SPECIAL - Trump, Nigeria, and the Myth of “Christian Genocide" | African News Review 🌍

In this conversation, Adesoji Iginla, with Aya Fubara Eneli and Ademola Adewusi, delve into the complex political and social dynamics in Nigeria, exploring the implications of U.S. foreign policy, the rise of Boko Haram, and the historical context that shapes current conflicts. 

The speakers emphasise the importance of understanding Nigeria's diverse ethnic and religious landscape, the impact of weaponised ignorance, and the interconnectedness of global issues. 

This conversation explores the complexities of Nigeria's security challenges, the limitations of its governance structure, and the impact of external forces and religion on its political dynamics. 

Takeaways

*The conversation highlights the unique political and social dynamics in Nigeria.
*U.S. involvement in Nigeria's security issues raises questions about foreign intervention.
*Historical context is crucial for understanding current conflicts in Nigeria.
*The complexity of Nigeria's religious and ethnic dynamics complicates the narrative.
*Boko Haram's rise is linked to issues of education and ignorance.
*The Sahelian region's instability affects Nigeria's security landscape.
*Weaponised ignorance is a common tactic in both Nigeria and the U.S.
*The intersectionality of Nigerian society challenges simplistic narratives.
*Understanding history is essential for navigating current political landscapes. 
*We need to put internal pressure on the government for security reform.
*Governors in Nigeria have limited power over security forces.
*Terrorist groups in Nigeria operate with guerrilla tactics.
*External military forces have impacted Nigeria's security landscape.
*The refugee crisis in Nigeria could destabilise the entire region.
*Evangelical movements in Nigeria have evolved significantly over time.
*Critical thinking is essential in addressing national issues.
*The intersection of religion and politics can lead to control and manipulation. 
*The influence of global powers complicates Nigeria's sovereignty.
*The American and Chinese influences create a tug-of-war over Nigeria.
*Africa must focus on internal solutions rather than external aid.
*The current governance systems in Africa are corrupt and borrowed from the West.
*We need to create a long-term plan for Africa's development.
*Unity among African nations is crucial for progress.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Context of the Discussion
02:55 Current Events and Political Climate in Nigeria
05:49 U.S. Involvement in Nigeria's Security Issues
09:08 Historical Perspectives on Foreign Intervention
11:51 The Complexity of Nigeria's Religious and Ethnic Dynamics
14:53 The Role of History in Understanding Current Conflicts
18:02 The Impact of Boko Haram and Ignorance on Society
20:55 The Sahelian Pressure and Regional Instability
23:57 Weaponised Ignorance and Its Consequences
26:48 The Intersectionality of Nigerian Society
29:59 Conclusion and Reflections on Future Directions
30:38 Internal Pressures for Security Reform in Nigeria
33:04 The Limitations of State Security Architecture
36:39 The Impact of External Forces on Nigerian Security
39:37 The Role of Religion in Political Manipulation
44:33 The Evolution of Evangelical Movements in Nigeria
49:12 The Intersection of Religion and Political Control
53:52 The Need for Critical Thinking in Addressing National Issues
56:19 Spirituality and Self-Reflection
57:47 Neocolonialism: A Modern Perspective
01:00:28 The Influence of Global Powers
01:02:44 The Impact of External Forces on Nigeria
01:05:10 The Textile Industry and Economic Depend

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:01.186)
Yes, greetings, greetings and welcome to African News Review Extra. This is an extra. An extra because it's rather unique that we are going live at this time of day, but we should in light of the prevalent news on social media as regards Nigeria, is where the three of us would have our ancestral roots. I would start the introduction.

myself. am Adesuji Ginla and you know me and what else can I say? And a new face here would be that of Ademola Adeusi, a childhood friend, an intellectual of high repute. His background is in borders and shall I say he's ahead when it comes to

Neocolonialism and its impact on the African landscape. Aya Fubera NLE Esquire is, as you know her, co-hosts Women and Resistance, African News Review, and what else can I say about her, the author of Your Self-Love Revolution. Welcome to both of you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22.162)
Thank you.

Ademola (01:23.968)
Thank you very much, I had a story for you by Team Internet.

Adesoji Iginla (01:27.21)
Okay, I hope so. Let's just start. As usual, we have to start this thing with the news where you currently are before we delve into whatever it is we are going to. So starting with a sister, what's the news where you are?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:44.486)
I really can't think of anything else besides the topic we're supposed to be discussing, but I would be remiss if I don't remind everyone in the United States of America that tomorrow is November 4th and you should be going to the polls to exercise your right to vote as a citizen. It is a right that people shed blood.

Adesoji Iginla (01:54.497)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:09.284)
certainly tears to ensure that we have and it is a right that if we don't exercise we may soon not have at all. So please go and vote and interestingly enough for those of you who are in New York while you're the felon in chief is supposedly going to

talk to some other country about so-called religious intolerance. We know that the ads are all over the place telling you not to vote for a man who happens to be a Muslim who nonetheless is offering the best option in terms of meeting the needs of the average New Yorker. I used to live in New York at one point, so.

Adesoji Iginla (02:39.022)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (02:55.46)
Although I no longer live in New York, I certainly hope that New Yorkers will go out and cast their vote for Mom, Daddy. And if you're here in the state of Texas, please go to Rethinking Freedom, our YouTube channel. You can listen to our breakdown of the 17 amendments, proposed amendments to the Constitution. We recommend that you vote no on all but one of them. So go and get educated and go out and vote tomorrow.

Adesoji Iginla (03:24.334)
OK, Demola, what's the news where you're at? Which one? Your project.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:31.464)
Which one? Which one? Exactly.

Ademola (03:32.021)
Ha ha ha.

Okay, for us in Nigeria, know, I love Nigeria. We're a very resilient race. We're very resilient nation. And it's so funny that some of the things that other people think about or they experience and they suddenly go quiet. Nigerians actually turn it into humor. And we've been having a very good laugh in the past 24 hours about what could happen if, you know, Nigeria moved from being

country of particular concern to actually a target of the United States in the past 24 hours. I've seen memes, I've things on Facebook and Twitter people have been saying that Nigerian girls and who are American soldiers and we're gonna have half-caste children after they leave Nigeria. Nigerians have been telling us that Nigerian food, Nigerian pepper will be thrown in the eyes of

American soldiers and they know that they can't do much for us here. A lot of things have been said. I think the most important one was the fact that the president of Nigeria had a phone conversation with President Trump earlier today where he reaffirmed his commitment to the security of the nation and his protection of the rights

as enshrined in the Constitutional rights to association rights to religion and all of that. But, you know, all said and done. Despite the divisive nature of our current politics and everybody trying to put a spin on everything, think Nigerians are just taking this in their strides and they continue to grow about their businesses. And I think the only thing people are asking for is let the government wake up to

Ademola (05:26.202)
know, secure Nigeria and those of us who have to do our nine to five, who have to do our whatever hours, we just continue to do it today without everybody feeling that there was going to be a B-2 bomber in the air, you know, trying to, for an F-17 stealth bomb, you know, tactical fighter. I mean, we're just cool anyway.

Adesoji Iginla (05:49.994)
Okay. So, I mean, you've sort of segue into the reason why here. It's, I mean, I've just taken one, I've gone to with the BBC, which holds some sort of weight with regards to Nigerians based on its colonial past with Nigeria. So the BBC say Trump tells Nigeria to prepare for actions against Islamic militants in Nigeria.

written by Joseph Winter. It says, US President Donald Trump has ordered the military to prepare for action in Nigeria to tackle Islamic militant groups accusing the government of failing to protect Christians. It didn't say Nigerians. It said Christians. Well, it said, Trump did not say which killings he was referring to, but claims of a genocide against Nigerians have been circulating in recent weeks and months in some right-wing circles.

So I suppose the way to glean, the way to see this will probably be, could you help us, Sister Aya, could you help us understand what is going on in the United States? That this should be a, how can I say it? A convenience news round for Mr. Trump.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:18.232)
Yes, I will answer your question, but there's a song I often hear songs playing in my head Triggered by different things and the two of you might remember this song from my childhood which way Nigeria Which way Nigeria I want to know But anyway, I'm gonna start off by saying

Adesoji Iginla (07:34.094)
Yeah, we drink, we go. Cheers. We drink. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:45.936)
Release the Epstein files. Release the Epstein files. Release the Epstein files. No, it is so rich. So absolutely rich. My parents are Christians. I grew up in a Christian family. I preached in churches, you know, all of that. That this man is claiming to care about anyone of African descent.

Adesoji Iginla (07:49.034)
good.

Aya Fubara Eneli (08:15.386)
I don't care what their religious designation may be. Let's start at the very beginning here. Unprovoked, this man on his truth social posts this. If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and may very well go into that now disgraced country. Guns are blazing to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.

I think that there's so many things that we're normalizing in this day and age that we live in that it's just, it requires us, I would say that it requires us to just pause for a second to imagine the president of a country governing via social media posts. And.

to type things like you're talking about a whole sovereign nation, right? That's what you're supposed to be. This is not a Hollywood movie. This is not The Apprentice. We're gonna go in guns a-blazing to completely wipe out. What do you think you are? The president of the universe? Who are you exactly? And his concern is

Adesoji Iginla (09:13.782)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli (09:35.526)
supposedly the killing of Christians. And at one point they put out a certain number of supposedly the number of Christians that had been killed. First of all, there's really no legitimate figure of the number of people who have been killed in Nigeria because they're Christians versus those who have been killed because they're Muslim.

versus those who've been killed because they're traditionalist versus those who just caught strays. Let's just be very clear about that. Now, do we know that, yes, there have been attacks and I can list a whole bunch of them for you, but Muslims have been attacked and killed, Christians have been attacked and killed, mosques have been bombed, Christian churches have been attacked, there are issues with herdsmen and farmers and they're...

It's layered and it's nuanced. But let's just be very clear that a human being who is opening the doors, right, for white South Africans to come in in hordes if they want to, to the US, who at the same time just revoked, right, revoked the visa for our Nobel laureate, who happens to be a Christian as far as I know, who

Adesoji Iginla (10:55.832)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:57.34)
has also sanctioned Nigeria, attempted to, because we will not accept their deportees, who by the way, is single-handedly killing more Africans, I would say tens of thousands of Africans, by cutting off aid that provided food and health to people.

All of a sudden, no, it wasn't a gradual, hey, we're going to start easing off. was just boom. We're pulling, we're counseling the aid. We don't mind that that medication and food rocks as opposed to letting people eat or letting people have the prescriptions, the drugs that they need to, to, be well, that this same person all of a sudden now cares about you. And all I will say to all of my Nigerian friends who have been posting

Adesoji Iginla (11:32.526)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (11:43.758)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:48.584)
Father Trump is coming to save us. thank you, Jesus, for answering our prayer. Can you imagine the chicken and the duck who are fighting each other over their food or whatever situation in a coop that they happen to share now deciding, you know what, I'm tired of fighting with you. Let us open this coop and invite the fox.

Adesoji Iginla (11:51.086)
you

Adesoji Iginla (12:16.91)
To set

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:17.17)
to come and protect, yes. The chicken says, I'm gonna invite the fox to come and protect me against the duck. And you think that is gonna bode well for you? But okay, let's say that's too abstract for you. Please, by all means, can we look at any point in time in the history of African people, where white people have come to settle anything for us?

Adesoji Iginla (12:41.603)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:46.992)
where we have not ended up being the Rams that are slaughtered. I am Ejo. My people migrated from Boni to Opobo. Let me just use that as a frame of reference. Boni people had issues with each other. We are brothers and sisters. We go to different factions, go and start talking with the white man. They give us cannons.

and give us gunpowder. The next thing, there is a full blown civil war in Boni. We are firing on each other, destroyed half of Boni. One group escapes, that group led by the man we now know as King Jaja of Opobo. And that is how that group with a number of war keynote leaders, including Fubara, which is my maiden name,

founded the place now called Opobo, the kingdom of Opobo.

And then the Boni people now beholden to the white, their so-called white saviors, are now upset with King Jaja because he's diverted all of this trade and Boni is falling apart as this huge trading area that it used to be, right? So now the white people are gunning and the Boni, people who were brothers and sisters are now gunning for Opobo and Jaja.

Adesoji Iginla (13:59.374)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (14:09.938)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:22.734)
Jaja tries to curry favor with the same white people. So he enlists Opoobo men to go to Ghana to fight on the part of the British against their shanties.

Adesoji Iginla (14:37.068)
is me.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:41.606)
Britain ends up defeating the Ashanti's, right? And then when the white man comes for Kenjaja, guess what? But he is decimated. Ashanti's are decimated. There is nobody left to fight for you. The next thing you know, they take him to the same Ashanti area, have their kangaroo court, sentence him and deport him.

Adesoji Iginla (14:53.379)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:10.78)
from his own kingdom. If we just go and learn a little bit of our history, what the hell if I can use that terminology? Do you think Trump is coming to do in Nigeria? I'm gonna just stop there because I can go into some other geopolitical things that are going on right now. But let me just stop there for now. Ademola, I don't know if you have a different take on it.

Adesoji Iginla (15:22.638)
Hmph.

Adesoji Iginla (15:35.63)
You

Ademola (15:37.198)
beautiful. I honestly like your pivoting into history because you know, history is always there and since we don't learn from history, it keeps repeating itself. And I've always said that you can't make a good leader, know, except you're steeped in the history of your people and you understand how your forebears fell into certain traps and how you should negotiate those traps.

So some of the things you raised are so fundamental that you know they need to be broken down for a lot of people to understand that anything the president of a sovereign nation does is usually not in the interest of another nation and other people it is usually first and foremost in the interest of the nation that you have sworn to protect and to serve.

And if we understand that, we understand that it's government, he has been brought into government to serve a country and a nation. We then put that aside. We then look at politics. A lot of people don't really understand the definition of politics. They think it's voting. They think it's elections. You know, David Eastman says, you know, and that's the most widely accepted.

Adesoji Iginla (16:45.24)
Mm.

Ademola (17:02.101)
He says politics is the authoritative allocation of resources. It is who gets what when.

Adesoji Iginla (17:08.342)
And how, yep.

Ademola (17:10.446)
That's Laswell. I wrote Laswell. Now, the point that I make between government and politics is that somewhere in between those two usually lie the interests of any nation as professed by the head of that nation, either head of state, president, and all of that. So, when the... I don't even want to talk about the propriety of somebody governing via...

social media. And I understand why this is happening because Trump also has his own history. In the first Trump era, we were told point blank that he would never read any of the briefings by his intelligence chiefs. He would only wing it. It would be a wing and it would be on a caprice. So I understand the fact that the depth

Adesoji Iginla (17:54.113)
You

Ademola (18:02.413)
Just like you mentioned, you talked about the layers, the complexity and the nuances that are required for you to understand what is happening in Nigeria and why Nigeria is a complex nation where you cannot just go in guns and blazing and you know. So the first thing for me is, the first thing, I come from a family now where we have about 50 % Christians, 50 % Muslims. So if you wanted to wipe out all the

Adesoji Iginla (18:17.166)
You

Adesoji Iginla (18:30.509)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:31.624)
So you're wiping yourselves out. Okay.

Ademola (18:34.901)
Yes, you know, just like you said, just like it happened between the Yoruba and the Pony people. So if you were to ask me now to arm myself and, you know, wipe out the Muslims in my family, it would be crazy because even if I saw Jumu is here, it be in my target, might be in my rifle target. So let's look at it this way. is a complex nation. Trump wakes up and says he's going to come in

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:40.328)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (18:43.822)
You

Adesoji Iginla (18:54.542)
You

Ademola (19:02.561)
guns and bliss, he doesn't understand Nigeria at all. And these same strategic mistakes have been made by America in every place in the world. And we can trace it from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iran to Iraq to Syria to South America, know, Cuba.

Adesoji Iginla (19:06.606)
You

Adesoji Iginla (19:13.624)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:19.004)
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Adesoji Iginla (19:26.008)
To South America.

Ademola (19:31.943)
And my problem with this is that Nigerians, especially the Nigerians who are very happy about this, they're not even understand what they're inviting. They're inviting chaos that is likely going to consume everybody because I don't know how you're going to go to the streets of Joss now and say all Christians should be on one side and all Muslims should be on one side. The B2 Bumpers don't discriminate who is on ground.

Adesoji Iginla (19:42.67)
you

Adesoji Iginla (19:53.934)
Should be on one side, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (19:58.894)
Mmm.

Ademola (19:58.945)
The F-16 F-15 fighters don't discriminate who is on ground. So let's look at something. And you almost went there, Enelie. The things we're facing in Nigeria in terms of security, my background is in international relations, peace and conflict studies, then borders and migration. And I realize a lot of the things that were facing in Nigeria concerning security, they are happening against the background of the Sahelian pressure.

that all of us are facing. Now, this Sahelian pressure is coming in from Nigeria, from Mali, from Burkina Faso. And because African borders, and you when people say African borders are porous, I've changed my mind about it. I think African borders were meant to be inclusive because we're not rigid societies. mean, between Nigeria and

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:28.934)
Yes. Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:50.984)
And these are borders that they drew up anyway. Yeah.

Ademola (20:55.445)
Thank you. Some guys woke up in Berlin and decided to draw lines in the sand somewhere. So, I mean, I, because of my research in borders, last week I was in Kotonu and then I came back into Nigeria and then went back to Kotonu for lunch. And that happens in Europe a lot. And I think Nigeria should be different. I have people who have farms in...

continue to farms in Benin Republic and live in Nigeria. And I think it's a right that they have because even in Mexico, I was in Tijuana and people were telling me that, you see, forget about the borders that have been militarized. This land belongs to us. The Mexicans told me that because they said the border went through them. They didn't go through the border. So, So Nigeria is going through a lot of stuff. We have gone through this since 2015. And a lot of the people were happy

Adesoji Iginla (21:42.806)
Hmm

Ademola (21:52.273)
about this designation as a CPC were the people who caused the initial problem for Nigeria. I'll give you an example. Bukhwaram. Bukhwaram existed in a very small place and they had a very small mosque. And Yusuf was trying to tell people don't send your children to western schools. Bukhwaram means what? Bukh is haram. Simple. And

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:05.916)
very small. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (22:16.781)
Yum.

Ademola (22:21.034)
He was doing this in very small mosque. He didn't have a livery.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:23.142)
Okay, no, so please break that down further for people who have no idea what you said book is haram. So break that down for the listeners who have no idea.

Ademola (22:31.448)
okay. So, Boko in that sentence of Boko Haram is actually a corruption of Bukh which is English, you know, for the written text, the Western text. Haram in Islamic, in Sharia, means forbidding. It is the opposite of Halal which is, know, accepted, acceptable. So, he said Bukh, Haram.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:39.492)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (22:48.878)
We'll be in you.

Adesoji Iginla (22:53.134)
They are acceptable, yeah.

Ademola (22:59.901)
and was then colloquated to Boko Haram. And he was in a very small mosque and was trying to make people seriously why they shouldn't send their children to school. And the intelligence report brought his case to President Thomas Sojo and they said, okay, arrest this guy and they arrested him and they put him in the custody of the army for a while. He was paraded and then the army gave him to the Nigerian police.

While that was going on, his mosque was demolished and his students scattered. And his sect then wrote to the government and said, please release our boss, rebuild our mosque and give us 50,000 Naira. Those were the modest requests of the sect as at that time. While that was going on,

The President, know, obviously, at level they are most, has scattered the students as the Nigerian police ended up killing the man.

And that was the beginning of the fight that Nigeria got into in terms of ideological fight. Because it is not a fight about resource, although there are issues with resources coming into it now. But then, it initially was about, you know, I don't want Western education because it corrupts. And you know that...

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:27.814)
Ademola, if you can put, just hold on for a second. I think what you're pointing out now is so crucial for those of us who are here in the United States under this so-called Trump regime. Because when you're talking about Boko Haram and weaponized ignorance, the idea that you want people to be uneducated,

Adesoji Iginla (24:45.121)
Ignorance,

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:50.844)
which means that they're better easier to control, easier to manipulate. That is the exact same thing that we are facing here in the United States of America, where they are basically saying, we do not want real history to be taught in the schools. We do not want critical thinking. We are going to weaponize, know, financially control every institution.

Adesoji Iginla (24:54.784)
Ernie Malibu, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (25:17.134)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:18.54)
from our kindergartens to through our secondary schools through our tertiary institutions. are here in the state of Texas where I am. The governor actually just removed a provost from his administrative position due to ideological differences. So when people are listening to these things, I want us to understand how interconnected these issues are.

And yes, it looks like Boko Haram and they look different and all of that. But the idea of how authoritarians work and totalitarianism works, it's the same ideology, but weaponized ignorance. I just wanted to make that connection. We essentially want people stupid. We want them going to certain kinds of schools where they are not challenged, where they don't learn history, where they don't get to think.

Adesoji Iginla (25:54.872)
Total literalism. Yeah.

Ademola (26:00.179)
soon.

Ademola (26:05.426)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (26:09.004)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:16.326)
because then it's easier to control them. I'm so sorry to have interrupted. Please carry on.

Ademola (26:20.627)
No, no, no. You make a valuable point because if you look at Northern Nigeria now, Northern Nigeria suffers from almost a feudalistic system where there are more than eight million children who are roaming the streets and they are not taken care of by, they are called the Al-Majiri children. And you know, all of this happened because people are saying, you know, don't go to school, have as many children as you want.

Adesoji Iginla (26:38.04)
They're Alimajiris, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ademola (26:48.977)
they are perpetrating poverty and ensuring that these kids and even their parents can be used for political reasons. And because of poverty, they are easily conditioned by this sex who want them to do various things, terrorism, banditry, and all of that. So, take that issue of Boko Haram now. It was done by Ambassador John who did not handle it well.

And we created a fertile ground for just dissent to become conflict, to let a disagreement become conflict. That conflict has spiraled into a multi-billion dollar problem now that Nigeria is trying to solve. Now, that's number one. Take again the instability that is all over the Sahel and the proliferation of

Adesoji Iginla (27:31.438)
industry.

Adesoji Iginla (27:45.229)
weapons.

Ademola (27:45.768)
the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. And now we're also seeing very heavy weapons being given to all of these countries. And if you look at the capstone, it used to be Libya that has also been destabilized. It means if you look at Libya, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, even to our right, Chad and Cameroon, Nigeria is right in the thick

Adesoji Iginla (28:11.394)
Maroon now.

Ademola (28:15.202)
of negative forces in terms of conflict. So all of this is happening. Now what I want to draw out from this is this is not a religious war. This is Muslims are being killed every day in the northern part of Nigeria just as Christians are being killed in the Midwest in the

Adesoji Iginla (28:17.047)
instability.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:26.086)
No, it's not.

Adesoji Iginla (28:26.926)
Could you repeat that bit, please? Could you repeat that?

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:29.479)
Yeah.

Ademola (28:43.364)
Middle East, sorry, said Middle East, middle belt of Nigeria as well. Now, and even in the South East now, you're seeing Christians killing Christians because I listened very well to Governor Soludu and for me, I speak Igbo, that's why the fact that I'm Yoruba. The guy said it in Igbo, he said look,

Adesoji Iginla (28:45.836)
mid-belt of the country.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:57.168)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:05.137)
in inassuable.

Ademola (29:06.855)
I'm not sweet, bro. I'm going off for a matter of but I'm not sweet, bro.

Ademola (29:13.871)
Abbot, it was a joke.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:16.89)
no. I not, no, no, no.

Ademola (29:18.151)
Okay, okay. salute those two and look everybody in face.

Adesoji Iginla (29:25.56)
this is, one second, this is part of the problem that Trump does not understand. The intersectionality of people within the Nigerian sphere. There are people who speak all languages and all of a sudden you are married. I mean, it's just, I mean, my family has the Christian side, the Muslim side and the traditional side. We are custodian.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:53.593)
Exactly!

Adesoji Iginla (29:54.986)
or we are custodians of the shrines in Lagos. So imagine and you want to come in with what? Go on.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:59.044)
Exactly.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:05.682)
Yeah, my aunt is married to a Yoruba man and they're Muslim. So what am I gonna kill them? You're like, what are we supposed to do here? What are you talking about? Yes.

Ademola (30:16.742)
So if you look at what is happening in security in the East now, that is even Christians killing Christians. Because the hotbed of that is Anambra state. And the governor of that state told us point blank that most of the people, 90 % of the people that have been arrested have been Igbos, killing Igbos. Now, I cannot exonerate the Nigerian state for being

Adesoji Iginla (30:21.432)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:24.604)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:28.209)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (30:38.414)
Hmm.

Ademola (30:44.529)
capable of guaranteeing security in Nigeria. And this has been lingering for a long while. And I think instead of externalizing our problems to somebody who really doesn't understand our problems, I think it will be more constructive for us to put internal pressure on the government. That's one. Let me tell you where I think the pressure point is.

Adesoji Iginla (30:48.482)
Hmm. OK.

Ademola (31:14.244)
The former president, Mohamedou Buwari, told us that the nation had identified sponsors of terrorism in the North. But he failed to mention them. I think it is high time

Adesoji Iginla (31:24.898)
or fails to mention them.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:29.8)
But we have the research though that shows who was sponsoring them.

Ademola (31:36.228)
Yes. Yeah, but the research is not official until the government says these are the people. Now, I think it is high time that the government comes out and says these are the guys who are sponsoring terrorism and because of that we're going to charge them to court whether they belong to my political party or not. I think that's where the issue is. now let's look at, I don't want to look at the American, you know,

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:44.53)
hear you.

Adesoji Iginla (31:55.788)
or not, yes.

Ademola (32:05.786)
Trump has not been able to solve school shootings in America.

This still happens every day. This still happens.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:14.024)
No, no, no. Trump is weaponizing ICE against Black and brown people. So you don't care about us. What are you talking about? He sent weapons for Israel to exterminate the Palestinians. You didn't care about religious, a bigger, sorry.

Adesoji Iginla (32:23.566)
You

Ademola (32:24.864)
You know, so so I-

Adesoji Iginla (32:35.214)
And there are Christian Palestinians as well, because they seem to think for some reason, it's still just, you know, just caught true that, I mean, it's just the manner, I mean, it's just the manner in which these guys, we've allowed this guy to dictate what the issues are. It's clearly out of his depth. And I just want to go back to what Demola was saying.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:38.312)
Yeah, so yeah, but...

Adesoji Iginla (33:04.714)
Is it not true that in Nigeria, governors receive a security vote every month? What is the point of that security vote if there is insecurity in your respective state?

Ademola (33:17.796)
Okay. I'm going to say this at the point of being, at the risk of being a bit controversial. The governments are helpless. And I'll tell you why. Money is not security. Money is a resource that you can use to resource a security architecture that responds to you. Our current security architecture in Nigeria is top heavy. What I mean by that is when you are the governor of a state,

The Commissioner of Police in your state reports to the Inspector General of Police, does not report to you. I've seen instances where Governors would tell a particular Commissioner of Police that you need to deploy to so-so-so-and-so place now and he says, well, let me clear that with my Inspector General of Police. Okay?

Adesoji Iginla (34:07.47)
Hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:07.89)
You're absolutely right. And the case in point to be just what happened in River State. The governors really don't have that much power.

Ademola (34:10.201)
D.

Ademola (34:18.429)
The military commanders in your state don't have anything to do with you. The only reason why they attend your security meetings is because they go home with some stuff which you give to them as a matter of obligation and cut-scene.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:30.792)
In fact, as a matter of policy, I believe that your police, they choose the police chief from outside of your state.

Adesoji Iginla (34:37.262)
chief.

Ademola (34:42.147)
Yes. So I mean, I've seen a police commissioner who was sent to Lagos state and there was a problem in Abarande, somewhere in Alimo show and the police commissioner in Lagos state was asking his oddly where is Abarande meaning his geographical understanding of Lagos state was zero. So that's one. The DSS person might not be from your state and doesn't answer to you. The commander of the

Adesoji Iginla (35:03.106)
Mmm.

Ademola (35:11.894)
NSCDC, Nigerian Civil Defense Forces doesn't respond to you. So, what do these people do with that money? I think that money just goes into the pockets of a lot of people. The reason, yes, because that's on one side. On the other side, states that have put together the Security Trust Fund now fund the police that they do not command more than the federal

Adesoji Iginla (35:22.71)
Mmm.

Ademola (35:41.316)
government. So the problem now is when something happens, the response time of the police is determined by how well the IGP knows what is happening and how well the IGP can muster forces to respond. Now, the issues we now have with the kind of problems we have in the north west and the north east as well is that we're dealing with a very mobile, nomadic, guerrilla warfare kind of thing.

Adesoji Iginla (35:42.296)
Mmm.

Ademola (36:11.234)
These guys are not regular. They are not wearing uniforms. They can be in a village and they blend into the village like they are part of the village. It is only when they wreck havoc that members of that village community now say, they were not one of us. And these guys know they're right. Ten minutes they're at Ilayla, ten minutes they're in Damboa, ten minutes they're you know, Maradi and they're out of Nigeria.

Adesoji Iginla (36:11.47)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (36:21.55)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (36:28.917)
of us.

Ademola (36:39.383)
Now, if it's hot again in Niger, they come back. If it's, if Niger is cool enough, they go back. so, so now let me give you an example. You remember that France led a multinational joint tax force to help us with terrorism within the Sahelian region. And that multinational joint tax force was providing intelligence to the Franco-African nations.

Adesoji Iginla (36:55.566)
Yeah.

in the northeast, Yeah, yeah.

Ademola (37:09.363)
and denying Nigeria of that same intelligence, which allowed the Boko Haram sect to rep more avoc in Nigeria than they did in other parts of West Africa and Israel. Now, immediately, the military coups happened in Bokina Faso, Mali, and Niger. They quickly asked the French to go and the French forces left.

Adesoji Iginla (37:22.798)
Mmm, that would make sense.

Ademola (37:38.487)
They left with all their equipment but remember anywhere where you put boots on ground and you put weapons in the hands of locals those weapons are not disappearing they will be used and we're seeing a lot of that happening now some of the weapons that are being inventoried some of them came from France some of them came from the US some of them were used in Libya some of them were used in conflicts in Cote d'Ivoire some of them were used in

the jail and all of them are in Nigeria now. There's this theory that says that know, whenever weapons go to smaller countries for conflict, when the conflict settles down, the weapons find their way to the largest economy in that region, which is Nigeria. So you're seeing a lot of that happening and this is not happening according to religion. That's why I want to say to a lot of people, African nations have always been very tolerant.

Adesoji Iginla (38:19.438)
You

Ademola (38:37.73)
and open about each other's religions. Amen. And in every nation I have gone in Africa, I am yet to see people be at each other's throats over religion. And in Nigeria, what I see is that when a lot of people share money, I remember when the Suki money was being shared, the RSA money was shared, was shared across ethnic identity, was shared across political identity, was shared across

religious identity. give you the story of one man who was snippy and they called him as a leader send us your account and he woke up, sent an account and saw 400 million. They didn't care whether he was Christian or Muslim. So this issue of weaponizing the illiteracy of an American president and giving him the wrong information about Nigeria is regrettable.

Adesoji Iginla (39:20.174)
Hmm

Adesoji Iginla (39:29.902)
Ouch.

Ademola (39:37.141)
That's one. I want something tonight. Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:37.512)
Okay, I have a question.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:43.686)
What's his purpose? What's his end game? What is he trying to accomplish? Because I'm thinking of Libya and I'm thinking, could Nigeria be another Libya?

Ademola (39:56.47)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (39:57.256)
Also, when you look at what's happening in the Sahel, you see what's happening with Mali and Nigerian Bokino Faso and how the French are being pushed out. We talked about Cameroon. We're now seeing what's happening in Tanzania and so on and so forth. There have to be a place where the West finds how to like reengage or...

assert themselves again in a more powerful way. Like what is the end goal? Besides sucking up oxygen and taking people's attention away from the Epstein files and not sitting the representative who can be the 218 signature for these files to be opened up. What is Trump's end game here?

Adesoji Iginla (40:36.428)
Mm.

Ademola (40:47.731)
Okay, asking me about Trump's endgame is asking me to psychoanalyze somebody who is already bipolar. Okay, and I'll tell you this. Trump does everything by the way.

Adesoji Iginla (40:57.833)
You

Adesoji Iginla (41:07.256)
you

Ademola (41:07.755)
So trying to find a method to his madness, but I'm going to take a guess at it, okay? Okay. So let's look at it this way. All of this is just pandering to the extreme rights in America. It has nothing to do with Nigeria. I do not think Trump wants to invade Nigeria. I don't think so. Because, I mean, his military guys will tell you,

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:13.179)
Why did a white man do what he did?

Adesoji Iginla (41:28.622)
Hmm.

Ademola (41:37.601)
230 million people want to invade. If half of us in Nigeria, not even half, let's say 25 % of Nigerians become refugees, the whole of Africa is gone.

Adesoji Iginla (41:51.086)
Exactly.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:53.5)
Maybe that's what they want.

Ademola (41:54.88)
Ghana is less than 30 million. We can walk there. Benin, I mean, Benin is how many, I mean, come on. So everybody knows that if you touch Nigeria and West Africa, the whole of Africa is gone because the refugee crisis, and you know, we're not refugees that keep quiet. We're never going to be refugees that are going to go to the place and say, please give us food. No, no, no, Nigerians are going to go there ahead. So this is where I am now. We're here now.

Adesoji Iginla (41:58.517)
You

Adesoji Iginla (42:15.366)
What the cool?

Ademola (42:23.433)
All of us, I go to America. That's one. So I know that what he's doing is just pandering to his core political base in the US and saying that he's supporting Christians in Nigeria. I don't know that. you know, when one of the guys who was supporting and I'm forgetting his name now was asked which Christian has been persecuted that is the arrowhead of this in Nigeria, he mentioned Mazin and the Khamis.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:51.976)
Well, they're putting out statements talking about they are very excited to have Trump come and save them. I actually read a statement from Namdi Kano and iPod, which by the way have created, which by the way have been the source, I shouldn't say been the source. They have been at the center of a lot of the insecurity in the East, in the Southeast.

Adesoji Iginla (43:02.936)
Okay, I will share, will share, one second, I will share it.

Adesoji Iginla (43:15.853)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:19.558)
So yeah, I did see that letter. And then of course there's the other letter from the American veterans of evil descent. Can you imagine?

Ademola (43:25.948)
of ego descent. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (43:26.338)
people dissent,

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:30.789)
Someone in the chat says the West is already in Africa. Africa is live and well. Britain is in East Africa. France is in East and Central Africa. Africa is already occupied.

Adesoji Iginla (43:43.67)
Well, there is there is an element of truth in that. Africom is actually operating outside of outside of Africa. They're based in Stuttgart. But although they do have a Ford base in Somalia, I think it's a Kuntaland or something. They have one there. So and they don't need to be physically around now. All they need is a drone base. And that's it. So.

Yeah, you highlighted the evangelical base. Could you remind us when evangelism started in Nigeria? If you remember in the early 80s, and what was the reason for it and why did it just take off like that?

Ademola (44:33.792)
I think, I hope you know that this is a question that could take us some while to answer. I'm going tell you why. You see, Wayne Chrisel it's...

Adesoji Iginla (44:37.762)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (44:43.478)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:44.296)
Wait a second, you want to talk about the 80s, not Ajai Crowder? I'm sorry, go ahead.

Ademola (44:50.976)
No, no, That was Octodos Christianity. Remember that the Christian Missionary Society came to Nigeria, they came with education, they came with health, they came with healthcare, sorry, they came with other things and...

Adesoji Iginla (44:51.104)
No, reason I-

Exactly.

Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:58.864)
Yes.

Ademola (45:09.652)
The wave after that was Africans now trying to interpret Christianity in their own way. And then you saw the growth of African churches. You saw the growth of African churches under the Anglican umbrella. You saw the growth of African churches that were led by Africans and founded by Africans. You had the CAC, you had the CNS churches, you had the Celestial churches.

Adesoji Iginla (45:16.854)
Mmm

Ademola (45:38.383)
you had the all sorts of, know, various of Christianity led by Africans. But then people now feel look, for us to evangelize more, we needed to repackage, repackage, speak like the Ojibwe man, be like the Ojibwe man, and then, you know, preach like the Ojibwe man. And, you know, we now felt that a lot of people needed to come and teach us how to do that. So you saw people like Rayard Bonke.

Adesoji Iginla (46:03.566)
Mm.

Bunker, yay, yes.

Ademola (46:07.9)
yeah come to Nigeria and come to Nigeria and all of that and then that started the whole renaissance of the vile vile charismatic sorry you know yes yes yes now immediately after that came the charismatic you know you know

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:12.05)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (46:13.592)
Jimmy Swagat.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:18.472)
Kenneth Copeland. Mm-hmm. What's the, what's Billy Graham had crusades? Yes. Yes. Uh-huh.

Adesoji Iginla (46:22.744)
Can they couplen? Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (46:27.99)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ademola (46:36.158)
evangelical movements that started preaching about dressing well, faking it to you, make it, manifesting it, you know.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:43.944)
with a great music. They had a more polished feel. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Ademola (46:47.006)
great music, ambience, prosperity gospel and all of that. And you know that has subsided to now. Now what I'm trying to say is that

Even in America, it has become so... Yeah. Yeah, it has become very clear now that a lot of the people who call themselves Christians are just blue-collar white men and women who really have not gone to school, don't understand anything about politics and the only instrumentalist option that

Adesoji Iginla (47:03.246)
Yeah, 700 club as well. Yeah, 700 club.

Adesoji Iginla (47:13.326)
Hmm.

Ademola (47:29.864)
politicians use to galvanize this base is Christianity. I remember especially evangelical Christianity. I remember Trump's first era. One of the things he said to them and which Polar White continued to echo was that Trump was going to bring back the Bible to the White House. That Obama had taken away the Bible from the White House. And I I found that very funny. Now unfortunately in Nigeria too,

Adesoji Iginla (47:34.038)
Mmm. Mmm.

Ademola (47:59.644)
A lot of us are following that same template of don't listen to facts. Don't be distracted with the facts, with the logic. Just believe in the man of God and let the man of God tell you what to do and all of that. now the problem with that is you now have millions of people who do not engage with facts. They engage only with whatever

Adesoji Iginla (48:05.623)
or reason.

Adesoji Iginla (48:12.674)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (48:25.678)
you

Ademola (48:28.338)
their pastors tell them to do. And once you have that, and it's here in Nigeria, it's here, I mean, it's also in the US. Once you have that, they form millions of very malleable, pliant people who can be guarded, you know, seriously, as a reliable voter base for anybody. Once you have that reliable voter base, you guard them with your life, and you do everything to make sure that

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:56.644)
So you're saying that all of these people are playing the same game. Boko Haram wants weaponized ignorance, people they can control. The charismatic evangelicals also want people they can control. Trump and his people, they also want people they can control. This is basically the game.

Ademola (49:12.573)
That's the game. And if you give an example, even Maaz Inam the Camel they are talking about, some people started worshipping him as the representative of Chukwokeke Abiyamah. And he embodied, at a particular point, would take the Anoka, would take the flag of Israel and say he's a rabbi and all of that.

Adesoji Iginla (49:14.264)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:27.42)
That is true.

Ademola (49:41.457)
So that symbolism of religious purity is one of the first things that you use to compose any level of extremism. J.M. Berger, who's written very extensively on extremism, says there must be that ingredient of religion and purity. When you say that, you know, we're pure in spirit and we're pure in body and whatever these people want to do to us is going to cost us to be impure.

Adesoji Iginla (50:02.018)
Hmm.

Ademola (50:10.756)
Because of that, we must fight them. Which is what Trump is latching on now. see? He's saying, look, religious liberty in Nigeria is not guaranteed. Christians are being killed. There's a genocide and all of that. And because of that, you know, it's going to affect every Christian in the world. I find that ridiculous. And the reason I find it ridiculous is I don't know why you don't like Christians so much.

Adesoji Iginla (50:32.088)
Mmm.

Ademola (50:40.699)
This is why the fact that this man doesn't attend the church. doesn't have a pastor.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:44.84)
and does not follow any of the tenets of the Christian Bible that I was brought up on.

Ademola (50:50.235)
So we must understand, let's get back to the issue of some people trying to now quickly interlope with this and say, because I listened to the American veterans of Igbo descent who said, look, this is not only about Christians, it's also about the cannibalists. And I was like, really? Now we have turned the corner now

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:14.576)
Mm-hmm.

Ademola (51:20.037)
from something being about Christianity to it being about politics. And one of the speakers told us that you cannot bring somebody from Kenya and come and try him in Nigeria under terrorism laws in Nigeria. And I know that Trump, the President Trump, is going to revisit this injustice.

Adesoji Iginla (51:37.966)
Hmm

Ademola (51:46.679)
I could not but laugh at the idiotcy of that statement. Why? If there is anyone who has not most renditions all over the world, it is America. What did you think when Tanah Mobi was about?

Adesoji Iginla (52:01.922)
Hmm. Hmm.

Ademola (52:06.086)
Do you think the people were in Guantanamo Bay for eight, seven years? Do you think they voluntarily surrendered their liberty? No. Some of them just went to buy bread in Syria and they were kidnapped.

Adesoji Iginla (52:17.76)
and they look and they feed the description.

Ademola (52:20.943)
And they put the description. Now, if there's any nation that, I mean, perfect rendition, takes you to a third nation and says, well, you stay here.

Adesoji Iginla (52:30.456)
to have your balls tickled.

Ademola (52:33.915)
It's America. That's one. Two. Since 2011, most terrorism charges are global. They all over the world. are multinational because a terrorist is a terrorist whether it is in Nigeria or is any other place. The man needs to just wake up and say this is my defense. That he was kidnapped in Kenya, that he was drugged and brought back to Nigeria. I don't know about that. The reason why I don't know about it is because

Adesoji Iginla (52:48.802)
Mmm.

Ademola (53:03.063)
Even in the UK, he was using the instrumentality of the internet and radio to cause havoc in Nigeria. So if you're telling me that the Kano should be freed and he has not done anything, why is Simon Eppa in jail in Finland?

Adesoji Iginla (53:18.712)
Hmm. Yep. This saves you.

Ademola (53:22.629)
I think it's most resilience for us to see.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:22.728)
So what is clear from this conversation is that we could actually do a weekly series breaking this stuff down because it's so nuanced. The history of Nigeria, the history of Africa, you cannot with a tweet or a social media post analyze what is going on. And for people who are

just responding with these knee-jerk responses, you I love Jesus, therefore, you know, thank you, Father Trump, and all of that. I've quite frankly been appalled at the lack of critical thinking. I believe it was Marcus Garvey that unfortunately called us a nation of children. And some of the responses, even from people who appear to or should know better.

Adesoji Iginla (54:11.918)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:21.188)
has been appalling and is very dangerous in terms of what you could possibly be inviting. Because remember, when we talk about the Berlin conference, one of the ways that they were able to justify how they divvied up Africa.

is that they came and they said, see, this area signed this treaty with us. This other area signed this treaty with us. So they've already agreed that they are under our care. They are under our protection. So when you have Nigerians themselves cosigning this idiot, this felon in chief, this adjudicated sexual predator, this grifter,

and saying, yes, thank you, come and save us. As opposed to us saying, yes, we do have issues and two things can be true at the same time, but we need to sit down and figure out our issues ourselves.

That is that is very very concerning to me. and then just on this issue of religion I just I just feel like I I absolutely have to insert this the notion of purity and And and being able to think critically for yourself. Ayikwe ama warned us about this He is very critical even of the pharaohs and ancient kemet and this notion of you have to have

Adesoji Iginla (55:35.702)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:46.736)
this human being that says they've got divine

power from, know, whatever. And this divinity now has, has given them the power. And it's only through their lineage now that you can be ruled in. can't think for yourself. You just have to do what this person says because they are getting it directly from God, but only them. Cause you can't hear directly from God in that way. That has always been a problem for us as Africans and it behooves us whatever.

your form of spirituality may be to kind of think about how these things come into play and how we might just be walking into and inviting, if you will, disaster onto ourselves.

Adesoji Iginla (56:34.298)
So I'm minded to, I mean, we're coming to the top of the hour, so maybe. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (56:39.368)
Someone was asking about toying Falola, so I just want to hold this book up for them my Claude Ake and the other books and not not near here But yes, but feel in the past Yeah

Adesoji Iginla (56:47.682)
Yeah, Claudette, political history of Nigeria, political economy of Africa. I'm minded to ask, OK, so Trump has made this trend. Do we look at it through the lens of neocolonialism? Because I think that's the part that most Africans or most Nigerians currently don't kind of get. When you talk about neocolonialism, could you

height to that statement to sort of say okay yes you were quote-unquote ruled by the British they left but didn't leave now America wants its claws in there could this be a ploy to get in or if not what is the best case scenario to explain what we are currently experiencing

in terms of the new colonial angle.

Ademola (57:49.912)
You know what people say about neocolonialism? Sometimes I look at that term, that's why the fact that it's widely accepted. Sometimes I don't accept it because I don't think the colonialism stopped.

Adesoji Iginla (58:04.376)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:04.422)
Ademola, I like you. I like you a lot.

Ademola (58:07.084)
And I know that, you know, trying to say something is new means that there was an old one. And for me, a virus might mutate, might morph, but it's still a virus, and it's the same virus. Sorry. yeah, but it still carries the imprints of the other one, you know.

Adesoji Iginla (58:25.326)
But it's a new virus though. But it's a new virus though.

Ademola (58:33.049)
So for medical reasons, you have to classify it as a new virus. Now, if you look at Nigeria, I think we have been confused for a while. We were ruled by the British, but we woke up one day and said we wanted to change from right-hand drive to left-hand drive. And then we woke up one day and said,

Adesoji Iginla (58:57.812)
Left hand trap,

Ademola (59:01.942)
We want the American system, the presidential system of government, know, bifocal, camera, know, by camera legislature, so to say. And then we impose that on a British judicial system. And then, you know, we just mish-mashed everything together. And then we decided we're going to have this nation that will be able to cherry pick and choose what, you know.

Adesoji Iginla (59:16.514)
Mmm.

Ademola (59:28.344)
And while we were doing that, the British, you know, the military came and said, oh, okay, okay, okay, you guys, okay. I want to re-educate system. I don't want all this, you know. So those experiments have always allowed us to look at other nations and say to ourselves, they're better than us, that's part of the fact that we don't understand the things they're going through. I think the Americans have suddenly found out.

Adesoji Iginla (59:32.974)
You need to resist them.

Adesoji Iginla (59:38.168)
Hmm.

Ademola (59:57.698)
that the kind of powers they have given to the President of the United States can be used in so an arbitrary way that it can be authoritarian, can become dictatorial. I think they just found out that the President of the United States could wake up one day and say, look, I want a parade. And I want the parade to be as big as Ani Gestor. For Nigeria, what has happened to us is

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:08.87)
Yes. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:17.597)
Hahaha

Ademola (01:00:28.149)
We have left several stages of being colonized by the British. And we have now become colonized by several stooge masters. I'll give you an example. If you look at our oil and gas sector, the Americans had the best of it. If you took away Shell and BP, Mobil, Exxon, then it became Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and all of that, there were lot more American companies. Do you know Business Philox?

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:33.165)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:56.952)
Mmm.

Ademola (01:00:59.312)
And you know, because they were doing business with you, they had your cash call, they were the ones giving you dollars. Economic power, money, becomes influence. So they could twist whatever the government was trying to do.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:12.014)
Mmm.

Ademola (01:01:13.972)
Now that we are pivoting towards China in terms of our infrastructure development, in terms of our loans, the Americans are not happy because we now have introduced another set of ropes to our puppetry. If China is pulling the hands, America will be pulling the legs and Nigeria will be dancing in one way the other. So now, why are you laughing?

So the point now is, it's just like when you have a nation that really has not forged for itself a direction, has not forged a direction, has not forged a strategy, everybody's going to be telling you what to do. The Ulewaza have a way of saying this, when they say, when you have not done well with your life, your matter becomes olongu yonmu, meaning everybody can just talk to you anyhow.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:56.611)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:11.726)
And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ademola (01:02:15.274)
So you see that at some point, the US will issue a travel advisory about Nigeria. Two days after that, people get killed in Texas or in Colorado, in Portland, Oregon, and Nigeria will not issue a travel advisory. So everybody is trying to put pressure on Nigeria in their own interest, not in the interest of Nigeria. And I always think about that because the basic thing you understand in international relations with the use of power and the protection of

Adesoji Iginla (01:02:28.776)
is trouble advisory.

Ademola (01:02:44.63)
international power is about interest. So there is a lot that has been done to Nigeria that has to do with the continued colonialism of our mines and our resources. I remember Agua, know, Obama launched it and you know a lot of Nigeria products were supposed to be taken into the United States. Nothing happened. We still have other things like that that

even the British have said they can export to the UK and all of that. We're still on the fringes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:15.048)
Kenya was able to export, which is why they were in a lot of trouble when it looks like Trump's administration isn't going to renew it. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:26.957)
Mm-hmm.

Ademola (01:03:27.958)
I remember one of the things we talked about the last time we had a discussion like this was the fact that Trump was actually going to fight Rwanda because they said they were not going to take second-hand clothing

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:40.28)
Exactly. Yeah.

Ademola (01:03:42.056)
And if you look at that now, is that not colonialism? How do you make it a national policy that we must wear your second-hand oprica, your breakdown select?

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:52.898)
YOL-

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:57.032)
By the way, let me let Americans know. So I did take a young boy to the market in Port Harcourt to buy some clothes. And I was quite amazed, this was in 2022, I was quite amazed to find out that when you all, when we all,

go and donate our clothes for free to Goodwill. Goodwill in some kind of some kind of system they have with the US government ships those clothes to African nations and possibly South Africa, sorry, South American nations, but I can speak for African nations in particular.

It's built into many different agreements where these countries must accept these these items And then it's sold there. So You're giving your clothes for free to goodwill Goodwill is making money off of your clothes. Just wanted you guys to know And the tag still said goodwill

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:06.018)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:10.694)
They still even had like the dollar amounts or whatever that they supposedly were going to resell them for in in In us for the clothes that I was looking at and so there's a whole racket that is going on But you're absolutely right. So our textile industries are completely depressed Because how do you compete with?

Ademola (01:05:29.702)
WIPED OUT!

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:35.278)
cheap, cheap, cheap imports. Yeah. And it's gotten so bad now that it has impact on the environment as well, because if the market cannot consume it, it's dumped, literally in the reverse.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:35.496)
The West just dumping all of their used items on our country. Yes.

Ademola (01:05:42.366)
So, so.

Ademola (01:05:46.547)
Yes.

Ademola (01:05:54.804)
So now, sorry, let me end where I was going with that issue. know, Trump is not the best of diplomats in terms of finance, diplomatic finance. And you realize that when a man as uncouth as the president, the current president of the United States wants to talk to another sovereign nation.

and I don't mean only African nations, I mean even nations that are in Europe. He talks down at everybody. And you know, that is his trademark, you know, engagement technique. And when he's angry at something, he doesn't limit it to even the leader, or he says now, disgraced country.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:26.21)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:27.676)
Blank.

Ademola (01:06:44.914)
I don't know where Nigeria became disgraced. I don't know where, you know, and all of that. But the point is...

Ademola (01:06:55.572)
I have studied geopolitics for a while and you know I have a degree in the Thais that is dated 1994 and if there anybody now who is going to be disgraced very soon I pick it America because if you look at all the indices of development it is going to be against America in the next 10 years. are losing out in

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:03.502)
Oodma.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:11.632)
It's already disgraced.

Ademola (01:07:22.067)
fiber optic fiber manufacturing. Nvidia is losing out to Chinese companies. BYD is now the number one EV seller all over the world. Huawei is going to overtake it. I so I could go on and on about all of that. And you know, the industries, I I read the economist and they were pretty clear that the next global power and that is likely going to be a dominant power is China, not United States.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:31.278)
electric.

Ademola (01:07:50.117)
I was listening to, I forgot his second name now, but his name is Michael. His first name is Michael. He's a Chinese diplomat lawyer. he studied in Stanford. I've forgotten his name. And he was saying, look, America is already behind. Don't let us talk about, in terms of development of connectedness of cities, in terms of high speed rails, all of that, America is no longer there.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:09.312)
Hmm

Ademola (01:08:19.589)
So, I say that as a proud African and I know that some of the reasons why we are where we are is because the colonialism that we think is new is still the same colonialism, just different people.

This was different people. I remember when I was in school, they were talking about the new international division of labor, which was why the Asian Tigers were given opportunities to develop. You know, you would make components and those components would land in Malaysia and they would become a TV, you would become a speaker and all of that. Africans were not given that opportunity. As we speak, 90 % of African trade is still extracted.

And if you look at Africa today, the most blessed of African nations are the most conflict-ridden. If you look at Congo today, it has everything in the world. And yet Congo is... And for people who like to talk about religion so much and they don't understand the divisive nature of international politics, Somalia is one race, one ethnic identity.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:09.73)
Yep. Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:22.904)
Hmm.

Ademola (01:09:31.001)
and 99 % Muslim. Yet, it is a failed state. Now imagine Nigeria with 250 ethnic identities, over 300 languages, and we're asking somebody to come and divide us more and then give us, you I don't know what you want me to

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:50.242)
Hmm sister, same question. The colonial language as Ademola said, not new. There's nothing new about it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:06.002)
So ask the question.

Adesoji Iginla (01:10:07.704)
So I was asking that in light of Trump's statement about sending in the boys, as it were, would that continue to be seen as part of the new colonial angle on, know, as the umbrella over Africa as opposed to how we can determine our own cause. mean, let's just go intellectually bit.

what's his name, Walter Rodney, in his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, said the idea of our underdevelopment is intentional. So clearly with what Demolev just said, the elites we have, which Aikwema points to, have determined that this is the state we are going to be in. So in light of Trump's outburst,

for your want of a better word. How do we break away from this kind of repetitive nature of name calling, we responding, and then we're back to business as usual?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:25.188)
So, you know, this conversation is happening around, you know, his dumb post. I am reminded of...

Toni Morrison's comment about the white gaze. And I feel as though Africans for far too long, for a variety of reasons, many of them historical obviously, that we have.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:44.974)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:58.992)
been puppets in the hands of a lot of external forces, whether we look at the Arabs who often get a pass, but they have re-ac-tavok across the continent of Africa and continue to do so today with even the funding of Boko Haram, by the way. But certainly these Christian crusades and these Western forces and so on and so forth.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:15.341)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:19.438)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:28.408)
And so I'm not, I don't want to anymore focus, although you have to always be aware of what your adversaries, your oppressors are trying to do. I would really love to see us turn inwards, if you will, and figure out what we have.

to get ourselves to where we want. So for instance, at the recent United Nations meeting where so many of our African and Caribbean leaders came and spoke eloquently and the African leaders were making the case for why we should have more African nations on the Security Council and so on and so forth. And I'm like, you know what? That's great. OK, I'm not going to fight you on that.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:11.853)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:13:21.01)
But to what degree are you all coming together and resolving the issues that we can resolve internally? So just like Ademola is talking about, being able to be in Nigeria for a meeting and going for lunch in Kotonu, because people can be in London, my brother can be in Paris for breakfast and he's in Hamburg.

for a new meeting, know, that kind of thing. You know, what are the things that African leaders can do if they would come together and work together outside of the white gaze? Now, do we have to be aware of, yes, we have these external forces? Yes. But if we came together ourselves and said, what is it that we need to do internally for ourselves? That's what I would want our focus to be.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:47.309)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:14.883)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:14:15.232)
Where are our think tanks for the good of our own nation and and so when we look at the African Union for instance Where where are we bringing together our scientists and we have many scattered across the globe and saying okay We've got all of these resources across the the the continent What is our long-term plan?

What is it that we can do? How do we connect? How do we work together? What is our 25 year, 50 year plan? What are we doing in terms of roads, infrastructure so that our railroads and even these ports that we're getting China to build for us are not just so that China can bring more things for us. I was sharing with you earlier the meme that says Africa imports everything, including our gods.

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:51.438)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:09.356)
yeah. You do.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:11.036)
You know, so that we are building roads that connect us to each other, railroads that connect us to each other. So I think that so much of our focus has been on, how can we get aid from the white man? How can we meet the standards set up by the IMF? How can we, you know, but if you look at these quote unquote austerity measures that people like me have heard of since we were kids,

If we had actually tightened our belts according to our own standards, there is nothing we couldn't be producing in Africa right now for ourselves because we are an incredibly resourceful people. And we go to other parts of the world and we are very productive.

So when you're talking about colonialism, I really want to take my focus off and I know there are people who saying hey You're in the United States. Let me tell you even though I'm here everything I'm trying to do right now is How do I build with my people? How do we strengthen ourselves? How do we consolidate and how do we get beyond just always responding? to our oppressors

but instead having a game plan for ourselves that we implement, that we understand. When you look at the Marshall Plan for Europe, it wasn't a two-year plan. It wasn't a five-year plan, right? It had longevity. That's the same. didn't just all of a sudden show up. They had a plan. And so when we talk about Africa, I would love to see, okay, we...

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:42.99)
correct.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:52.68)
On African News Review on Sunday, November 2nd, right? We talked about the Pan-African Congress in Manchester. We were coming together and having these conversations. Where are we doing that today as Africans across the diaspora?

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:01.358)
1945,

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:17:13.778)
For those who are saying, we're looking for things to invest in, who have extra money across the diaspora. wait a second. We've got this hydro plant. And here are the business plans. And here are this.

There's so much we could be doing differently as opposed to just feeling like we are at the mercy of colonialism, neocolonialism, whatever you call it. Because as Edemola said, these other nations are doing exactly what they should do, which is to take care of themselves. And they don't need to care about us. The question is, can we care about ourselves and take care of ourselves?

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:42.499)
Hmm.

Ademola Adewusi (01:17:44.604)
Ademola Adewusi (01:17:51.283)
yes, I just wanted to add a bit to what Anelie was saying. First is, I am not a believer in the borrowed robes of Western democracy. I feel that Western democracy, and I'll tell you this, if you look at everywhere where Western democracy thrives now, they did not develop under a democracy.

Adesoji Iginla (01:17:52.334)
Sure. I'm minded we've gone over an hour. you wanted to say something, Demola?

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:05.975)
Okay, go on.

Ademola Adewusi (01:18:19.273)
They developed mostly under a monarchy or a dictatorial government. And then democracy now took root. If you look at Singapore, that is usually the poster boy of being able to do a national transmission in 10 years. wasn't a democracy that Lee Kuan Yew did. If you look at everywhere now that is undergoing very rapid

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:47.886)
or self.

Ademola Adewusi (01:18:48.711)
economic transformation from China to the Middle East, none of them is a democracy. Now you see that borrowed rope of democracy for neo-colonial minds, it's a toxic relationship. You see children in Nigeria now who are three, four year old and they want to speak with a locally acquired foreign accent. They don't want to eat eba again. They don't want to eat fufu.

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:00.578)
development.

Ademola Adewusi (01:19:17.501)
They see everything African as inferior. You see, the borrowed robes of democracy give you some kind of superiority because you're wearing a suit and a tie and socks in the tropics of Africa. And I think it goes in...

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:24.686)
You

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:35.939)
Hmm.

Ademola Adewusi (01:19:39.871)
and then you're wearing a wig and walking and your brain is fried. So now the problem with that borough job of democracy is also that it allows the worst of us to rule us.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:19:42.312)
No, the worst one is that wig. The worst one is that wig. That wig that the lawyers wear.

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:57.614)
You

Ademola Adewusi (01:19:57.983)
I'll give you an example. If you can go abroad and be a forster and bring in $5 million into Nigeria and contest for an election, you will win your state. That's of the fact that you've got nothing to offer that state. Now, the problem is that, you know, she was talking about development plans. Most of our development plans now are even supposedly funded by new colonialists.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:09.293)
Mmm

Ademola Adewusi (01:20:27.315)
The African Union wanted a building in Addis Ababa. China built it and bogged the entire place so that nothing could be said without Beijing building exactly what was happening.

You know, so we have created an Africa where you are to be born and then you go out and live your life somewhere else. But when you die, you want to come and die in Africa. You want to be buried in Africa. So we've had a lot of talk shops about Africa. think we need doers. That's one. Most importantly for me is that we now need to craft our own system of government and governance that is different from

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:44.11)
Yeah.

Ademola Adewusi (01:21:06.909)
this Western democracy because it's a lie. And I'll tell you why.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:27.758)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:39.854)
Hey!

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:21:44.808)
The fear of God will enter you.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:16.504)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:37.998)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22:59.816)
So Adesuji, that comes back to what we were saying yesterday when we were talking about the fact that the system itself is corrupt. The governmental system that African countries have embraced itself is corrupt. That's exactly what he sees. That's exactly the point that he's making.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:00.184)
Sister?

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:10.85)
Mm. Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:17.454)
Okay, to end, I just want to underscore the point. We're talking about where the United States has been. Let's start 1959, Iran, the Shah's men. You can read that by Stephen Kinza's book, which is an American coup and the roots of Middle East terror. That's one. Two is we've all seen this gentleman before. Who knows?

Who knew that it was the United States that funded him to the Saudis? So on holy wars, Afghanistan, American and international terror. That's another one. When it comes to Africa itself, we are reminded that what we currently experience has been planned. And so Susan Williams book White Malice, the recolonization of Africa. She writes that.

was a more global one would be Vijay Prashad's Washington's Bullets. There you go. It's the history of CIA coups and assassinations. This is global. This is all the way South America, Asia, Africa. It's all there. And very short book. It's it's easily accessible. But if you want to focus on

Monroe Doctrine which said no one can come into America's backyard and have any sort of influence. overthrow Stephen Kinzer. This is, it's there. It says America's century of regime change from Hawaii to Iraq. So everywhere they've been. Let's just say, I think somebody said a couple of years ago that,

The United States has no, the United Nations has 186 member countries and the US has been in 182 of them. Let that sink in. So be careful what you wish for. And I would like to thank Ademola and Sister Aya for hitting the call at such short notice. I did take you away from your

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:46.498)
weekly activities, but I'm sure you've given context to what we're currently experiencing. And hopefully, people heed to say the white man's ice is not as cold as you think it is. In fact, it's not for you. Final thoughts, Demola?

Adesoji Iginla (01:26:52.258)
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Sister?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:26:57.124)
Again, thank you for just your leadership and thank you my brother, Ademola. I love your analysis. I love everything that you have to share and I look forward to learning more from you. And just to my African brothers and sisters.

We need to return to loving ourselves. We must cure ourselves of this virus of internalized self-hatred. We must cure ourselves of these things that have been injected into us that cause us divisions. We must get back to loving ourselves. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:27:37.388)
Yes, and if this is your first time here, do like share and subscribe all the good stuff. promise to bring similar type conversation. can join us for, African news review. And this week, the sister and I will be doing women and they continue women and resistance, which is our podcast where we look at the role women have contributed to.

the struggle and how they've contributed. And yes, we continue to do the work. African News Review is on Sundays, 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Again, do like, share, subscribe. You can also download the audio version of this on where you get your favorite podcast. So thank you for coming.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:28:27.43)
Hey listen, the channel has been at the same number of subscribers for like a month. Time to move that needle. We're getting to the end of the show. You guys help? Yeah. Yeah, let's go. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:28:33.646)
Yes. Yeah, let's get to 2000. Let's get to 2000 people. Let's get to 2000 people. Yeah, 2000. Let's get to 2000 by the end of the year. So that will be our because by the end of the year, we actually be reaching 100 episodes of African News Review. So let's get to 2002 milestones, 100 and 2000 subscribers. Hopefully more than that, but

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:28:45.008)
Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:29:03.042)
That's a target. So like, share, subscribe. Thank you sister for coming through and for our audience. Thank you all. And until Wednesday when we come again, it's good night and God bless.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:29:22.151)
Good night.