Former presidential candidate and human rights advocate, Dr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has accused President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration of fuelling the ongoing diplomatic tension between Nigeria and the United States, describing the government’s approach as “reckless, self-serving and disastrous.”
Dr. Hashim said the standoff over alleged Christian genocide in parts of Nigeria was a direct outcome of what he called the government’s “Janjaweed foreign policy,” which he argued has undermined Nigeria’s once-proud global reputation.
“It is deeply troubling that, as we speak, Nigeria does not have ambassadors in many key countries,” he stated. “The bi-national and bilateral commissions that were established to strengthen cooperation on security and trade have collapsed for over a decade.”
The former presidential hopeful, who received the Lord Max Beloff Prize in Global Affairs from the University of Buckingham in 2009, said the All Progressives Congress (APC) government has replaced experienced diplomats with “a motley crowd of poorly informed operatives and international outlaws pushing shady interests incoherently and dangerously.”
According to him, the government’s foreign policy is no longer guided by national interest but by “personal, political, and pecuniary motivations.”
Describing the situation as “a tragic decline from Nigeria’s leadership role in Africa,” Dr. Hashim recalled that Nigeria once stood as a stabilising force in the region through ECOMOG peacekeeping missions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, and the Congo.
“Our current predicament is both tragic and disgraceful,” he lamented.
He also faulted attempts by government supporters to dismiss reports of targeted killings of religious minorities, insisting that such denials were “fundamentally faulty.”
“Which categories of Nigerians need to die in the staggering numbers we see before we acknowledge the evidence of complicity and failure to protect citizens?” he asked.
Dr. Hashim accused the ruling party of tolerating grave human rights abuses and warned that open threats against perceived political opponents could amount to international crimes under the Rome Statute, which Nigeria has domesticated.
“These threats are directed at an ethnic group that predominantly practices one faith,” he said. “Such acts cannot be dismissed as internal affairs when Nigeria is a signatory to multiple international human rights conventions.”
A former Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience in 1989, Hashim urged Nigerians to rise above partisan divisions and begin national consultations to rebuild the country’s diplomatic and security frameworks.
“Genuine patriots must begin consultations to rebuild a framework that ensures peace, stability, and the preservation of Nigeria’s sovereignty,” he said. “If the American initiative has become a catalyst for this necessary national reawakening, then it is a most welcome development.”
