On Truth Social earlier this month President Trump ordered Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth to “put together for doable motion” to protect Christians in Nigeria. (Hegseth’s social-mediated response: “Sure sir”). The order seems to have been prompted no less than partially by a statement from Sen. Ted Cruz final month accusing the Nigerian authorities of “ignoring and even facilitating the mass homicide of Christians by Islamist jihadists.” To a former profession Overseas Service Officer with USAID, together with greater than three years primarily based in Nigeria, probably the most attention-grabbing a part of the order was the president’s risk to “cease all assist and help” to Nigeria.
As I sat at my desk in northern Virginia, having simply filed one other unemployment insurance coverage declare after being illegally fired in July, I questioned: What assist? If the president meant army funding, it could appear counterintuitive to chop off the cash explicitly designated to fight terrorism in Nigeria. I used to be extra sure it was not the help I used to manage, since quickly after Trump took workplace in January he arrogated to himself congressional powers and let Elon Musk and others on the newly shaped Division of Authorities Effectivity cut it off.
One program among the many greater than 5,000 that had been successfully terminated by DOGE helped Nigerians to make modest however significant progress in opposition to battle and extremism in northern Nigeria. Designated as Group Initiatives to Promote Peace, this system’s preliminary phases ran till 2024. It was finally eradicated earlier than its enlargement started in 2025. The curriculum skilled revered neighborhood elders — normally native non secular or tribal leaders — in battle decision and facilitated dialogue periods amongst teams in battle, reminiscent of Christian farmers and Muslim herders.
We designed the venture the way in which medical researchers conduct vaccine trials: We divided the potential recipients into two teams, a “remedy” group receiving the trainings and dialogue periods and a management group that didn’t. Then we took random samples of individuals’s opinions from each teams to see if the outcomes produced a statistically important distinction.
The outcomes had been spectacular. After six months, when the teams had been requested if their communities skilled a violent occasion, solely 10% of individuals in communities that acquired negotiation coaching and dialogue conferences mentioned sure, in comparison with 41% of individuals in communities that hadn’t. The Nigerians within the remedy group reported feeling safer, extra more likely to stroll round their communities and fewer more likely to keep away from sure areas than these within the management group.
This work was supplemented with grants to native Catholic, evangelical and Muslim organizations to broaden their capability to mediate conflicts peacefully. I spent dozens of hours teaching a plucky Catholic group within the battle scorching spot of Kaduna within the mundane however essential work — computerized accounting, documenting actions — to professionalize its operations. Because of this, it was in a position to broaden its battle decision work to extra villages.
But, within the context of a rustic as bodily huge and conflict-deep as Nigeria, our work in a number of dozen communities might be pretty characterised as a pilot program, as we frequently lamented on the time. In response, we made strides coaching up state-level authorities officers and others chargeable for wider geographic areas to institutionalize know-how so extra assist wouldn’t be wanted. We had been additionally exploring methods to attach our efforts on the bottom with social media influencers for higher publicity and influence.
Then, in early February, Musk spent a weekend feeding USAID right into a wooden chipper. What’s left within the coverage toolbox, Trump has apparently determined, is to ship the army into Nigeria with “guns-a-blazing.” The bounds of this method in Nigeria had been on full show in Might 2023, when a U.S. consulate convoy touring in southeast Nigeria was ambushed. The id and motive of the attackers remains to be unclear.
The incident stood out for its brutality, with the victims — two U.S. consulate personnel and two Nigerian cops — horrifically burned beyond recognition inside their vehicles after their automobiles had been subdued by gunfire. Three others had been kidnapped.
Two suspects had been shortly arrested, although it’s nonetheless not clear how they had been tied to the assault, and it’s nonetheless not publicly identified whether or not they have been tried and convicted. Much more alarming, regardless of in depth intelligence sharing between the American and Nigerian governments, no additional arrests have been introduced. If “guns-a-blazing” presumes identified targets, it doesn’t appear promising that we haven’t had a lot success discovering the perpetrators who killed U.S. authorities workers and burned U.S. armored automobiles.
USAID’s battle decision work factors to a bigger fact about overseas assist that complicates the simplistic binary typically introduced: that it’s both selfless charity or “woke” out-of-control spending. USAID soberly understood its position as one thing else solely — the implementers of a instrument within the U.S. authorities’s overseas coverage toolbox. Generally we weren’t the best instrument for the job; violent power was. This was a actuality simply as true in Nigeria as wherever else.
Clever leaders perceive which instrument, or mixture of instruments, and in what amount to use them with a purpose to obtain their objectives. For anybody genuinely involved concerning the plight of Christians in Nigeria, it’s deeply unlucky that the U.S. authorities not has its appreciable overseas assist funds as a part of its engagement with the Nigerian authorities on the problem.
Within the courtyard of the U.S. Embassy in Abuja at present, a small tree rises subsequent to a plaque solemnly honoring these killed. It was planted at a transferring ceremony throughout which surviving relations spoke concerning the dedication and delight of their family members in supporting the nice work of the U.S. in Nigeria. Now they, like the remainder of Nigeria, may quickly expertise a U.S. invasion. Individuals may expertise, in all probability not for the final time, what occurs after we — a few of us gleefully — forfeited one of the crucial efficient instruments we possessed to wage peace.
Daniel Morris, a former American diplomat, was USAID’s senior battle advisor in Abuja, Nigeria, from 2020 to 2024.
