We are not surprised by the present frenzy of comments, attacks and counter attacks on individuals and groups in Nigeria due to the fire-spitting words of US president, Mr Donald Trump about what is happening to poor Christian communities, which he alleged to be genocide.

Last week, he had written on his official X handle that: if the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and may well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing’ and completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.

Trump did not stop there. He added that he was instructing the Department of War to prepare for possible action, promising to be “Fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorists attacking our cherished Christians”.

Even though we are aware of the illegitimacy of one foreign state attacking another, we are equally aware that no right- thing person would deny the fact that Nigeria is at war with herself. And what is at stake is a fight by forces for the control of its politics, land and the abundant resources.

Press Icon is worried about allowing the matter to be confined to the usual ocean of self-destructive venom, a defining characteristic of our difficulty in attaining true nationhood. But what the present situation deserves is an altruistic handling. Even though it can not be denied, rightly, that it violates Nigeria’s pride and sovereignty as an independent entity and loaded with America’s selfish interest, it can equally not be denied that Nigeria needs help to the now sophisticated war lords.

We are worried that, true to type, the US president’s shellacking of Nigeria has opened the usual obfuscation, trivialisation of the issue at hand, engaging in the usual blame game and setting up a self-attacking fiesta. While Muslim northerners want to see it as a matter affecting both faiths, Christian minority groups in states like Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Nigeria etc who are the main victims see genocide at work, especially by foreign herder terror groups acting in cohort with their Nigerian collaborators.

In our view, what Trump has said should provide the opportunity, particularly for government to, apart from reassessing the planning, commitment and strategies in dealing with terrorists and bandits, the issue of taking care of victims, putting in place deterrence measures and exposing the financiers of these heinous crimes against humanity ought to be handled diligently.

The need to identify and sanction financiers, who are believed to be powerful members of society cannot be over-emphasised.

In other words, since Trump has forced these issues to the front burner of international discourse, especially in Nigeria, the war against terror needs to take a new and different look for the good of Nigeria and Nigerians. This new attention, no doubt, will redeem the shame that its poor execution in the past has brought to the Armed Forces and government, especially when Nigeria has a history of restoring peace in other African lands like Liberia, Sierra Leone, among others but can not help itself at its own time of need.

In addition, we believe that to address these inhuman, criminal atrocities, the very disturbing fact of its being turned into a thriving industry, by civilian and military leaders, who feed fat on the pain, suffering and misery of others need judicious attention.

Perhaps, apart from the President Jonathan days when foreign mercenaries were being used shortly before the 2015 General Elections to crush the terrorists, the fight has been politicised and fought half-heartedly. There has been growing concern with the no up-to-date strategies, equipment and ammunition been deployed even as more and more funds have been voted.

If Nigeria truly wants to end the negative cycle of pain with citizens being locally displaced, the destruction of their property and lives becoming routine from the activities of terrorists and bandits, this is a golden moment the Tinubu Administration should take with both hands. After all, by showing true commitment to do away with this evil, government would earn for itself the reputation that it is not behind the agents of death, as held in some quarters.

We believe that delaying the death of terrorism and banditry in Nigeria, with their affiliation to other international terrorist bodies like Al qaeda, Iswap and so on is but only delaying, not denying the day they would do more harm to the corporate existence of Nigeria.

In our agreement with Daron Acemoglu and James. A Johnson in their book, “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty”, the very survival of any nation is tied to its institutions. When they are inclusive, embracing all and providing all with the same social, economic and political opportunities fairly, there would be competition leading to growth and development. But when the institutions are extractive by selecting those to favour or deny privileges, the stage is then set for its self-destruction as Nigeria is already doing. Above all, failure to stop non-state actors from carrying and applying arms and ammunition as well as failure to handle constructive violence by the state is an aberration, which erode the state of its sovereignty and suzerainty over citizens thus qualifying to be tagged a failed state. All these are unfortunate realities.

But we believe that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has the opportunity today to right the wrongs being visited on poor rural communities across Nigeria by terror gangs, especially herders. But that would be possible only if he shuns the easy, safe path of towing political correctness while addressing the atrocities of criminals and criminality.

With the announcement last Saturday by Daniel Bwala, the Special Adviser to the President on Policy Communication of a meeting in a matter of days, between the Nigerian and American leaders, either in the State House or White House, who can deny the fact that America’s designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, may ironically, up the ante in the war against terror? Let President Tinubu engage President Trump to find a common ground on how to end the prevailing satanic bloodletting in our dear country.