AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP— Decadent Nigerian Armed Forces, Silent Genocide against Christian Officers and the Imperative for United States Military Intervention in Nigeria
By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD November 11, 2025
Mr. Donald Trump
President of the United States,
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President of the United States, Donald Trump,
Let me begin by stating unequivocally to you Sir Mr. President of the United States, that our fundamental reaction as Nigerian Christians; I mean truly and fateful Nigerian Christians and, not disciples of Judas Iscariot among us, to your decision to declare Nigeria, not just as a country of particular concern, but to undertake a corrective humanitarian military action against the present roguish Federal Islamic Government of Nigeria under Fundamentalist President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is that of total support and unrestricted willingness to assist in any manner deemed necessary and expedient.
Nigerian Christians and indeed the entire Christians of the world owe you our amiable President Donald Trump unqualified gratitude for intervening to stop the on-going genocide against Christians in Nigeria. Nigerian Christians were once political orphans, but today you, President Donald Trump has boldly stepped in as the foster-father of the persecuted Christians of Nigeria.
Like Moses addressing the Children of Israel before the mighty Red Sea as they were pursued by Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, as recorded in Exodus 14:13, our President Donald Trump is saying to Nigerian Christians today, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.”
Proverbs 29:2 tells us: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.” Nigerian Christians have been groaning under wicked rulers; but today the righteous; the anointed, President Donald Trump, has come to the rescue of Nigerian Christians. Today, the persecuted Nigerian Christians are beginning to rejoice.
On November 11, 2023 which is exactly two years today, I wrote an article titled, “MR. CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF, GENERAL CHRISTOPHER MUSA: Military Coup is Imperative in Nigeria.” Today I am revisiting the article in the context of the current stage of the Nigerian nation vis-à-vis the case of genocide against Christians within the Nigerian armed forces and, the necessity of America’s most needed intervention.
One fundamental question begging for answer however is, why was Gen Christopher Musa, a Middle Belt Christian from one of the Christian ethnic groups in Nigeria most affected by Genocide removed as Chief of Defence Staff few weeks after declaring the readiness of the Nigerian armed forces to crush Islamic banditry and insurgency in Nigeria? And of course not long after his removal Mr. President you struck.
The answer to the above question can be arrived at only after looking at the military dimension of the on-going Christian genocide, beginning from the September, 26, 1992 Nigerian Air Force 911 Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130H crash in Ejigbo Lagos.
Indeed, the Nigerian Christian community has not deleted from their memory that heartless episode of a questionable air crash, in which 159 identified Christian Southern and Middle Belt officers of the Nigerian Armed Forces and other foreign military officers of the ranks of Major and Lt. Col and their equivalents in Air Force and Navy, including civilians and other unidentified victims, totaling 169 in number met their untimely death.
We remember these victims as a sad reminder of the fact that the on-going genocide against Nigerian Christians has not only been the case under every Muslim Head of State or President, but also takes place silently within the Nigerian armed forces. Is it not something of great wonder that till date no panel of inquiry was set up to investigate the cause of a disaster that took the Nigerian Armed Forces 48 hours to send a rescue team within a radius of 10 kilometers from Murtala Mohammed International Airport?
It should be recalled that that unfortunate air crash occurred just two years after the Major Gideon Orkar’s abortive Coup d’état of April 22, 1990, in which 42 Christian officers and men of the Nigerian army were executed. Although many excuses were advanced as the probable cause or causes of the unfortunate air crash, but the fact of its genocidal intent remains incontrovertible.
For those who might like to question my technical competence in aviation matters, let me state that yes, I am a trained historian with a PhD no doubt. But before becoming a historian I was something else. My original ambition was to become a mechanical engineer. That was also the ambition set for me by my father who was a store-keeper with an Italian Construction Company, Stalin Astaldi in Northern Nigeria.
And as one of the best students in both science and arts subjects of the Class of 1980 at Anglican Boys Grammar School, Akwukwu-Igbo, Delta State, I was fully qualified to study any course of my choice. It was for that reason I was employed as Air Traffic Signals Tech-in-Training under Nigerian Civil Aviation Department, Enugu Airport, now Akanu Ibiam International Airport, then in 1981; before abandoning it to study history at University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1984.
There I received on-the-job maintenance training under American, German, British and, Turkish aviation contract engineers, on Intercom, Very High Frequency (VHF) transmitters for Air Traffic Control direct communication with pilots, Non-Directional Beacon (NDB) and, VHF Omnidirectional Range (VOR). So even as an academic historian, I am not ignorant of some basic elements of ground avionics.
Indeed, Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130H became popular among Nigerian aviation workers after its operational success in the famed 1976 Israel’s Operation Thunderbolt in Entebbe Airport, Uganda, popularly known as “90 Minutes at Entebbe” because of its rugged nature and ability to land and take-off in short and rough runways.
As we were taught, one of the aircraft’s operational durability is the independent operational features of its four turboprop engines that make it impossible for the four engines to fail at the same time or in consequence of the failure of the other. We were further taught that, under extreme situation, the aircraft can fly to safety with one engine out of the four. So for the Nigerian Air Force NAF911 Lockheed Martin Hercules C-130H to take-off from Murtala Mohammed International Airport and within three minutes lost the four engines simultaneous within ten seconds was a clear case of technical sabotage rather than fault.
It was equally alleged that the original Captain of the aircraft feigned illness and tactically declined to fly or join the aircraft. Some Muslim officers who were intimated of the heinous plan also abandoned the aircraft and undertook their journey by road transportation under the pretext that the flight was being unduly delayed. Yet some Christians who were expected to die in the crash but were unable to join, were later hunted down by Gen Ibrahim Babangida’s men of military intelligence and eliminated extra-judicially.
The Minister of Defence and later Head of State, Gen Sani Abacha threatened any pressman or news media that attempted to engage in detailed investigations into the air crash. In fact some journalists were arrested and detained for going closer to the scene of the crash. The black-box was retrieved and since no investigation was carried out on the cause of the crash, nothing was heard of it. So there was no denying the fact that it was a planned elimination of young Christian military officers by the military regime of Gen Ibrahim Babangida under the policy of islamization of the Nigerian armed forces.
One incontrovertible evidence of its genocidal intent was that not only did the crash occur just three minutes after taking off, it crashed at Ejigbo suburb of Lagos, just seven kilometers away from the runway of Murtala Mohammed International Airport, its point of take-off; yet it took the Nigerian armed forces forty-eight (48) hours; that’s exactly two days to send rescue operation to the site of the crash.
Where in the world and in the present age can such horrendous murderous response to a military air crash take place except in such a murderous nation as Nigeria? The Air Force Base was there at Ikeja less than five kilometers to the site of the crash; the Ikeja Military Cantonment was there less than ten kilometers from the site of the crash; and the Western Naval Command Headquarters, was there in Apapa Lagos about 15 kilometers away. Yet for two days, 159 young officers of the ranks of Major and Lt Col and their equivalents in the Air Force and Navy were heinously abandoned to suffocate to death for no reason other than being Christians.
This Islamization project of the Nigerian armed forces was temporarily stopped by President Olusegun Obasanjo when he retired all the political military officers, most of whom were Muslim Fulani officers; an action that did not go down well with the established Fulani Muslim oligarchy. Consequently a meeting of Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) was held in Kaduna on March 28, 2005 in which it was decided that President Obasanjo should be confronted by all means, including the threat of jihad.
The Emir of Gwandu then Alhaji Mustapha Jokolo was mandated to convey to the press their resolution and, in rage he stated: “We (Muslims) have been pushed to the wall and it is time to fight…. Obasanjo is trampling on our rights and Muslims must rise and defend their rights. The more we continue to wait, the more we will continue to be marginalized.”
Not long after making the above inflammatory statement, President Obasanjo ordered the Governor of Kebbi State to dethrone him and, that was how he was removed from office as the Emir of Gwandu. But that did not stop their resolve to proceed with their jihad objective, which soon commenced immediately President Goodluck Jonathan assumed the Presidency.
This was followed with the policy of systematic elimination of Christian army officers from the armed forces under President Muhammadu Buhari who succeeded President Goodluck Jonathan. They do this by setting up Christian soldiers in the battlefield and through sabotaged ambush, by informing the Islamic insurgents the operational plans of the Nigerian army. The following instances of well-calculated elimination of Christian officers of the Nigerian armed forces will suffice to prove my incontrovertible assertions.
On December 18, 2018, a former Chief of Defence Staff of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh was murdered in cold blood along Abuja-Keffi Express Way while returning from his farm.
On 13 April 2021, Captain Adeolu Adedayo, a Christian, was murdered alongside 11 soldiers in Konshisha Local Government Area of Benue State.
On Tuesday August 24, 2021, Muslim terrorists invaded Nigeria’s elite Military training institution Nigerian Defence Academy, killing Lieutenant Commander Wulah and Flight Lieutenant C. M. Okoronkwo, abducting Major Datong, with 2nd Lieutenant Onah sustaining gun-shot injuries, all Christians.
Incidentally, the said Nigeria Defence Academy is situated directly opposite the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, where on March 11, 2021, 39 students were abducted by bandits who demanded 500 million naira ransom and were held for 50 days in captivity until the payment was made after negotiation led by Sheikh Ahmad Gumi.
On Saturday September 11, 2021, bandits invaded the Nigerian Air Force Base in Mutumji, Dansadau Local Government Area of Zamfara State, killing nine Air Force personnel, one soldier and two Policemen, all of them Christians. The attack came barely 24 hours after the Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle had pleaded to the Federal Government for amnesty for the bandits.
This was the same Governor the incumbent Governor of the State accused of bankrolling the the bandits and gifting them Toyota Hilux mini-trucks. This is Bello Matawalle, Nigeria’s current Minister of State for Defence. Is this the kind man who will support any proactive policy that will end the on-going genocide against Christians in Nigeria by the same Islamic insurgents?
In November 2021, Nigerians were shocked to the marrow when a serving Christian Brigadier General, Dzarma Kennedy Zirkusu was ruthlessly killed by Boko Haram insurgents in a well-orchestrated ambush; the first of its kind for a senior army officer of the rank of Brigadier General to be slaughtered under such disgraceful cheap circumstance.
On March 28, 2022, Islamic terrorists attacked an Abuja-Kaduna bound passenger train, killing 14 passengers, wounding undisclosed number and abducted 63 among whom were some Christian military and police personnel. The Muslims among them were released unconditionally, while the Christians were held for six months between Abuja and Kaduna.
The final batch of the hostages was released on October 5, 2022. For the six months those innocent Nigerians were held captive within the center of their country, their captors collected whooping ransoms exceeding 6 billion naira from the victims’ families under the protection of a fraudulent democratic President.
This happened in the center of the country, between Abuja the seat of the Federal Government and, Kaduna the seat of Nigeria military power. The Federal Government under a so-called democratically elected President was there. The Nigerian Armed Forces were there. The so-called dreaded Directorate of Security Services (DSS) was there. The so-called gallant men of Nigerian Police Force were there.
When the bandits threatened to execute the remaining 23 captives who could not afford the one hundred million naira ransom demanded from each hostage, what the Nigerian Government did was to shamelessly constitute a Presidential Committee ignominiously named “Chief of Defence Staff Action Committee” (CDSAC) headed by the Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor, to negotiate the release of the remaining hostages with the bandits, rather than going after them militarily.
What General Lucky Irabor and his “Chief of Defence Staff Action Committee” finally agreed with the bandits and which Nigerians and the world were not informed, was the readiness of the Federal Government to pay the ransoms for the remaining victims and further swap the hostages with terrorists held in Kuje Prisons (Kuje Correctional Centre), Abuja.
The Federal Government under the advice of the Committee thereafter agreed that such release should only be effected through clandestine means by allowing the Islamic terrorists the freehand to invade the Kuje Prisons and release their members themselves under a loose security arrangement, in which the Nigerian security guards attached to the Prisons would be tactically withdrawn for the entire duration of the operation.
In line with this clandestine agreement, on Tuesday July 5, 2022, at about 9 pm, these terrorists who had by then identified themselves as ISWAP attacked Kuje Prisons (Kuje Custodial Centre), Abuja, where more than sixty of their members were held. In the attack that lasted for three hours without any response from the Nigerian Armed Forces, armed Prison officials or the Police, more than 800 of the 994 inmates were set free.
Indeed the operation was carried out under a situation of sublime confidence and relaxation that the terrorists had enough time to give every inmate of the Prison willing to escape the sum of two thousand naira for transportation. No attempt was even made to pursue the terrorist. This is the situation Nigerians find themselves with their Armed Forces today.
On August 14, 2023 in Niger State, one of the core North Central States, 36 Christian Nigerian soldiers and officers were sabotaged by their Muslim colleagues and callously killed by Fulani Muslim bandits. The Nigerian Air Force rescue helicopter was also shot down by the same bandits.
According to the then Defence spokesman Major General Edward Buba, “The helicopter crashed with 14 of the earlier killed in-action personnel, seven of the earlier wounded in-action personnel, two pilots and two crew members.” Ndeed, the result was that the rescuers died, the wounded eventually died, and the dead died a second time in the hands of Islamic bandits.
But what baffled many Nigerians most was the treacherous vituperation of the Fulani-born Governor of Niger State Umar Bago who, instead of assisting the Nigerian Armed Forces to dismantle the heinous insecurity in his State, warned the Armed Forces against taking military action against the killers of our soldiers and officers because, according to him, the killers were his Fulani kinsmen.
Few days later Governor Bago was in Aso Villa Abuja to present his idea of non-military retaliation to the insurgents in his State to the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Alhaji Kashim Shettima, a well-known sponsor of Boko Haram. The Vice President subsequently announced that the Federal Government will adopt what he called non-kinetic response to the bandits instead of direct military action.
What mattered to both men were not the lives of the gallant men of the Nigerian Armed Forces slaughtered in the middle of their country by Islamic jihadists, but the cattle owned by his Fulani bandit-kinsmen. This can only be tolerated under a fraudulent democracy and bankrupt Armed Forces. The question then is why wouldn’t this set of Islamic terrorists in the garb of political leadership in Nigeria oppose American Military intervention to confront those perpetrating genocide against Christians in Nigeria?
It goes therefore to say that what we have in Nigerian armed forces today is a situation where majority of the soldiers attacked and killed by Islamic insurgents were Christians. And these tragic situations happened because of the undiluted collaboration of the Muslim elements in the Nigerian armed forces with their insurgent Muslim kinsmen. This explains why Islamic insurgency and the resulting genocide against Christians, whether perpetrated under the garb of Fulani herdsmen, Muslim Bandits, Boko Haram or, ISWAP can never be eliminated under the current Muslim President, except by the direct intervention of such superior military power as the United States.
Indeed, we should be reminded that it took the Nigerian Armed Forces thirty months (July 6, 1967 to January 15, 1970) to suppress the Biafran secession. But we are being told that the same armed forces with a strength of about 250, 000 officers and men with sophisticated modern arms and ammunition cannot defeat non-State militias for the past sixteen years— 2009 t0 2025. This was the same Nigeria Armed Forces that restored stability in Republics of Liberia and Sierra Leone and, attempted recently to invade Niger Republic to “restore democracy.”
We cannot therefore deny the fact that the Nigerian armed forces as they stand today are corrupt, ideologically bankrupt, professionally decadent, devoid of the requisite gallantry expected of the Giant of Africa and, a shadow of its old self. In fact, what we see in the Nigerian armed forces today is the image of a white elephant which cannot protect itself from a small group of wild-dogs, much more protecting those it is naturally assigned to protect from the same wild-dogs.
Nigerian Christians witnessed with awful apprehension when a notorious Indian Muslim preacher Sheikh Zakir Naik who was expelled by his country India, arrived Nigeria on the invitation of the Sultan of Sokoto Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, whom he addressed as Head of State, and flanked by men and officers of Nigeria Air Force, which he addressed as “Muslim Air Force.” Many Nigerians are still waiting for official reactions from the Federal Government in respect of this callous act by the Sultan of Sokoto.
This clearly underscores the dangers inherent in the unfolding callous islamization of Nigeria through imperious act of genocide against Christians under a Federal Government with a Muslim President and, a Muslim Vice President, a Muslim National Security Adviser, a Muslim Minister of Defense, a Muslim Minister of State for Defence, a Muslim Chief of Army Staff, a Muslim Chief of Naval Staff, a Muslim Director General of the Directorate of State Security (DSS) and a Muslim Director General of Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), in a predominantly Christian nation. Indeed out of the following most high-ranking security officials of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, including the President and Vice President who are both Muslims, only five (5) are Christians and the rest nineteen (19) Muslims:
1. Bola Ahmed Tinubu—President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Muslim Yoruba)
2. Kashim Shettima—Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Muslim Kanuri/Fulani)
3. Mohammed Badaru Abubakar – Minister of Defence (Muslim Fulani)
4. Bello Matawalle – Minister of State for Defence (Muslim Fulani)
5. Nuhu Ribadu – National Security Adviser (Muslim Fulani)
6. General Olufemi Oluyede – Chief of Defence Staff (Christian from President’s ethnic Yoruba group)
7. Lt General Waidi Shaibu— Chief of Army Staff (Muslim Kanuri/Igala)
8. Air Marshal Kennedy Aneke – Chief of Air Staff (Christian)
9. Vice Admiral Idi Abbas – Chief of Naval Staff (Muslim Fulani)
10. Kayode Egbetokun – Inspector General of Police (Christian from President’s ethnic group)
11. Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi – Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) (Muslim)
12. Ambassador Mohammed Mohammed – Director General of the NIA (National Intelligence Agency) (Muslim)
13. Haliru Nababa – Controller General of the Nigerian Correctional Service (Muslim)
14. Shehu Usman Mohammed – Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission (Muslim)
15. Dr. Musa Adamu Aliyu – Chairman, Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (Muslim)
16. Brig Gen YD Ahmed – Director-General, National Youth Service Corps (Muslim)
17. Bashir Adewale Adeniyi – Comptroller-General of Customs (Muslim)
18. Olanipekun Olukoyede – Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) (Muslim)
19. Dr. Ahmed Abubakar Audi – Commandant General, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (Muslim)
20. Engr. Jaji O. Abdulganiyu – Controller General of the Federal Fire Service (Muslim)
21. Kemi Nandap – Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (Christian from President’s ethnic group)
22. Mohammed Buba Marwa – Chairman, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (Muslim)
23. Hajiya Hafsat Bakari – CEO, Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit(Muslim)
24. Lt General Emmanuel Undiandeye – Chief of Defence Intelligence (Christian)
With the above horde of Islamic fundamentalists in power, there is no way the current genocidal state of Nigeria with rampaging Fulani herdsmen, Islamic bandits, Boko Haram and ISWAP Islamic insurgents can be eliminated.
There is therefore no doubting the fact that the only way to save Nigeria from its present precipitous genocidal democracy is the urgent enthronement of a corrective Interim Federal Government made of up of non-sectarian patriotic Nigerians. And this can only be achieved through your direct humanitarian military intervention as provided under the international doctrine of “The Responsibility to Protect.”
Mr. President Sir, do not be deceived into believing that additional aid either in form of military hardware or financial grant will lead the present morally corrupt and religiously bankrupt Islamist Federal Government to any form of success in countering genocide against Christians and insurgents who are their partners in crime.
In 2019, the Miyetti Allah—the Fulani terrorist patron organization demanded the sum of 160 Billion naira as a condition to stop killing Christians. Both later arrived at 100 billion naira which was subsequently paid; yet that did not stop the Genocide against Christians. Was that not terrorist financing?
Between 2015 and 2024, that is a period of 10 years, the United States Government of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden provided the Nigerian Government the sum of 7.38 Billion US Dollars in aid to fight terrorism in Nigeria. The breakdown is as follows:
2015 – $446 million
2016 – $543 million
2017 – $643 million
2018 – $877 million
2019 – $761 million
2020 – $880 million
2021 – $922 million
2022 – $974 million
2023 – $1 billion
2024 – $783 million
How did the Federal Government utilize the above staggering sums of money to combat terrorism in Nigeria in the face of the never-ending Genocide against Christians in Nigeria and obvious geometric multiplication of terrorist activities in Nigeria? Is it not ridiculous that money provided by United States tax-payers in a Christian country is used by Muslims to slaughter Christians? I humbly request you Sir Mr. President to thoroughly investigate how the above funds were utilized in fighting terrorism in Nigeria, before making any further financial and other related commitments.
Finally, Mr. President Sir, if the perpetrators and sponsors of Genocide against Nigerian Christians are shamelessly denying the existence of Genocide and crimes against humanity against Christians, I most humbly request the assistance of a team of Investigators of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to immediate wade into the matter with the objective of bringing those involved in these crimes to justice. Only that will bring a final solution to the crime of Genocide in Nigeria.
I remain,
Yours Most Respectfully,
Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD
November 11, 2025
