Trump makes u-turn over Nigeria’s Christian genocide, admits Muslims also being killed

*As Islam Channels UK hosts Ansar-Ud-Deen’s Missioner, The DEFENDER Nigeria’s CEO on ANALYSIS programme

*Why US airstrikes in Sokoto, Nigeria suffered public trust – Ahmad, Adefaka

By KEMI KASUMU

“When you fight a course that is collective course and fight it with insincerity, with unexplainable, indefensible and unclear tactics and approach, you would lose public trust. And once you lose public trust, there is nothing you can do especially when you have a government voted into office on the very ground of providing security which is the priority of our Constitution, so Nigerians just woke up to see a situation where you have our sovereignty surrendered to another country, which is the United States of America.”

For the first time since Christmas Day bombing in Sokoto that he claimed was done to destroy terrorists in protection of Christians only in Nigeria, United States of America’s President Donald Trump has shifted his focus on insecurity in Nigeria to now admitting that Muslims in the country are also being killed by the criminal groups.

Contrary to the reality on ground, the US President has consistently claimed that Christians are being targeted in attacks.

However, in an interview with New York Times, Trump admitted that not a single religion is being affected, but even at that, he claimed that Christians were the major victims.

“I think that Muslims are being killed also in Nigeria. But it’s mostly Christians,” New York Times quoted him to have said.

On the Christmas Day attack on terror targets in Nigeria, Trump said there could be more strikes by the U.S.

“I’d love to make it a one-time strike … But if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many-time strike,” Trump was quoted as saying.

When asked about his own Africa adviser having said that Islamic State and Boko Haram militants were killing more Muslims than Christians, Trump responded: “I think that Muslims are being killed also in Nigeria. But it’s mostly Christians.”

Trump, in late October, began warning that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in Nigeria and threatened to militarily intervene in the West African country over what he says is its failure to stop violence targeting Christian communities.

Trump had redesignated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern and accused the government of being weak to protect the lives of Christians. It is not clear whether the change of mind would now mean to review his widely condemned redesignation of the country in that order.

However, the Federal Government later sent a high-powered delegation to the US to highlight Nigeria’s security situation.

After the visit, top American officials also visited Nigeria to get first-hand accounts of the situation.

Discussing the military operations over a country it considers to be the most important in West Africa if not Africa, Islam Channels, an international news channel based in the United Kingdom, hosted two figures from Nigeria namely the Chief Missional of the Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria, Sheikh AbdulRahman Ahmad, and CEO/Editor-in-Chief of The DEFENDER Newspaper Nigeria, Prince Bashir Adefaka, on its interview programme called ANALYSIS led by Arfan Ali.

Baring his mind on the development, Sheikh Ahmad demanded an answer to know exactly why the airstrikes were carried out in the manner of which they were and why Sokoto knowing full well that that was not exactly the core area of the terrorism pandemic that was killing Nigerians who are more Muslims than people of other faiths.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH ISLAM CHANNELS INTERVIEW

Prince Bashir Adefaka, CEO/Editor-in-Chief, The DEFENDER Newspaper Nigeria, while giving his view on the Islam Channels United Kingdom’s ANALYSIS via Zoom on the US Christmas Day airstrikes in the country, said:

“Where I would like start is ‘Where did the airstrikes by the United States of America become a problem? Then the question then we would ask ourselves: ‘Do we have a problem at hand the problem of insurgency?’ Yes. Do we need to fight this pandemic ? Yes, we need to fight but how?

“When you fight a course that is collective course and fight it with insincerity, with unexplainable, indefensible and unclear tactics and approach, you would lose public trust. And once you lose public trust, there is nothing you can do especially when you have a government voted into office on the very ground of providing security which is the priority of our Constitution, so Nigerians just woke up to see a situation where you have our sovereignty surrendered to another country, which is the United States of America.

“Do we need to work with external powers? Yes we can. But on what ground? On the ground that our government announced to us, and even the announcement was after United States of America had announced, that ‘Yes this thing is without religion coloration and things like that. But United States of America made it clear that ‘I am here. I carried out that airstrikes for the Christians, to protect the Christians.’ That is where it became a problem and my life as Muslim started to be unsafe when the airstrikes had been said to be protection of Christians.

“But is it true? Do we have problem between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria? No. We don’t have. But when we have a government and our government is watching of of these things and it had left all explanations of what is happening to social media…”

Adefaka, when asked where America was getting its misinformation or information about genocide of Christians from since he said there is no problem between Muslims and Christians, said:

“Well, where they got their information or misinformation from, they are the persons to tell us. But from what we gathered, and what know, we have an organisation here in Nigeria called IPOB. They started this campaign, propaganda of Christian genocide a long time ago, and we also we were aware that Nnamdi was saying it on his Radio Biafra and social media platforms that they were in touch with with United States of America, with the Congress and that the Congress had been helping them to achieve them to achieve Biafra. And this organisation is an organisation that been declared as terrorist organisation by competent court in Nigeria. And when you have an organisation that is said to be terrorist, for them to achieve whatever they want to achieve, they would set the people against themselves and if you want to set people against themselves you can actually look at the direction of religion especially in a country where you need political will.

“You know, when you have politician in office and he’s considering the votes that he is going to lose he fights a Muslim that is doing wrong or fight a Christian that is doing wrong, you are thinking about politics, you are thinking about election, you are not thinking about governance, that is where you have this problem. Yes, this guy is behind the bar. He has been sentenced. But at the same time, the fact that United States of America agreed with him and we also have some Christian bodies in Nigeria who bought from this idea, this is the why. You would see that it was the reason they were jubilating.

Sheikh AbdulRahman Ahmad, on whether he thought the airstrikes was going to be the end of the problem, said:

“No, no, I don’t believe that is the end. Rather I just believe that’s the beginning. Of course, our experience from other part of the word, countries with America’s intervention teaches us the fact that we can only know the beginning of American intervention, we will probably not see the end. For instance e, we will not see the end.”

For instance, we want to ask, in the last question you were asking where does America get his intelligence of Christian genocide. We could rather ask many more Christians, where do America and its allies get their intelligence of Weapons of Mass Destruction? Where does America get its intelligence about the situation in Libya and the fact that it wants to protect democracy. How about other countries, how about Venezuela?

“America doesn’t need to get its intelligence from anywhere. It has its own intelligence and, sometime, history has shown us that in 95 percent of the cases, it is something else that is behind the appearance, reason for American intervene in any country. I don’t think it is the end but I think it is just the beginning.