The Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, Pastor Tunde Bakare, has claimed that the motive behind President Donald Trump’s recent designation of Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” and his allegations of Christian genocide is the U.S. president’s interest in Nigeria’s oil wealth.
According to Bakare, who spoke during a State of the Nation Address at the Citadel Global Community Church on Sunday, the Trump administration considers Nigeria’s oil wealth, other mineral resources and critical sectors such as real estate as central to its agenda.
He added that Trump was also keen on Nigeria’s role in the value chain of emerging technologies, which he described as major pillars of the American leader’s foreign and economic policy.
The address marked Bakare’s first public reaction since Trump’s October 31 redesignation of Nigeria as a CPC and his subsequent “guns-a-blazing, fast, vicious and sweet attack on terrorists in Nigeria” comments, which triggered swift responses from the President Bola Tinubu administration.
Bakare recalled that shortly after Trump won the 2024 U.S. election, he received a vision in which the American leader arrived in Sabo, Yaba, Lagos, aboard Air Force One, “dressed in Arabian thobe and ghutra” and declaring, “We are here now.”
He said the revelation signalled a “particular interest” Trump would take in Nigeria linked to Middle East politics, oil and gas, real estate, and the country’s expanding technology sector.
Bakare said, “It was clear to us that President Donald Trump was going to have a particular interest in Nigeria.
“Nigeria’s oil wealth and other mineral resources will be critical to the Trump presidency, as will our role in the value chain of emerging technologies.”
He added that the symbolic attire in the vision pointed to “religious implications” that could spark tensions if not properly managed.
“Trump’s Muslim attire was a clear indication that his interest in Nigeria could have serious religious implications, such that could cause religiously motivated social unrest,” he said.
Bakare labelled Trump’s leadership style transactional and urged the Federal Government to respond with a structured economic plan.
“President Donald Trump has proven to be a transactional leader whose threats are usually invitations to the negotiating table,” he said.
“The Nigerian government should present the United States with a mutually beneficial business proposal, one that will facilitate US business interests while guaranteeing Nigeria’s security, educational development, industrialisation and access to cutting-edge technologies.”
He urged the Federal Government to negotiate a strategic business deal with Washington rather than wait to be pressured, stressing that Nigeria must not miss the window of opportunity.
While he did not disclose details of his proposed plan, he insisted that Nigeria’s long-term development depended on striking agreements anchored on national interest.
President Tinubu, last week, appointed National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, to head Nigeria’s delegation on the U.S.-Nigeria joint working group to deepen collaboration between the two countries on security.
The former Vice-Presidential candidate also warned that the country’s worsening insecurity had exposed deep structural wounds long ignored by successive governments.
He said the Middle Belt, North-West and South-East had become flashpoints of unresolved grievances, banditry, terror networks and communal mistrust.
“To deny that Christians have been targeted in many Middle Belt communities is to turn the truth on its head,” he said.
According to him, the continued killings across Benue, Plateau, Southern Kaduna and other Middle Belt states were a “shame on the Nigerian state.”
He criticised the National Assembly for remaining silent on the insecurity crisis until the U.S. Congress debated the issue, accusing lawmakers of prioritising 2027 politicking and defections over national security.
In the same vein, he faulted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for being reactive and failing to galvanise diplomatic goodwill to support Nigeria’s war against terror.
He said, “It is a shame on the Nigerian government that these communities would resort to calling on the American government to help because their own government has failed them woefully.
“It is a shame on our National Assembly that it took the United States Congress — not the representatives elected by Nigerians — to convene a hearing on the lived experiences of citizens suffering under insecurity, while those in Abuja were busy with politicking, posturing for political relevance, defecting from one political party to another in their desperate manoeuvres to secure their seats ahead of the 2027 elections.
“It is indeed a shame that Nigeria’s foreign affairs architecture failed all the while to mobilise Nigeria’s dwindling diplomatic goodwill to secure international support for the war on terror, only to respond with excuses when that goodwill reached its lowest ebb.”
The PUNCH
