Dr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, a former presidential candidate, has stated that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s corrupt and incompetent administration is solely to blame for the ongoing diplomatic crisis between Nigeria and the United States over alleged Christian genocide, not U.S. President Donald Trump, who is also under increasing pressure from his political base.
The diplomatic standoff, according to Dr. Hashim, a seasoned human rights activist and 2009 winner of the esteemed Lord Max Beloff Prize in Global Affairs from the University of Buckingham, United Kingdom, is a reflection of the Tinubu government’s “reckless and self serving foreign policy,” which puts personal, political, and financial interests ahead of Nigeria’s national security and reputation abroad.
The fact that Nigeria currently lacks ambassadors in numerous important nations is quite concerning. For more than ten years, the bilateral and biannational commissions set up to handle urgent security and commercial issues have fallen apart, according to Hashim.
He bemoaned the fact that the current APC administration has turned to “a motley crowd of poorly informed operatives and international outlaws pushing shady interests incoherently and dangerously” after blocking institutional avenues for diplomacy.
This is “a Janjaweed foreign policy, which is truly disgraceful and embarrassing,” according to Hashim.
Hashim recalled Nigeria’s illustrious history as a stabilizing factor in Africa, pointing out that the nation formerly stood tall as a dependable ally that used ECOMOG to bring peace to West Africa and took the lead in peacekeeping missions in the Congo, Darfur, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. He said, “Our current situation is both tragic and shameful.”
Attempts to minimize reports of targeted killings were criticized by Hashim as being “fundamentally faulty.”
“Before we acknowledge the evidence of complicity and failure to protect citizens, which categories of Nigerians need to die in the staggering numbers we see?” he questioned.
The former presidential candidate also said that although the administration ignores it, members of the ruling APC are committing serious human rights violations on a regular basis. He cautioned that under the Rome Statute, which Nigeria has domesticated, open threats made by party members against voter groups suspected of not backing Tinubu in 2027 were to international crimes.
“An ethnic group that predominantly practices one faith is the target of these threats,” he stated. “Given that Nigeria is a signatory to numerous international human rights conventions, such acts cannot be dismissed as internal affairs.”
Dr. Hashim, who was formerly named a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International in 1989, urged a national conversation to set a new direction for Nigeria’s foreign policy and national security framework after Tinubu.
He declared, “To rebuild a framework that ensures peace, stability, and the preservation of Nigeria’s sovereignty, genuine patriots must begin consultations.” “It is a very positive development if the American initiative has become a catalyst for this essential national reawakening.”
