By Jude Chijioke Ndukwe
It is never difficult to see the hand of Esau in the report by The New York Times under the headline, “The Screwdriver Salesman Behind Trump’s Airstrikes in Nigeria” purportedly filed in by one Ruth Maclean.
The mocking description of Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi as a “short man” and the repeated mention of “Onitsha”, a leading commercial town in southeast Nigeria, a region with arguably the highest population and concentration of Christians in the country, in the report send all the signal needed to conclude that the report was not about facts, nor about love for Nigeria, but all about labelling a man and the ethnic group he belongs just to keep promoting a dangerous narrative mischievously and maliciously skewed against the Igbo ethnic stock of Nigeria.
It is also suspect that the same report has been generously and gleefully shared by some local media outlets despite its many flaws and glaring disinformation. These outlets that hardly share reports on Nigeria by foreign media houses have suddenly woken up to share this particular one with so much enthusiasm. “The agenda,” like we say in local parlance, “is truly agendaing.”
The same set of people who accuse Donald Trump of interfering in the internal affairs of Nigeria by deploying airstrikes against terrorists in the country have suddenly embraced The New York Times’ deliberate attempt at grand falsehood against Nigeria just because it suits their aim to pitch the rest of the country against the Igbo.
Such hypocrisy!
For clarity, incidents that led Nigeria being designated a Country of Particular Concern and subsequent follow up with airstrikes by the US started with the lackadaisical attitude government officials approached its fight against terrorism, often refusing to prosecute terrorists arrested but kept granting them pardon and entering into dubious peace deals with them to the angst and frustration of Nigerians.
These actions left victims of terrorism traumatised without any hope of justice and healing. They felt helpless and betrayed by their own government as they watched in despondency and indignation how, day after day, those who mindlessly killed their people, raped their women, hacked their children, including unborn babies, to death right before them, sacked them from their ancestral lands, desecrated and burnt their places of worship, were being handsomely rewarded by government officials at different levels instead of prosecuting them.
They watched in hopelessness, how terrorism kingpins turned billionaires from government “peace deals” while victims wallowed in penury in IDP camps where mass graves serve as a reminder of mass murders and an enduring grave injustice. Worse still is the indecent displays of money from such “peace deals” in the social media by the terrorists, thereby rubbing salt to the injury of their victims.
Left with no option, those directly in the line of fire decided to take their destinies in their own hands. They bypassed a lame and toothless government that seemed more interested in photo ops with terrorists than dealing decisively with them. They took the matter to the US Congress for help before they would be finally exterminated.
Among the first was the Catholic Bishop of Makurdi, Most Rev. Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe, who as far back as July 18, 2023, took his advocacy against “Christian genocide” in Nigeria to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, saying among other things that, “The inaction and silence about our plight by both the [Nigerian] government and powerful stakeholders all over the world prompts me to often conclude that there is a conspiracy of silence and a strong desire to just watch the Islamists get away with genocide in Benue State and other parts of Nigeria.”
On February 14, 2024, The US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa held a hearing titled “The Future of Freedom in Nigeria”. Among those whose statements and testimony featured in the hearing were Bishop Wilfred Anagbe, Ebenezer Obadare, Oge Onubogu, and Kola Alapinni. From these names, one can easily see that the fight against terrorism and the campaign against “Christian genocide” in Nigeria in the international community transcend ethnicity.
A week before that, the U.S. Congress Members had already “voted to move forward with H. Res. 82, a House resolution calling for greater U.S. action in response to the religious freedom crisis in Nigeria. The House resolution…calls on the U.S. Secretary of State to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) on their list of worst religious freedom offenders for ‘engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom,’” while also highlighting religious prisoners of conscience and the egregious blasphemy laws in Nigeria.
This was in February 2024, long before Trump became President, long before the Tales by Moonlight story of “screwdrivers and airstrikes” peddled today by shameless merchants of conflicts whose “god is their belly”.
In March 2025, Bishop Anagbe continued his advocacy for the defence of his flock and their rescue from marauding terrorists to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs (Africa Subcommittee) where he once again gave a gory detail of acts of terrorism unleashed on his people without help from government.
Following all these was the intervention of the fearless Rev Ezekiel Dachomo of Plateau State who joined in calling for an end to the killing of Christians through advocacy to the international community. He used his social media pages to highlight cases of mass murders and mass graves of his flock and other Christians killed on the Plateau, while openly calling for US intervention in the country.
We cannot forget Frank Utoo’s poignant and ceaseless advocacy and factual narratives about the killing of Christians in Nigeria, saying on the rooftops what many speak in hushed tones. He is from Yelwata, one of the worst-hit places in Benue State. And so many local and international advocates who have been calling for the intervention of the US in Nigeria’s sorry situation.
If that PR stunt by The New York Times was meant to cover up the ugly security situation in Nigeria and blame the US airstrike on Umeagbalasi, and by extension, his Igbo ethnic stock, then the mission failed abysmally. It rather presented the Nigerian government as purveyors of deceit and merchants of mischief because the same Nigerian government had earlier confirmed to the world that it (and not Umeagbalasi) provided the intelligence upon which the US acted and struck Sokoto with so much fury that sent terrorists scampering to hell like they have never done before. The Nigerian government also confirmed that the airstrike was a joint operation with the US.
The New York Times PR stunt backfired big time and those associated with it are now panting in frustration like dogs that just escaped the jaws of hyenas by the whiskers.
Let me end this piece by making it clear that anyone who gets riled that terrorists are being eliminated in Nigeria, whether by the US or by our local gallant troops, is also a terrorist or a terrorism enabler. Such people should be treated as criminal conspirators in the fight against terrorism.
Meanwhile, Mr Emeka Umeagbalasi, the noble screwdriver salesman from the East, the “short man” who towered above the “Giant of Africa” to reach Trump, the man in Onitsha who moved the hands of Trump in Washington, should celebrate his greater rise to global stardom and the unintended decoration of honours inadvertently bestowed upon him by those who sought to lead him to the guillotine.
Terrorists, their enablers and spin doctors, should learn a very important lesson from Umeagbalasi, that no matter your height and profession, “godliness with contentment is great gain.”
Jude Chijioke Ndukwe sent this piece from Abuja
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