United States President, Donald Trump’s renewed attack on Nigeria has stirred quiet panic in the leadership of the National Assembly forcing President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to canvass calculated restraint. Sunday Aborisade reports.
When Godswill Akpabio, President of the Senate, instructed ministerial nominee Kingsley Udeh (SAN) to “ignore any question on Trump” during his screening, it was more than parliamentary etiquette. It was a signal of anxiety. The anxiety is rooted in the surprisingly fraught interplay between Nigeria’s national sovereignty and the seismic reverberations of Donald Trump’s recent foreign-policy pronouncements.
Late last month, the U.S. President announced that Nigeria would be redesignated a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, a status reserved for nations judged by the U.S. to engage in “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” violations of religious freedom.