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By Lilian Onoh

Every Nigerian should take a look at the emblem of the Nigerian Army and try to read its motto – the banner under which every single soldier must fight.

The vast majority of Nigerians will fail, not because they are illiterate, but because it is written in Arabic – a language known only to those who recite passages from the Islamic Koran, many of whom are only able to recite passages by rote and not by ability to read or write Arabic. Thus, more than 70% of Nigerians do not actually know what the Arabic writing on the Nigerian Army emblem says.

From my research, it is actually the war cry of Usman Dan Fodio, the Fulani Jihadist that successfully defeated his hosts, the indigenous Hausas and their leaders, in his jihad/war to enthrone what he considered a purer form of Islam on them, then subjugated them under his own version of Islam, and imposed the rule of Fulani Emirs on indigenous Hausas and other Northern communities till today – i.e. religious colonisation which has outlived British colonisation.

In regular English script, the Arabic writing on the Nigerian Army emblem is, “Nasrun Min Allah”, or, “Victory is from Allah alone”. The colonising forces of the British, the Royal West African Frontier Force, allegedly borrowed the mantra from the Fulani Sokoto Caliphate as they subjugated Nigeria to British colonial rule; then bequeathed it to the Nigerian Army at Independence and the army has retained it to this day. So this is the motto for two colonialists – a Fulani Islamic Jihadist that colonised Northern Nigeria; and the British that colonised both and the remainder of Nigeria.

Why then would the Army of Nigeria retain an Islamic war cry, used by two invading forces, in a script and language not recognised or understood by the majority of the population it claims to defend, as its motto?

For those who will immediately say that the name of the Islamic deity simply means, “God”, I have some questions.

First, if it simply means God, why is the motto not in simple English, Nigeria’s official language, using the neutral word, “God”, instead of in Arabic, mentioning the specific name of the Islamic God, so that every Nigerian can have a sense of belonging?

Secondly, in a country like Nigeria with an approximate 50/50 Christian/Moslem split, with both religions claiming that the foundational patriarch was Abraham – a Jew – would it not have been logical for the name on the Army motto to be YHWH, the Name by which God identified Himself to Abraham? Or El Shaddai, the other Name which God revealed to Abraham, written as God Almighty, in plain simple English, the official language of Nigeria?

If we claim that we worship the God of Abraham, then as Christians and Moslems, the only names of God on which we can stand are the names by which God revealed Himself to Abraham – YHWH and El Shaddai. To dispute this is simply to admit that the deity you worship is NOT the God of Abraham.

With this established, it also cannot be disputed that if the Army is fighting in the name of Allah specifically, then there can be no dispute about the fact that Christian genocide was enshrined in the very fabric of Nigeria from its inception. So is it any wonder that the Nigerian Army, which excelled in so many external engagements – Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone etc. – crumbled into a cow-rescue force once it was faced with internal insecurity fuelled by Jihadists who also subscribe to the Army’s motto?

The adherents within the Armed Forces that understand its motto and whose belief system tally with Jihad have leveraged all the apparatus of state to subvert the fight against Islamic terrorists who are carrying out the guerrilla Jihad within Christian communities. They have crafted propaganda to falsely frame the sanctioned genocide as “farmer/herder” conflict. Buhari renamed the imported Fulani janjaweed as “Bandits”, as if we were suddenly back in the Dark Ages. They rape, pillage and kill with impunity, armed with weapons that should logically be in the possession of the Nigerian Army.

No one can dispute that the Islamic Koran specifically commands the annihilation of non-adherents if they will not agree to be forcefully converted; and that there are rewards promised in the Koran for killing Christians, Jews and other non-adherents. These are contained in what is referred to as the “Sword Verses”, which order that Moslems slay non-Moslems, wear them down, lie in wait for them with every stratagem to defeat them.

The execution of this command by Jihadists within the Nigerian Army is best illustrated in Professor Bolaji Akinyemi’s recent interview in Vanguard newspapers (11/11/2025) – How military leak scuttled US assistance to rescue Chibok girls – Bolaji Akinyemi, in which he revealed that American forces were on ground to rescue the Chibok girls but someone within the military leaked the plan to the terrorists in the forest and that the terrorists even had gas masks to subvert the plan to drop sleeping gas on the camp and rescue the girls. The only way that terrorists in a bush would have had access to high grade military gas masks that can protect them from sleeping gas is if they were supplied them by the Military because gas masks are not available in any supermarket and Amazon certainly did not deliver them to the terrorists either. The order to supply them with masks had to have come from a very high ranking official with enough clout not only to authorise the release of the masks from the military stores, which are highly guarded, but also enough authority to muster the logistics to fly those masks to the terrorists before the scheduled time for the rescue attempt. Multiple reports by indigenes stated that army helicopters were seen dropping supplies to the terrorists but their reports were dismissed by high ranking officials in the Army colluding with the terrorists. This was perfectly in line with the command to lie in wait and employ every stratagem against non-Muslims to defeat them.

The incident with the American forces and the gas masks followed the same internal military sabotage of withdrawing the troops guarding the Chibok girls school a few minutes before the terrorists struck in army trucks and kidnapped almost three hundred school girls by convincing them to enter the army trucks for their own safety in an operation lasting hours, in which the terrorists spared the Moslem school principal and her daughter; then somehow managed to transport three hundred Christian school girls past the army and into the forest without any peep from the Army.

The fact that eleven years later, about 100 of these girls remain in the hands of their terrorist captors and their families watch in anguish and penury whilst their “repentant” rapists and torturers are lavishly rewarded, given houses, millions of Naira, feted at State Houses and employed in the Army, should make any right thinking person vomit. Till today, nobody has been held accountable for withdrawal of the soldiers from the school in what was a well-orchestrated plot to forcefully convert Christian girls to Islam by raping them and keeping them as child sex slaves for the paedophile Jihadist terrorists.

Leah Sharibu remains a trophy kidnap victim in the hands of the paedophiles holding her because she refused to renounce our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I have never heard President Tinubu nor Vice President Shettima mention her or any attempt to rescue her almost eight years after her kidnap.

Sunday Jackson is in jail, sentenced to death by a Supreme Court dominated by Moslems for defending himself when a Fulani murderer stabbed him in an attempt to kill him on his own farm, whilst the murderers of Deborah Samuel, who filmed themselves killing her and burning her alive for acknowledging Jesus Christ, remain free. President Tinubu didn’t even bother to include Sunday Jackson in his pardon list despite the brazen injustice of sentencing him to death for defending himself against a murderous Fulani terrorist.

Nigeria is not an Islamic country. The Army therefore has no right to pit itself in opposition to over 50% of Nigerians by being openly allied to Islam.

The Central Bank also does not have the right to disenfranchise the majority of the populace by using Arabic script on our currency. It is economic Jihad by any other name. Like most Nigerians, I have absolutely no idea what the Arabic script on Naira notes mean. I don’t understand why the Government should open Islamic banks in Nigeria and announce an emergency on Islamic economy and also join the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) or why, for the first time in Nigeria’s history, a Muslim-Muslim presidency was foisted on Nigerians in a brazen display of religious oppression.

Christian Genocide is not only ongoing, it is part of the same long term Islamisation strategy employed by Usman Dan Fodio to subjugate the indigenous Hausas to Fulani rule. The Christian villages in Plateau and Benue that graciously hosted them for decades did not learn from the Hausas that had hosted Usman Dan Fodio and his ancestors and the very same strategy that was used to conquer and subjugate indigenous Hausas during the Jihad is now being executed with greater ferocity because the aim is to eliminate the Christian indigenes and take over their land. That is genocide.

Buhari implanted Fulani murderers in farms all around Nigeria, including in Enugu, my home state. Nobody can farm without fear of rape and murder by these sex-starved perverts, thereby increasing food insecurity around the nation. Going to church has become an existential threat. Whilst the 24 Moslem school girls kidnapped in Kebbi were speedily released, the 300 kidnapped Catholic children – some as young as four years old – remain forgotten in captivity and instead of looking for them, the Government immediately launched its propaganda machine and blamed the Catholic Church for not closing the school. That is shamelessness.

The evidence of Christian genocide is as clear as the noonday sun. The statistics prove that 80% of Christians killings worldwide happen in Nigeria. Nigeria is the most dangerous country for Christians globally. It is absolute foolishness to deny it. Every time the Government denies that Christian genocide is ongoing, it is simply admitting its complicity.

Since both the President and Vice President are Moslems, not to mention the VP’s link to the Chibok girls, I am sure that they fully understand the trust deficit in their denial, notwithstanding their coup in co-opting Bishop Matthew Kukah as the latest Christian genocide denier.

If they are serious about addressing the carnage, their first instruction for the new Defence Chief should be to change the Army’s motto from Arabic to English in order to create a sense of belonging for all Nigerians of all faiths. This will be a first step in removing institutionalised Jihad.

• Lilian Onoh was Nigeria’s Ambassador to Namibia and former Chargé d’Affaires to Jamaica

* Source: thenicheng.com