Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún
Over the past year, a talking point about Nigeria has gradually gained a foothold in U.S. right-wing media. It spread even to relatively liberal spaces such as Real Time With Bill Maher, and has now become an official government policy. On Oct. 31, U.S. President Donald Trump instructed his cabinet to put the country in the category of “country of particular concern” and, if necessary, make plans for going in “guns-a-blazing.”
The ostensible reason: the Nigerian government’s terrible job in protecting “Christians” in its fight against bandits, terrorists, and other purveyors of insecurity.
It’s true that there has been violence against Christians in Nigeria—but they are not the only victims, nor would U.S. military intervention help. Nigeria, Africa’s largest democracy, is a multiethnic, multireligious country, with the northern part of the country mostly inhabited by Muslims and the southern part of the country mostly inhabited by Christians. But the delineation is not black and white. The middle belt, often characterized as part of the north, has a number of non-Muslim residents. In the south, Christians, Muslims, and traditional animist believers live side by side.
While the vast majority of Nigerian Muslims live peacefully with their neighbors, the country has battled a militant Muslim insurgency, Boko Haram, for at least a decade. The global #BringBackOurGirls campaign arose after the kidnapping of about 276 schoolgirls age 16-18 in April 2014 by Boko Haram militants in northeastern Nigeria. Boko Haram has been operating across Chad, Niger, Cameroon, and Mali since around 2002, but it has also carried out a number of insurgent attacks in northern Nigeria.
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