was clinical.
Somehow, however, the US President did not refer to a collaboration with the Nigerian government, or for that matter, of any approval he got from the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces before he acted.
That dimension of the account only came from the Nigerian side in their narrative. That makes the slant appear like an image-boosting trip.
If two sovereign states are collaborating to fight a confirmed evil, it will be taken as given that mutual approval and understanding of their shared objective will exist.
If asserting that Tinubu granted a nod to Trump to act makes the Tinubu government feel good, so let it be. That does not, howver, answer the critical questions.
In any case, the difference in the decisiveness of the two commanders-in-chief is very glaring.
The distinctive issue is that one commander-in-chief has left a problem in his domain to fester to the point of consuming his entire land.
The other commander-in-chief stepped in to take the bull by the horn, coming a long distance to act. So, why should a commander-in-chief at home wait to give a nod to a foreign commander-in-chief to come in and clear a mess in his territory?
Instructively, while the officials of the Tinubu government were busy with the hollow spin that the Sokoto strike by Trump was a collaborative endeavour with Nigeria, they have not offered any definite detail of the incident.
Why was the location in Sokoto struck? How long has that terrorist resort existed? Who were the scums decimated in the place? Were they Nigerians or foreigners?
The latter question touches a defining tragedy of Nigeria. Here is a country that can not confidently say who her citizens are.The National Identity Number is accessible to virtually all persons from across West Africa, up to the Sahel and beyond.
The Nigerian passport can be procured by any black person from any part of the world. Literally, the definition of a Nigerian today is anyone found within the geographical location called Nigeria. And that hardly bothers the government.
In effect, there is no way to confirm the nationality of the thousands of killers that amass in parts of Nigeria, on a regular basis, a small number of whom Trump obliterated on December 25,2025.
While Nigerians are under the yoke of these scourges, the Tinubu government is preoccupied with permutations for retaining power in 2027.
So, what does sovereignty mean to a people whose very survival and sanity are secured, not by their government at home, but by the intervention of a foreign power?
Does the concept of sovereignty exist in isolation or irrespective of the fundamental needs and fate of the citizens?
Trump’s welcome strike at terrorists in Nigeria, the first of what Nigerians are expecting to be a series of security- restoring actions have raised numerous questions about leadership and governance in Nigeria. Unfortunately, Nigerians understand their predicament enough not to expect any clarity on the issues.
A few years back, mid way into the second term of Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency, Nigeria purchased no less than 12 Super Tucano jets.The jets were introduced as very sophisticated, with superior capabilities.
Coming at a princely cost of over $320 million, the jets were said to hold out a tough time for terrorists. The promise of the Super Tucanos ended where they were made.
Those jets could not be put to use to do what Donald Trump has done for Nigeria. It is simply sad that the major role of the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces in the context of the latest combat of terrorism in Nigeria is limited to his being aware of the decisive housekeeping job initiated for his domain by another commander-in-chief from elsewhere.
Mr. Trump is, without doubt, a conflicted personality, with his own political challenges back home in America. It is not easy to properly situate his ideology or policies on race and history. Even at that, many Nigerians are presently indebted to him for bringing a modicum of security to their land, whatever propels his action. God does work in mysterious ways.
