Prominent publisher and political commentator, Dele Momodu, has urged President Bola Tinubu to immediately enlist the support of elder statesmen like former President Olusegun Obasanjo and respected Christian leaders to defuse the crisis sparked by recent threats from US President Donald Trump.
Speaking on Channels Television on Friday morning, Momodu said Tinubu should reach out to influential figures who can command attention both at home and abroad.
He said such voices, seasoned, respected and partly religious, would be more effective than “political jobbers” in getting the world to take Nigeria’s security crisis seriously.
“The exact list of people he must reach out to will be former President Olusegun Obasanjo — who, after Nelson Mandela, I believe, is the greatest African statesman,” Momodu said.
“We have Chief Emeka Anyaoku who was Commonwealth secretary-general so many years ago; God has preserved his life for us. On an occasion such as this, they need to reach out. They need to reach out to powerful Christian goods, Lieutenant-General Theophilus Yakubu, these are very worthy Christians who have a voice and who would speak and they would listen to them.”
Momodu framed the US criticism, and Trump’s public remarks, as being presented from a religious angle, which he warned has made the situation easier for outside actors to portray the violence as sectarian.
He stressed, however, that the problem was broader, stressing that Nigerians of all faiths were being killed across the country.
“They are bringing this thing from a religious angle, it makes it very convenient to say Christians are being killed and Muslims are being killed,” he said.
“But in general, must Nigerians be killed at all? Nigerians are being killed. Nigerians today are despairing even if they announce that 1,000 people are killed in Benue, life continues as well — in Plateau, Taraba, Adamawa and so on.”
Momodu also warned that conventional politicking will not solve the immediate diplomatic and security fallout. He said the moment calls for statesmanship and urgent, strategic outreach rather than party-level manoeuvring.
“The President needs to get people who have the capacity to speak and will be listened to, not all these political jobbers,” Momodu said.
“That’s why I said the president is good at politicking… but we’ve passed that stage.”
Reflecting on the difficulty of Tinubu’s position, Momodu said the president now faces a precarious moment and must “put on his thinking cap” for the sake of the country.
“If anybody told you two weeks ago that President Tinubu would be in this precarious situation you would have said no, but I saw him speaking last night, and I felt for him because this is not the best time to be the president of Nigeria,” he said.
