Nigeria’s latest high-profile delegation to Washington, led by Nationwide Safety Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, was billed as a vital alternative to recalibrate safety and counterterrorism cooperation with the US. But the optics inform a troubling story: a crew that includes the NSA, the Inspector-Basic of Police, the Lawyer Basic, and senior navy and intelligence officers assembly with a first-term congressman with no formal function in overseas coverage or appropriations committees. The query is straightforward however pressing: did Nigeria have interaction strategically or merely play for headlines?
Congressman Riley M. Moore’s press launch after the assembly was unambiguous. He framed Nigeria as failing to guard Christians and unable to include terrorism, echoing President Trump’s well-publicised “no tolerance” rhetoric. But Moore is neither a policymaker within the State Division, AFRICOM, or congressional overseas relations committees, nor a decision-maker on U.S. safety funding. His affect is political, ideological, and tied to Trump-aligned conservative blocs. If the Nigerian delegation supposed to form U.S. coverage substantively, it seems they misinterpret the panorama.
The problem goes deeper than one assembly. Washington is a layered ecosystem: the State Division units coverage, AFRICOM coordinates operational help, Congress controls budgets, and political blocs form narratives. Efficient diplomacy requires participating all layers strategically, not permitting a single narrative amplifier to dominate. The absence of public reporting on conferences with the State Division, AFRICOM, or the Senate International Relations Committee raises uncomfortable questions on Nigeria’s planning. If Moore was the centrepiece, Abuja’s strategy displays reactive diplomacy relatively than calculated affect.
That is greater than a misstep in protocol; it’s a symptom of Nigeria’s broader overseas coverage misalignment. Conservative U.S. actors have amplified studies of Christian persecution and insecurity within the Northeast and Center Belt for months. As an alternative of proactively shaping the narrative with verified information, reforms, and intelligence, Nigeria responded defensively. By failing to personal the narrative, Abuja ceded the ethical excessive floor, permitting a U.S. lawmaker to border the discourse unchallenged.
Past the optics, Nigeria’s safety disaster is way extra complicated than non secular persecution alone. Boko Haram, ISWAP, banditry, and farmer–herder conflicts intersect with systemic governance failures: ineffective arms procurement, weak intelligence coordination, porous borders, and uneven justice enforcement. A strategically aligned delegation would have introduced this multidimensional actuality, demonstrating how U.S. help might strengthen establishments, relatively than merely highlighting the plight of 1 non secular group.
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Nigeria’s delegation, whereas spectacular on paper, indicators both misreading or misprioritisation: both Abuja doesn’t absolutely perceive Washington’s diplomatic hierarchy, or it prioritised visibility over coverage outcomes. Excessive-ranking safety and intelligence officers hardly ever meet a congressman except within the context of a serious bilateral negotiation or pressing disaster. The shortage of seen engagement with core U.S. overseas coverage actors leaves room for scepticism.
What ought to have occurred? A really strategic mission would have:
Engaged the State Division’s Africa Bureau to form coverage directives;
Consulted AFRICOM management on operational counterterrorism cooperation;
Briefed the Senate and Home International Relations Committees on controlling safety help;
Issued a data-driven joint press assertion to appropriate misconceptions; and
Secured concrete agreements for intelligence-sharing and counterterrorism collaboration.
Congressman Moore’s function ought to have been restricted to narrative amplification, not defining the go to. Nigeria wanted to manage the messaging with proof, demonstrating each the complexity of its safety setting and the reforms it’s implementing.
Trying ahead, Abuja should recalibrate. Washington just isn’t a monolith; it’s a maze of energy, affect, and funding streams. Nigeria’s credibility depends upon coordinated diplomacy, readability of goal, and confidence. Excessive-profile visits alone, absent strategic concentrating on and evidence-based messaging, threat returning little greater than picture alternatives and press releases.
If Nigeria seeks real cooperation, it should first present coherence at residence: clear governance, constant safety outcomes, and accountability in intelligence and regulation enforcement. Till then, even essentially the most senior delegations threat leaving with optics however no leverage.
The takeaway is evident: participating political amplifiers just isn’t fallacious; ceding the narrative to them is. Nigeria’s Washington gamble is just worthwhile if technique, not desperation, dictates its strikes. In any other case, the nation continues to journey far solely to reach on the similar precarious place.
