by Mohammed Bello Doka
12 April, 2026
Welcome, dear battered compatriots, to another soul-saving edition of Sarcastic Sunday with Mohammed Bello Doka – your weekly therapy session where we study Nigeria’s political gymnastics sarcastically, because doing otherwise will choke us to death faster than a Lagos go-slow in harmattan. Oh, what a glorious trinity we have this week, my people: three mighty Ts locked in a cosmic wrestling match that makes WWE look like nursery playtime. T is for Trump, the orange oracle thundering from across the Atlantic like a prophet who just discovered Twitter – sorry, Truth Social – and decided Nigeria’s Christians were starring in their very own biblical exodus. T is for Tinubu, our own homegrown contortionist, flipping threats into training manuals with the grace of a market woman dodging NEPA bills. And the third T? Trouble, of course – that eternal, uninvited guest who keeps gatecrashing every prayer meeting, every barracks parade, and every government press briefing with fresh body bags and the cheekiest grin.
Let us begin with Trump’s T, shall we? Because nothing says “weekly therapy” like revisiting October 31, 2025, when the man himself took to Truth Social and dropped a truth bomb heavier than a Boko Haram IED. “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,” he declared, eyes probably blazing like the American flag on steroids. “Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.” Boom. Nigeria redesignated as a Country of Particular Concern – CPC, not the kind you sip with ice, but the kind that gets you on America’s religious-freedom naughty list. Then came the kicker, the one that had our diplomats sweating like sinners in church: he threatened to cut all U.S. aid, and if that didn’t work, well, “the U.S.A. will immediately stop all assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.” Fast, vicious, and sweet, he promised. Like revenge served with a side of Freedom Fries.
Now, was he spotlighting real pain? Sure, Open Doors World Watch List 2026 tallied thousands of believers killed for their faith in Nigeria between October 2024 and September 2025. Churches torched, pastors executed mid-sermon, schoolgirls snatched like faulty ATM cards. Yet to avoid conflating the issues, verifiable reports from the International Crisis Group and local monitors make it crystal clear: both Muslims and Christians are being killed in this madness, and elements from both faith communities have been implicated in the cycle of retaliatory killings. Fulani militants, Benue-Taraba militia and jihadist offshoots have been involved in the so-called Middle Belt, where crises are often both ethnic and religious, rooted in farmer-herder conflicts, with politicians from both sides taking advantage for political gain. But Trump framed it as pure genocide against Christians, as if the terrorists were handing out “Muslims Only” exemption cards at the massacre gates. Yes there is an ongoing genocide in Nigeria but it's not a genocide of identity but of truth who's only victim is the poor the unfortunate Muslims and Christians caught in a never ending cycle of sorrow, tears and blood.
Cue Tinubu’s T – the diplomatic dance that turned potential Armageddon into a joint Christmas present. By December 25, 2025 – yes, actual Christmas morning – U.S. strikes hammered Islamic State targets in Sokoto, northwest Nigeria. Coordinated. Requested. Approved by Abuja itself ( allegedly). Trump’s “guns-a-blazing” became our government’s “thank you for the air support, uncle.” But it was symbolic at best: to date, not a single terrorist leader has been publicly named as killed, nor has any particular camp been dismantled. The sad episode is both Tinubu and Trump are playing politics with people's lives. Trump ignored the true epicenters of banditry and terror in Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Kebbi, Niger, Borno, and beyond, choosing Sokoto for optics while the real trouble zones continued unchecked. Suddenly, American trainers – about 100 of them by mid-February 2026 – were in-country, drilling our boys on how to fight the very terrorists Trump had threatened to bomb unilaterally. Tinubu’s spokespeople, led by the ever-smooth Daniel Bwala, were out here saying things like, “We welcome U.S. assistance as long as it respects our territorial integrity,” and “There is no genocide in Nigeria.” No genocide, they insisted, because terrorists kill Muslims too – which, statistically, they do in the northeast and northwest, where the vast majority of Boko Haram, bandits and ISWAP victims have always been fellow Muslims refusing to bow to the caliphate fantasy or been unfortunate enough to be in a country absent regards to human lives. The African Union backed them up, waving the “complex insecurity, not genocide” flag like it was Independence Day. And instead, the government seems to favor negotiations with these bandits rather than outright confrontation, as evidenced by repeated amnesty offers and dialogues in the northwest that keep the cycle spinning like a faulty generator.
But let’s get Cunkish for a second, my fellow therapy patients: if it’s not genocide, why does every fresh attack feel like the government is reading from the same script titled “Denial: The Musical”? “These are desperate acts by bandits,” they say, as if bandits just happen to own rocket launchers and a burning hatred for both the Quran and the Bible. Recent attacks? Oh, allow me. Just two days ago – April 9, 2026 – an army general and several soldiers were gunned down in a brazen assault on a military base in the northeast. Terrorists, the military called them. Not “unknown gunmen.” Not “herdsmen with anger issues.” "not prodigal sons" Terrorists. Yet the official line remains: just general “insecurity.” Fast-forward to March 17: suicide bombings ripped through a teaching hospital and two markets in Maiduguri, Borno State. At least 23 dead, over 100 injured. Boko Haram fingerprints all over it, according to the military spokesman. Hospitals. Markets. Places where Muslims and Christians shop, pray, and bleed side by side.
And don’t get me started on February 3 in Kwara State – Woro and Nuku villages turned into charnel houses. 162 residents slaughtered, homes torched, a traditional ruler’s palace reduced to ashes. The attackers? IS-linked Lakurawa group, furious because the villagers – mostly Muslims – rejected their strict Sharia demands. Yes, you read that right: Muslims killing Muslims for not being Muslim enough. Yet our government’s response? “We condemn this heinous act” and back to business as usual, while mass trials of 500 terrorism suspects finally kicked off in Abuja this month. Forty-four more souls all Muslims lost in coordinated attacks across Kebbi State communities just last week – villages like Gebe, Kalkami, and others turned into ghost towns. Global Terrorism Index 2026 ranks us fourth worldwide for such delights. Fourth! We’re basically the Premier League champions of chaos.
Here’s the chunky question that keeps me up at night, dear readers: if Trump was so wrong about the “genocide” label, why does Trouble keep delivering fresh horror shows that make his Truth Social rants look prophetic? Is it because the terrorists are equal-opportunity employers, slaughtering Christians in churches one week and Muslims in mosques the next, while bandits and herders add their own deadly garnish of cattle rustling and kidnapping-for-ransom – with both Muslims and Christians engaged in the killings depending on the turf war? Or is it because denial has become our national sport – gold medal standard – where every barracks raid is met with “troops are in control” and every bombing is “isolated”? Tinubu’s T has turned the threat into partnership: joint operations, training missions, working groups on religious freedom. Beautiful. But while Washington and Abuja hold hands like awkward prom dates, Trouble is still out here ambushing soldiers in their own bases, as the latest Borno attack reminded us yesterday. Apparently both sides are once again playing politics with people's lives.
Imagine the allegory, my people: Trump as the loud uncle at the family reunion yelling, “I’ll burn the house down if you don’t stop hurting the kids!” Tinubu as the smooth-talking dad negotiating, “Uncle, let’s not be hasty – how about some military aid and a group hug instead?” And Trouble? The feral toddler smashing plates, lighting curtains on fire, and screaming “Allahu Akbar” or “This land is mine” depending on the day. The rest of us? The exhausted relatives in the corner, sipping garri and wondering if therapy is covered by NHIS.
Because let’s be brutally sarcastic: Nigeria’s political gymnastics here are Olympic-level. We deny the one-sided religious angle when it suits the narrative (“It’s poverty! Climate change! Colonial borders!”), yet the verifiable reality from every monitor is that both Muslims and Christians are dying, with perpetrators crossing lines in farmer-herder clashes that politicians exploit from both sides. The violence is a toxic cocktail: ideology, land, guns, weak governance, and corruption so thick you could spread it on agege bread. But instead of admitting the cocktail exists, we serve press releases claiming it’s just “insecurity” flavored with denial – and a side of negotiations that never quite confront the bandits head-on.
Trump’s T forced the conversation on one dimension. Tinubu’s T turned it into cooperation. But Trouble’s T refuses to leave the stage. Recent Kwara massacre? Mostly Muslim victims executed for rejecting extremism. Maiduguri bombings? Crowded markets where faith didn’t matter – only the blast radius did. Kebbi killings? Coordinated, ruthless, 44 gone in one sweep. Northeast barracks raid? A general and his men cut down like it was open season on epaulettes. And still, the government’s seriousness is delivered with the straight face of a man denying his leaking roof while standing in a puddle. “We are tackling it decisively,” they say, as another mass trial begins and another attack lands.
So here we are, compatriots, in Sarcastic Sunday therapy: three Ts dancing the same destructive waltz. Trump highlighted one set of victims while the full picture shows both Muslims and Christians bleeding from the same blades. Tinubu denied the genocide label – also factually correct in the strict legal sense, because no state policy of extermination exists, just spectacular state failure laced with negotiation preferences. And Trouble? Trouble laughs last, because while the big Ts negotiate aid and sovereignty, villages burn, barracks bleed, and markets explode.
Is this progress? Or just another loop in the gymnastics routine that will choke us all if we don’t laugh? Next week, perhaps we’ll tackle why our solutions always arrive after the body count. Until then, stay sarcastic, stay alive, and remember: in Nigeria, even the Ts come with trouble.
Therapy session complete. See you next Sunday, or sooner if Trouble strikes again.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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