A Coordinated Revisionist Push Is Underway.
A new wave of information warfare has emerged across Nigeria’s political and media space attempting to recast a complex geopolitical event, the U.S. Christmas Day airstrikes in Sokoto and Nigeria’s redesignation as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), as the fault of Ndi Igbo. In this narrative, Igbo activism, IPOB agitation, and even Peter Obi’s diplomatic visibility become the alleged triggers for American action against Nigeria.
This is not organic. It is constructed. And like all constructed narratives, it has a target and an objective.
But before accepting or rejecting claims, one must first ask the foundational question:
Does the narrative even remotely align with verifiable timelines, state communications, geopolitical processes and field realities?
Once the timelines are examined, the accusation collapses.
THE GOVERNMENT ITSELF CONFIRMED U.S. COORDINATION
Shortly after the U.S. strikes, Nigeria’s federal authorities acknowledged that the operation was conducted within an existing U.S.-Nigeria counterterrorism cooperation framework. The Nigerian government stated clearly that it was aware of the operation and was not blindsided.
If Abuja itself collaborated with Washington, how can the same Abuja (and its media proxies) now claim that Igbos somehow “invited” or “triggered” those actions? That contradiction exposes the first fracture in the scapegoat narrative.
If guilt exists, it belongs to the state that entered the security arrangement, not to a region that has no influence over foreign military operations.
TERRORISM REALITY WAS DOCUMENTED LONG BEFORE ANY “IGBO LOBBY”
The CPC designation did not arise from IPOB agitation or South East grievances. It is the product of more than a decade of documentation, hearings and congressional briefings about mass killings, village burnings, forced displacement and attacks in:
Plateau
Benue
Southern Kaduna
Taraba
Niger State
Borno
Yobe
Adamawa
The overwhelming majority of atrocities flagged by international monitors were committed far outside Igboland and had nothing to do with Igbo activism.
For years, human rights groups, clergy, Middle Belt organisations and foreign observers repeatedly warned that Nigeria was becoming one of the most dangerous countries in the world for Christian minorities, especially Catholic and Protestant communities in the Middle Belt.
Nigeria’s political class ignored them.
THE LIST THE GOVERNMENT REFUSED TO RELEASE
It is also a matter of public record that foreign governments submitted to Nigeria the names of alleged terror financiers, including serving and former officials, contractors and political figures.
The list was never released. Only the names of a few faceless BDC operators were released.
Not one prosecution. Not one conviction. Not one public hearing.
Yet today we are told that the real threat lies not with those who sponsored the violence, but with those who spoke about it.
This is how states deflect responsibility.
THE MIDDLE BELT MASSACRES CANNOT BE WISHED AWAY
The Middle Belt quietly carries one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in modern Nigeria. Entire farming communities have been depopulated. Priests were murdered in sanctuaries. Women and children were burned in churches. Villages were razed at night. Tens of thousands were displaced.
These atrocities predate IPOB and have nothing to do with Igbo agitation or secession politics. The have more to do with religious violence and criminal mining displacement
The victims are not Igbo. The perpetrators are not Igbo. The field realities were documented by foreign correspondents, satellite evidence, church networks and humanitarian monitors long before CPC was ever invoked.
To bury that history beneath a new ethnic scapegoat is a second violence layered upon the first.
THE REAL QUESTION: WHO FAILED TO PROTECT NIGERIAN CITIZENS?
It is fair to ask:
Who controls the military?
Who controls the intelligence services?
Who controls the police?
Who controls internal security?
Who controls the Ministry of Defence?
Who controlled the Presidency for the last two decades?
Almost none of these answer to Ndi Igbo.
For over 50 years, the South East has been the most absent region in Nigeria’s national security architecture. To blame the most excluded demographic for the failure of the most empowered demographic is not analysis — it is scapegoating.
THE POLITICAL LINE: “IGBOS CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH POWER”
The attempt to blame Igbos for U.S. pressure is not new. It feeds into an older Yoruba/Northern elite argument that has been repeated since the post-war era: that the Igbo cannot be trusted with power because they may retaliate for the injustices of 1966–70. This argument has been used to justify a 60-year exclusion from the presidency.
The irony is painful: the same system that claims Igbos cannot be trusted with power has had no difficulty trusting them to build Lagos, power the informal economy, drive commerce, populate industries, pay taxes, promote Nigeria in diaspora and help keep the federation financially afloat with huge diadporw remittances.
We are good enough for labour, commerce, markets and taxation, but not for leadership.
What then does Nigeria truly want from Ndi Igbo?
THE STRUCTURAL INJUSTICE OF THE ROTATION MATH
From 1999 to 2023:
Obasanjo (South West) ~ 8 years
Osinbajo (South West) ~ 8 years as Vice President
Tinubu (South West) ~ now seeking 8 more
That is potentially 24 uninterrupted years of South West participation at the apex of federal power.
Meanwhile, the South East:
0 years. Not a single day.
And by 2031, if power rotates back to the North as expected, the South East is effectively told to wait until 2039, 40 years into the Fourth Republic.
At that point, the question is no longer academic. It becomes existential.
IF WE ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO LEAD, THEN LET US NEGOTIATE OUR OWN DESTINY
If we are perpetually good enough to:
build the economy,
populate the markets,
power the cities,
grow national wealth,
but never good enough to exercise executive authority, then something fundamental is broken.
A federation without equity becomes a holding cell.
Under such circumstances, separation becomes a rational conversation, not a taboo. The South West and the North can continue their rotation. The South East can chart its own path. Divorce need not be hostile. It can be administrative, negotiated and dignified.
Nationhood is not forced marriage. No people should be compelled to remain in a structure where they are permanently excluded from first-class citizenship.
ULTIMATELY: THE SMEAR SERVES POWER, NOT TRUTH
The sudden desire to blame the Igbo for CPC, the U.S. strikes and Western scrutiny is not about truth. It is about 2027.
It provides:
a pretext to deny the South East the presidency,
a justification to militarise and suppress dissent in the East,
a psychological warfare tool to fracture Middle Belt–South East solidarity,
and a domestic narrative to distract from federal failure.
Bad governments manufacture internal enemies when they have failed to confront external realities.
The question now is not whether the smear is effective.
The real question is: how long will the rest of the country pretend not to see what is plainly happening?
Because at the end of the day, the world is watching and the arithmetic speaks for itself.
By Hon. Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
Duruebube Uzii na Abosi
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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