Nigeria should respond through measured diplomacy and transparency — engaging U.S. lawmakers to clarify concerns, demonstrating commitment to human rights and justice, and investigating credible allegations. Proactive cooperation and communication will protect Nigeria’s image while ensuring accountability.

The ex-DSS Director’s warning can be applied on two fronts: 1) President Trump may actually follow up on his threats, so take him seriously. 2) Insecurity in Nigeria is real; take the consequential fallout seriously and act early. The warning underscores the importance of proactive diplomacy, credible national defence readiness, and effective crisis communication to mitigate external threats and prevent misunderstandings.

Yes, the data can be cross-referenced with Nigeria’s census, but the last official census was in 2006, so figures are outdated. However, one can use the National Bureau of Statistics’ population projections for more current comparisons.

We can differentiate motives by analysing patterns and evidence. Religious motives are seen when attackers target victims or symbols based on faith or use religious language or justifications. Economic motives are driven by ransom, cattle rustling, or resource control. Criminal motives focus on theft, extortion, or personal gain. Territorial motives involve seizing land, displacing communities, or asserting control over routes or resources. Clear investigation and local intelligence help establish the dominant motive.

Civil society and diaspora groups can sustain global attention by coordinating regular media updates, empowering diaspora voices in international media, using digital advocacy and global observance days to renew interest, and partnering with reputable NGOs to keep Nigeria’s issues visible.

The UK Government maintains a cautious diplomatic stance, condemning human rights abuses while prioritising dialogue and reforms over sanctions. However, pressure from UK Parliament and the Nigerian diaspora sometimes pushes ministers to consider tougher measures like travel bans or aid reviews.

International attention rises quickly during a crisis but fades once novelty and public interest decline, as media cycles shift to new global issues, and there’s often no sustained follow-up or advocacy to keep the story alive.

I am not sure what the difference would make. Our security architecture is overwhelmingly centralised – the police, the military and other security and intelligence agencies are all Federal agencies.  Many states are helpless if the Federal government chooses to do nothing.  We can push on both fronts.  In area where advocacy is faster and more direct, we can focus on States, in other areas, focus on the Federal Government to act nationwide.

We can use the current international attention to pressure the Nigerian Government by framing the crisis clearly and sharing verified facts through global media, engaging foreign governments and international bodies to demand accountability, mobilising the Nigerian diaspora and civil society to amplify unified messages, and using social media and diplomatic channels to sustain pressure until concrete reforms or actions are taken.

Yes, it’s important to focus on where the money and arms for terrorism come from.  But that is not our role at PSK-UK.  It is the role of the government who have such high-level confidential information.  For the most part, such information comes to us as “hearsay”; until we get our hands on hard evidence of verified data, we cannot “direct” the US attention anywhere. However, we can continue to stress the evil and highlight the human cost of terrorism. Encourage cooperation, not blame, showing how stopping such funding benefits global peace and security.

Well… but do we have concrete evidence that any of “his allies in the Middle East” may be indirectly funding extremism in Nigeria? Please recall that one of these allies gave Nigeria a head-start and provided a list of names of funders about which nothing has been done up to today. So, to your question, yes, if evidence shows that any Middle East allies is indirectly funding extremism, Trump should apply the same standards and sanctions to them. Counterterrorism credibility depends on consistent action — addressing all sources of extremist financing, regardless of political or strategic alliances

Answers to this type of question can only be speculative and even distract from seeking solutions we ourselves can work out. The US government, under the now defunct USAID, spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the promotion of peace and dialogue, education, etc. Nothing tangible came out of those efforts.  Certainly, the message should be unity, not division— protecting human life and freedom for everyone, regardless of belief.

Conflicting stories exist to confuse and distract from the real issues. If a neighbour brought a matter that threatens to disintegrate your family to your attention, should be speculating and worried about the neighbour’s unspoken motive, or should you be actively trying to fix the problem, which you yourself have acknowledged to be true? If we solve our problems ourselves, as governments should, then there will be no excuse for an external interest to poke their nose into our non-extent problem!

It is not what the President says at the meeting that would matter more, except that you are a president driven more by media optics.  What President Tinubu does to demonstrate that ACTION against the terrorists is paramount to his government is what would qualify him to seek partnership. To seek such “partnership” in the absence of what you have done and are doing is to abdicate responsibility at home and ask others to come and do what you should rightly be doing.

Far from it: we are not advocating the interests of Americans; we are advocating the interests of Nigerians in rural communities whose pain and cry for help have been ignored for too long.  We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated to keeping silent because we are afraid that we might be branded “enabling American interests.” We do not have any political agenda.  Our interests in Nigerians who are needlessly killed every day, when our nation is not at war!

Putting measurement figures like 95% should not be our priority. When a government is seriously engaged in insecurity, the positive effect is rapid. There are several things that the Federal Government can do immediately that will show immediate results: disarming and prosecuting armed groups; prioritising intelligence-led security operations, community-based policing, depopulation of IDP camps and assisting the occupants to return to their ancestral lands and communities. More effective border control to stop small arms flow. Strengthening governance, justice, and local reconciliation efforts are also vital to stop or drastically reduce killings within a short period