Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD
I wish to directly address Dr. Reuben Abati, the self-acclaimed anchor wizard of Arise Television over his recent call for the retention of Vice President Kashim Shettima, an unrepentant Islamic terrorism sponsor, for the questionable second-term bid of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I had expected that Dr. Reuben Abati with his much self-taunted PhD should have known better and inform Nigerians properly.
I am compelled as a professional historian to pen down my distaste for this kind of insane illogical pontification by a shameless class of addle-brained, morally corrupt and ideologically bankrupt Christian quislings represented by Dr. Reuben Abati; believing that if the present generation of Nigerians fails to read me, future generations will definitely do.
I call on responsible and patriotic oppressed Nigerian Christians to read this obnoxious garbage by a man who claims to be a Christian at https://www.thisdaylive.com/2026/01/20/the-importance-of-kashim-shettima/, for them to know that their fundamental problem of persecution by Muslims shouldn’t have existed without the morally-rotten acts of sabotage against the Christian faith by such a quisling as Dr. Reuben Abati, who sees money as his god; yet cannot be counted among the most respected and wealthy journalists in Nigeria.
Dr. Reuben Abati, the shambolic intellectual bearer of the ill-fated obnoxious counsel of Ahithophel wants persecuted Nigerian Christians to believe that there is nothing morally wrong, religiously incomprehensible, spiritually debilitating, politically discriminatory and, constitutionally violating, with the continued illegality of a Muslim President and a Muslim Vice President in a country where Christians constitute the majority population through the imposition of a proven sponsor of Islamic terrorism and Christian Genocide in Nigeria as Vice President.
I read similar mouth-twisting combo lies embellished with befuddled half-truths by Dr. Reuben Abati on the November 25, 2025 issue of Premium Times titled, “The drama of abductions and impunity”, which I will devout a separate space to later. For the moment however, my concern is his recent “roguish-style” article published in Thisday news media titled, “The Importance of Kashim Shettima.” The question is what is the importance of Vice President Kashim Shettima to the present course of the Nigerian nation?
Dr. Reuben Abati raised some fundamental issues which are grounded either on his utter ignorance or mercenary objectives. His befuddled attempt to demonize the good intentions of President Donald Trump in defending the cause of persecuted Christians in Nigeria gives his well-informed readers the impression that his knowledge of international politics is too substandard and pitiable for a person of his type with a PhD.
He relied on sections of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, without intelligently substantiating them with his outrageous mendacious extrapolation. He wrote with the self-conceited confidence of a local Village Primary School teacher believing that so other person possesses his level of knowledge and understanding. Often times he forgot that his next statement was the direct contradiction of his immediate past statement.
In fact, to state it in logical commercial terms, Dr. Reuben Abati is a marketer of fictional journalism founded on transactional cacophony of fabricated mendacity oiled with corrupted mores. His lies are as crude as his penchant for unproven facts of history. A man whose esoteric rhythm of incendiary personality is defined by a larger-than-size outward carriage driven by infantile cryptic intelligence, Dr. Abati’s reference to “Animism” in place of African Traditional Religion (ATR) tries to append a question mark to his PhD.
In totality, Dr. Reuben Abati’s attempt to defend the heinous religious imbalance of a Muslim President and a Muslim Vice President in a multi-religious nation like Nigeria, where Christians constitute about sixty percent of the population, is the height of intellectual malfeasance, moral depravity, journalistic gangsterism and psychopathic betrayal of his Christian faith.
Let us begin with the fundamental issue of President Donald Trump’s intervention to save Persecuted Christians from the on-going heinous crime of Genocide, which Dr. Reuben Abati attempts to disparage and question with unfounded logic and pitiable ignorance in international law. It will be more rewarding to quote Dr. Abati verbatim than to gloss over his sarcastic self-delusion over President Donald Trump’s intervention in Nigeria. As he put it:
“Trump the self-appointed defender of Christians in Nigeria threatened on October 31, 2025, that he would storm Nigeria “guns a-blazing” to rescue Nigerian Christians from reported genocide and persecution. On December 25, 2025, President Trump sent Nigerians a Christmas gift by firing Tomahawk missiles into Sokoto state, on the basis of intelligence, per New York Times, purportedly provided by an Igbo screwdriver merchant in Onitsha market, determined to screw down Nigeria. This attribution of the source of intelligence for the assault on Sokoto, the original base of the Caliphate, the home of the leader of the Muslim faithful in Nigeria is enough to screw up Nigeria.”
If Dr. Reuben Abati because of his self-delusive ignorance does not know, let me inform him that President Donald Trump was not a “self-appointed defender of Christians in Nigeria.” President Donald Trump’s intervention in Nigeria over the on-going Genocide against Christians is the result of long-drawn petitions to the American Government by Christian organizations and individuals including the present writer, the reason he is in exile today, long before his first tenure as the present of the United States.
It is important that Dr. Reuben Abati and his cohorts of banditry journalism should be properly informed that President Trump’s comprehension of the crime of genocide against Nigerian Christians and his threat of intervention did not start with the emergence of Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Nigeria’s President. Dr. Abati should be informed that during his first term as President of the United States of America, President Donald Trump on July 4, 2017, hosted two Chibok girls— Joy Bishara and Lydia Pogu at the White in the company of his daughter Ivanka and Doug Wead, President of Canyonville Christian Academy, Oregon where both girls graduated from.
Dr. Reuben Abati should also be further informed that during President Muhammadu Buhari’s official visit to Donald Trump at the White House on April 30, 2018, President Trump pointedly addressed President Buhari on the issue of genocide against Nigerian Christians in the following words: “Also, we’ve had very serious problems with Christians who have been murdered, killed in Nigeria. We’re going to be working on that problem, and working on that problem very, very hard, because we can’t allow that to happen.”
Dr. Reuben Abati should also take note that the present designation of Nigeria as a country of particular concern was not the first by President Donald Trump. On December 11, 2020, the White House Press Secretary released a press statement announcing the designation of Nigeria as a country of particular concern, a status that was quickly reversed by President Joe Biden as soon as he took office.
One is not however surprised that a person of Dr. Reuben Abati’s level of gangster journalism should rely on the questionable anti-Trump New York Times report that President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Sokoto-based Islamic terrorists was based on the information provided by their so-called “Igbo screwdriver merchant in Onitsha market.” This will however be a topic for another day. Dr. Reuben Abati should be informed that the same New York Times that is currently facing a 15 billion US Dollars defamation suit from President Donald Trump will never speak truth to facts in any matter relating to his foreign policy.
It is unfortunate that Dr. Reuben Abati with his highfalutin intellectual carriage driven by convulsive pomposity is yet to comprehend the fact that America does not need intelligence assistance from anybody to even storm Aso Villa and pick up Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the manner of President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, nah the so-called Igbo screwdriver merchant in Onitsha Market. The American Government is fully aware of everything that happens in Nigeria more than fake news bearers like Dr. Reuben Abati and his band of gangster journalists.
Let us remember that in October 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first tenure, Islamic terrorists invaded Massalate Village in Niger Republic and kidnapped an American named Philip Walton and subsequently transferred him across the border to Nigeria. Within four days, American Special Forces invaded their hideout, killed all the terrorists and rescued their victim. Was the action incidental to the information provided by the so-called Igbo screwdriver merchant at Onitsha Market also?
Or is Dr. Reuben Abati saying that those targeted by America in Sokoto State were not Lakurawa Islamic terrorists? President Trump was aware that Lakurawa Islamic terrorists were the pet-projects of the Sultan of Sokoto Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III and were left to terrorize people freely under the protection of the Sultan; with Nigerian security forces barred from confronting them.
Let us hear the man called Dr. Reuben Abati again:
The triumphalism of a section of the Nigerian Christian elite has only deepened tensions birthing the renewed impression and agitation that the only way forward for Nigeria is for the country to show that it is not against Christians in the country in order to pacify Trump – the self-styled commander-in-chief of the world. When President Tinubu tinkered with the Muslim-Muslim arrangement in the leadership of the Ministry of Defence, with the replacement of the former Minister of Defence, Alhaji Badaru Abubakar with General Christopher Musa, the political fortune watchers of Nigeria concluded that the President would do the same with the Presidential ticket towards 2027. Their main reason is that Trump will not accept a Muslim-Muslim ticket. But why should Trump dictate to Nigeria? Where are the people who voted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023? Where is the sovereignty of Nigeria? The very suggestion that it is President Trump, not Nigerians who will determine the political process in Nigeria in 2027 is a defeatist, slavish expression.
With such foregoing illogical judgment coming from somebody who claims to possess a PhD in Sociology, it is not far from the truth that some doctorate degrees were acquired through purchase methodology; and it does appear that Dr. Reuben Abati belongs to such category. Let us take him seriatim sentence by sentence.
First, one does not understand the sense in Dr. Abati’s statement that, “The triumphalism of a section of the Nigerian Christian elite has only deepened tensions birthing the renewed impression and agitation that the only way forward for Nigeria is for the country to show that it is not against Christians in the country in order to pacify Trump – the self-styled commander-in-chief of the world.”
Let me inform Dr. Abati if he actually knows elementary history of Nigeria, that the agitation by those he chose to call “a section of Nigerian Christian elite” against Christian Genocide, persecution of Christians and unimaginable marginalization of Christians by the present Islamic Federal Government of Nigeria is a national historical question that far predates the Presidency of Donald Trump.
It is therefore not a matter of pacifying the indomitable President Donald Trump but that of a superior power compelling the indolent President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria named Bola Ahmed Tinubu to comply with the fundamental principles of his responsibility to protect the Christian citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in line with Sections 10 and 14 of the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended, which he swore to abide with and defend.
Furthermore, referring to President Donald Trump as “the self-styled commander-in-chief of the world”, clearly shows the degraded level of Dr. Abati’s intellectual pettiness. Hate him or like him, President Donald Trump has proved within the short space of one year of his second tenure as President of the United States of America what no world leader ever did in modern world history in the area of global political re-engineering. So, whether self-styled or public-styled, President Donald Trump deserves the accolade of the most powerful President of a State in global politics as it stands today.
Second, Dr. Abati tells us that:
“When President Tinubu tinkered with the Muslim-Muslim arrangement in the leadership of the Ministry of Defence, with the replacement of the former Minister of Defence, Alhaji Badaru Abubakar with General Christopher Musa, the political fortune watchers of Nigeria concluded that the President would do the same with the Presidential ticket towards 2027. Their main reason is that Trump will not accept a Muslim-Muslim ticket. But why should Trump dictate to Nigeria?”
I will not waste my precious time arguing over the above robotic illogical exhibition of intellectual disorder, except to refer Dr. Abati to Section 14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended; which states inter alia:
“The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies.”
So, Dr. Abati should be properly educated that it is not the matter of pacifying President Donald Trump but that of complying with the above provision of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Dr.Abati in his thoroughfare of foolhardiness and pretentious know-all idiosyncrasy posed the question, “Where are the people who voted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023?” The question to Dr. Abati is which people voted for the Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2023 outside the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Presidential Election Petitions Appeal Court and, the Supreme Court? Has the same pattern not been set for the 2027 Presidential election?
Dr. Abati went further to ask within the cacophony of his infantile nescience of the doctrine of humanitarian military intervention as governed by international humanitarian law, “Where is the sovereignty of Nigeria?” In this respected Dr. Abati should be properly informed that there is nothing like absolute sovereignty within the current state of global politics.
This explains why Nigeria invaded Republic of Liberia to remove President Samuel Doe; invaded Republic of Sierra Leone to restore President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to power; threatened to invade Niger Republic to restore their ousted President and; invaded Benin Republic to quell a coup d’état. So President Donald Trump has similar powers to invade Nigeria and restore order and stop the atrocious killing of Christians in Nigeria. Nigeria carried out those brazen abuses of the sovereignty of those nations under the cover of humanitarian military intervention in international law.
To go a bit scholarly, J. L. Holzgrefe tells us that, Humanitarian Intervention is:
“The threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or a group of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied.”
So, President Donald Trump does not need the permission of either President Bola Ahmed Tinubu or an ignoramus like Dr. Reuben Abati to strike Nigeria. That Dr. Reuben Abati needs elementary orientation on the fundamental principles of international politics is an understatement, which goes further to ask the question, does Dr. Abati know the doctrine of “the responsibility to protect”, which grants any concerned foreign power like America the right to intervene in Nigeria without the permission President Tinubu, in the face of the obvious inability of the Federal Government to protect Nigerian Christians from Genocide by Muslim terrorists?
So Dr. Abati’s statement that, “the very suggestion that it is President Trump, not Nigerians who will determine the political process in Nigeria in 2027 is a defeatist, slavish expression”, is borne by his unapologetic ignorance of international politics. International politics is not a local champion-style Arise Television pompous exhibition of marginal knowledge of even the dynamics of Nigerian history and politics. Nigeria is already a defeatist and slavish nation by the consequence of its own creation. President Donald Trump is only on a liberation mission.
It is indeed a laughable exhibition of calculated ignorance for Dr. Abati to drop such names as the Bauchi State-born former Speaker of the Federal House of representatives Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, the Atyap-born current Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa, Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State and, the notorious Judas Iscariot of Nigerian Christendom and Caliphate Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, the Atyap-born Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, as the possible replacements of Vice President Kashim Shettima, without reference to Alhaji Shettima’s home-State of Borno where Christians constitute one-third of the population.
Does Dr. Abati know that Southern Borno Christians have among many, such a person as Joe-Kyari Gadzama, SAN, a renowned legal luminary, astute but reserved patriot and, of course one of the most unfortunate Nigerian citizens suffering unimaginable exclusion from important State and Federal Government appointments for theinsane reason of being Christians in Muslim-majority States in Northern Nigeria, who is better qualified by the logic of geopolitical proximity than the above mentioned names?
Does Dr. Abati know that there are more than one thousand Southern Borno Christians who are better educated and more qualified with more than excellent moral standings and cross-national appeals than Alhaji Kashim Shettima? Does Dr. Abati know that the cream of Western-educated intellectuals of Borno State is found among this perpetually persecuted and marginalized Southern Borno Christian population?
Does such morally bankrupt showman cash n’ carry Arise Television talk-show anchor as Dr. Reuben Abati know that more than ten thousand (10,000) of these unfortunate Southern Borno Christians are currently quarantined in the United Nations Refugee camp at Minawao town in Republic of Cameroon? This is outside the thousands living in IDP Camps inside Nigeria.
Can Dr. Reuben Abati equally feign ignorance of the fact that this status of displaced Christian citizens of Borno State, among whom were the over 250 kidnapped Christian female students of Chibok Government Girls Secondary School, is the heinous consequence of Boko Haram Islamic insurgents created by the same Vice President Kashim Shettima?
In a normal nation shouldn’t a person like Kashim Shettima either be in prison serving life sentence or, rotting away in his grave for birthing a terrorism that caused thousands of Christian lives and created an unimaginable catastrophic security problem in Nigeria? But a man like Dr. Reuben Abati who is paid in blood-money of Christian victims to shut down any information relating to persecution and Genocide against Christians cannot accept such fact.
In a normal country where meritocracy and not insane mediocrity determines people’s qualification to serve their nation, can such a man of putrid moral personality as Alhaji Kashim Shettima compete with a personality like Joe-Kyari Gadzama, SAN?
But somebody like Joe-Kyari Gadzama has to live a life of half-indigene and half-foreigner in his home-State for the simple reason of being a Christian. This is what a roguish journalist like Reuben Abati cannot see as pertinent to report for the simple reason that he is blinded with the immoral quest for ill-gotten money traded with the blood of innocent Christians.
Dr. Abati wants the besieged Nigerian Christians to accept with resignation the ignoble status of third fiddle by supporting a Muslim President and Muslim Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in a nation they are majority in population, because such faceless band of Northern Muslim political thugs miscalled Concerned Northern APC Youth Forum and APC Youth Parliament insisted so. Dr. Abati went further to state in his self-conceited style of scalar intellectual quantity that:
“It is not just that the entire North East would turn against the President, the emergence of a Christian in place of Shettima will turn the tables and the Muslim North, already agitated by the narrative of being anti-Christian, against the President. There is no point changing a winning ticket. Vice President Shettima is of greater political value than all the persons being proposed as likely replacements. Dogara, Mutfwang, Christopher Musa and Bishop Kukah are from minority groups in the North. How many votes can they bring to the table? Politics is not about sentiments.”
What does Dr. Abati mean by “the entire North East” in the first instance? Is he speaking of Borno State where Christians constitute about 30 percent of the population; Yobe State where Christians constitute about 10 percent of the population; Bauchi State where Christians constitute about 30 percent of the population; Gombe State where Christians constitute about 60 percent of the population; Adamawa State where Christians constitute about 70 percent of the population; and Taraba State where Christians constitute about 80 percent of the population?
If I say I am not ashamed of this man called Dr. Reuben Abati by the ignominious confidence with which he exhibits his debilitating level of ignorance, I am being untruthful to God who created me. What does Dr. Abati mean by a “winning team” in the context of an election that was shamelessly rigged by Independent National Electoral Commission and the Judiciary?
Dr. Abati in his figment of imagination claims that because “Dogara, Mutfwang, Christopher Musa and Bishop Kukah” are from his so-called minority ethnic groups they cannot garner enough votes. The same conspiracy theory used against President Goodluck Jonathan. What an ignoramus of a man called Dr. Reuben Abati?
In Borno State in particular where there are more than 30 ethnic groups, the Kanuri are only majority in the sense of being the largest of the ethnic groups. When the rest combine together, Kanuri itself becomes a minority. The same applies to Yobe State where the three major towns of Azare, Damaturu and Potiskum are all minority homelands. I am not speaking of Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba States where the sense of being a minority ethnic group is the standard clarion call for conscious political affirmation and unity.
Dr. Reuben Abati tells us that President Donald is not in position to dictate the religious outlook of Nigerian Presidency. If that is the case, why then is he so agitated to the point of dropping his intellectual garbage on the matter? It is a tragedy of infantile reasoning for Reuben Abati to ascribe the incontrovertible fact of Christian Genocide, persecution of Christians and, flagrant marginalization of Christians in strategic political appointments as “well-worn story.”
Can someone imagine Dr. Abati in his normal state of logical reasoning asking what the United States stand to gain by having a Christian Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? Is it a matter of what America will gain or the case of returning Nigeria to the state of equity, justice and fair-play in line with Sections 10 and 14 (3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended?
Imagine Dr. Reuben Abati stating, “The fact that the Christian community is represented in Aso Villa does not translate into any special advantage for a Christian.” Well, the point is that it is not every statement uttered by a fool that merits response. Dr. Reuben Abati is a fool by penning down such reckless statement. This is because by posing such irresponsible statement he assumes that Nigerian Christians are fools, which they are not. Rather, it is Dr. Reuben Abati who posited such a statement of political insanity that is a fool and mad.
Dr. Abati should tell Muslims as well the special advantage they tend to have by insisting on having a Muslim President and a Muslim Vice President in a multi-religious country in Nigeria. Dr. Abati should also explain to Nigerian Christians why they are lopsided appoints by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in favour of not just Muslims in general but Yoruba Muslims against Christians. In fact, I have never seen such a fool in the garb of PhD as Dr. Reuben Abati.
Let me state pointedly right here that I have never had a modicum regard for the person of Dr. Reuben Abati for the fundamental reason that, he is somebody who writes and speaks from the theatrics of absurd intellectualism mummified by the hubris of absurd mercantile and mercenary journalism.
I have never been impressed by the anatomical intellectual morbidity of Dr. Reuben Abati’s showmanship doctorate degree in Sociology or, his unimpressive absurd adornment of 19th century Victorian signature bow-tie that clearly depicts him as an aging out-of-date fashion-famished unattended Nigerian Government pensioner with the disgusting spectacle of a turgid-necked vulture beaten by heavy rainfall.
There are two persons I hate with passion more than I hate Sheihk Ahmad Gumi in Nigeria’s public space today. These are Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto Caliphate Catholic Diocese and, Dr. Reuben Abati, the anchor-man of the pro-Christian Genocide Arise Television. I will come to Bishop Kukah later.
In fact, if the three men are presented to me today to choose who should be executed first for aiding and abetting Christian Genocide in Nigeria, I will choose Bishop Kukah first; then Dr. Abati, before even thinking of Sheikh Gumi who is religiously even though callously defending his Islamic religious obligation.
The reason is that any professed Christian who joins the same Muslims slaughtering his fellow Christians in present Nigeria is worse those Muslims slaughtering his people. Our Lord Jesus Christ might have been tolerable to sinners but definitely not to Apostle Judas Iscariot.
The question is does Reuben Abati understand his past as a journalist at all? I don’t think he does, otherwise he wouldn’t have descended so abysmally infra-dignitatem to expose his paranoiac obsession for unmerited political importance for the sake of a mess of portage and scavenging for political appointment from a future a supposed President Kashim Shettima.
Has Dr. Abati tried to look at his face on the mirror to see how devilishly ugly he looks? One thing is for a man to be ugly on the face but compensated with a sublime heart and, another is for a man to be wicked in heart and compensated with a handsome face. But when a man is ugly in heart as much as he is ugly on his face, he becomes a commingle of God’s mistake in creation and a socio-moral disaster for human kind. This is the man called Dr. Reuben Abati.
For people who critically follow the trends of Nigeria’s jaundiced political development, the name Dr. Reuben Abati is not only synonymous with gangster journalism, but symptomatic of a man with the ambiance of psychopathic self-contractions.
Former President Olusegun Obsanjo’s assessment of Dr. Reuben Abati was deplorably stinking in moral terms. As he put it: “Or Reuben Abati, the one who said ‘ehhnn, he too wants to build a house,’ Can anybody say that to me and you then think I will have regard for him? Or for the profession he claims he belongs?”
In an article titled: “Reuben Abati: The Hypocrisy of a Hypocrite” and dated February 4, 2013, Adekoya Boladale wrote: “It will be very disrespecting for me to lash out canal words against the person and office of Dr. Reuben Abati but it will be a grave suicide for my generation and future offspring if I keep mute.” Adekoya Boladale went further to note:
“This makes me wonder who Dr. Abati really is. Is he the yesterday’s men who will still stand up for the citizens? Or the today’s man who have so much enjoyed the company of the house of the Gentiles and backslide in the fight for the Jews?”
In a lengthy opinion article on the Guardian issue of April 15, 2016 Dr. Reuben Abati in his characteristic quixotic manner penned down thus:
“Partisan interests are major factors in the governance process. These seem to be the dominant factor in Nigeria, but again, they are irresponsibly deployed…. The media governs too. But the media in Nigeria today is heavily politicised, compromised and a victim of internal censorship occasioned by hubris.”
So let Dr. Reuben Abati judge himself in the light of the above self-condemnable statement of opinion.
***Dr. Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe is currently the President of International Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (ICAC-GEN) and, the Odogwu of Ibusa. He lives in exile in Republic of the Philippines on account of his opposition to Christian Genocide in Nigeria.