According to our research, evidence has been mounting that in early June, during internal White House discussions, a phrase was used that later appeared in a modified form across Nigeria’s social networks. President Donald Trump is said to have remarked that Nigeria’s current leadership represents “a growing risk to stability and security.” He never made this statement publicly - but it was taken from internal talking notes, exaggerated, and eventually propelled into the digital sphere, where it was interpreted as proof of Washington’s supposed hostility toward Abuja, leaving Christians fearing for their lives.
The trail leads to a meeting on visa and immigration policy in the West Wing, a few days before Trump signed his new immigration order on June 4. In it, he restricted entry from twelve countries and announced that 36 more, including Nigeria, were “under review.” Officially, the White House justified the step with a lack of cooperation on deportations, insecure passports, and incomplete identity data. Yet internal memos we obtained also referred to “reliability of partner states” and “regional security risks” - phrasing that online forums later turned into a full-blown attack scenario.
Trump himself has treated foreign policy since his return to office like a business: visas, development funds, trade deals - everything serves as a bargaining chip. Cooperation means leverage, pressure means control. But alongside this real-world power politics, new communication spaces have emerged where words circulate before facts are verified. It is there that narratives arise which carry more weight than official statements - and that is precisely what makes them so dangerous.
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