By Chuks Eke
A social critic, Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor has insisted that those who oppose international collaboration against counter-terrorism without offering credible alternatives cannot be regarded as patriots, rather they could be regarded as enablers by ommission.
Apparently reacting to a viral news report captioned: “how a screwdriver trader in Onitsha influenced Donald Trump’s missile strike in Nigeria, Ejiofor noted that terrorism is inherently transnational with it’s funding, ideology, logistics and recruitment pipelines not respecting borders, adding that to insist that Nigeria must confront such a hydra-headed monster alone is either naive patriotism or calculated dishonesty.
In a press statement issued on Monday titled: “when power confuses noise for truth”, Ejiofor maintained that international collaboration in intelligent sharing, counter terrorism training, surveillance and targeted operations are not surrender of sovereignty and not assertion of survival.
According to Ejiofor, “paid lobbyists, media charlatans, and the futile hunt for journalistic sources in a world at war with the have done more harm than good in Nigeria”.
“There is a peculiar arrogance that often accompanies paid advocacy when it strays beyond its lawful and ethical brief. It is the arrogance that assumes repetition can transmute falsehood into fact, that intimidation may substitute for reason, and that the ancient and jealously guarded protections of journalistic independence can be suspended at the whim of power brokers masquerading as moral arbiters”.
“Over the past 24 hours, Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chairman of Interanational Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (INTERSOCIETY), and a longstanding civil society advocate, has found himself at the centre of a carefully choreographed media lynching. His alleged offence is the claim that he exaggerated documentary evidence concerning the scale of Christian persecution and terrorism in Northern Nigeria”.
“In a further descent into the theatre of the absurd, some overzealous propagandists have even suggested, without evidence, logic, or the faintest blush of restraint, that his documentary work constituted the exclusive basis for recent policy actions attributed to the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump”.
“One is compelled to ask: when did advocacy degenerate into farce, and when did journalism become answerable to lobbyists. Are we seriously being invited to believe that Trump, presiding over the most sophisticated intelligence architecture in human history, encompassing the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, satellite surveillance systems, human intelligence networks, and allied security apparatus across continents, would predicate consequential military or diplomatic decisions on a single documentary or civil society report originating from Nigeria?”
“If this proposition were to be taken seriously, one might reasonably wonder why trillions of dollars are expended annually on intelligence gathering, when apparently a Google search and a Nigerian documentary would suffice.
Sarcasm aside, the suggestion is an insult not only to intelligence institutions, but to elementary common sense. Let us, therefore, return to facts, those inconvenient intruders into propaganda”.
“Is there documented, ongoing persecution and mass killing of Christians in Northern Nigeria?
Yes. This reality has been independently reported by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), and multiple United Nations agencies”.
“Is Northern Nigeria afflicted by Boko Haram, ISWAP, jihadist bandits, and insurgent networks?
Yes. The North-East, North-Central, and North-West remain theatres of sustained asymmetric warfare. Has Nigeria cooperated with the United States and other foreign partners in counter-terrorism operations? Yes. This cooperation is neither clandestine nor controversial; it is acknowledged state policy. Does Nigeria require foreign intelligence, logistics, and military assistance to combat terrorism effectively? Again, yes. These are not opinions. They are empirical realities”.
Why, then, the orchestrated outrage? Why the sudden hostility toward an Onitsha-based activist?
Why the manufactured controversy?
The answer, though uncomfortable, is painfully obvious. Those who profit, financially, politically, or strategically, from insecurity will always resent transparency. Those whose relevance depends on controlled narratives will instinctively recoil when external scrutiny threatens to expose domestic complicity, incompetence, or collusion,”.
“To such actors, foreign collaboration is dangerous, not because it destabilises Nigeria, but because it destabilises their revenue streams, influence networks, and carefully curated falsehoods”.
Journalists are not court clerks for lobbyists. Civil society advocates are not foot soldiers for propaganda houses. And the law does not contort itself to accommodate intellectual laziness or paid indignation”.
“The attempt to trivialise the legitimate investigative work and documented successes of Emeka Umeagbalasi is an assault not merely on one advocate/activist, but on the very oxygen of democracy. Today it is Emeka Umeagbalasi; tomorrow it will be any voice deemed inconvenient to entrenched power”.
“History is rarely kind to those who choose silence in the face of terror, or complicity in the presence of truth. Let journalism breathe. Let the law speak. And let those who profit from chaos tremble at the prospect of light”.
