Septembers to Remember
Last weekend marked 25 years since I set foot in God’s own country – unexpected and unexpectedly. My hastily executed escape plan was to take me from Abuja to Accra, to London and Johannesburg to hibernate from the brutal military dictator Gen. Abacha who had abducted, imprisoned and tortured me. Instead I first traversed three countries in 24 hours then a couple days later three continents in one day. I had traveled through seven time zones – literally the longest day of my life thus far – 31 hours in one day that September 1997 when I accidentally arrived in America (details in my LinkedIn posts). It’s perhaps an interesting footnote of history that my 25th anniversary comes after the Queen’s demise just as my exile came after Princess Diana’s…
This milestone therefore returns thanks for the divine reordering of my footsteps and the resultant successes that made me the most consequential voice for Nigeria’s persecuted in America in a quarter century and the most prominent Nigerian human rights lawyer in the west.
With multiple policy victories at the ICC in The Hague, the US Congress, State Department, the UK and the UN etc, in the last decade and sustained relief efforts over 22 years, the plight of the deadliest country in the world for Christians was unveiled.
- in 2010 my legal monitoring of the Dogon Nahawa massacre of 500 Christians in Plateau State led to the first convictions of the Fulani Muslim herdsmen perpetrators.
- in 2011, I helped document the worst attack in contemporary Christendom – the destruction of 700 churches in 48 hours across 12 northern Nigerian states
- In 2012 my research and analysis revealed that more Christians were killed in Nigeria than all the other countries in the world combined
- In 2013, I succeeded in getting the US government to designate – at various times – the world’s deadliest terrorists as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. I also got the ICC Prosecutor to determine that Boko Haram was probably perpetrating international crimes
- In 2014, I organized the largest humanitarian airlift of terror victims to study in the U.S. and advocated for the UN ‘s sanctions on Boko Haram.
While these have been commendable, the situation remains precarious. For the 10 years where records have been maintained by World Watch Monitor, Nigeria has retained the dubious distinction of being the deadliest place for Christians in all but one year since 2012-2022!
The success in getting Nigeria designated a Country of Particular Concern for religious persecution by the US in 2020 was rolled back in 2021 just like it was in The ICC. https://m.theepochtimes.com/state-departments-skewed-reports-enabling-nigerian-violence-rights-advocates_4522644.html
These battles have not been without steep costs. The Nigerian regime was caught flat footed when it’s ambassador in Washington wrote a memo seeking the revocation of my passport as punishment and to prevent me from testifying in congress – a crime against US law and diplomatic conduct.
While facing my legal action for defamation in Nigeria, the regime of Gen. Buhari through its willing American pansy Doug Wead still sponsored derogatory stories about me in an effort to stymie my effective advocacy.
September 2021 however saw the indictment and arraignment of the American stooge of the Islamist Nigerian Buhari regime rogue Republican operative Doug Wead for election foreign finance fraud.
Doug Wead who infamously collaborated with the Buhari administration to persecute me in the US, on the promise that Wead would be given the Chibok girls I brought to America, was criminally charged with another Republican rogue operative over a $100,000 fraud.
They duped a Russian businessman of $100,000 out of which they donated only $25,000 to the Trump campaign false claiming it came from them. It is of course a violation of US law to bring in foreign finance for US elections but this Judas who betrayed me also betrayed America for money.
The crimes were committed in 2016 at the very time Doug Wead was also acting as agent for the Buhari regime against me. It is unclear whether moneys changed hands between Wead, the Nigerian government or Murtala Mohammed Foundation whom he announced as his partners on his website.
Ironically Doug Wead also took two of the Chibok girls on a courtesy call to see Trump, whom he had duped, in the White House some months later. He has since died ignominiously. (See story below.) He had also misappropriated funds raised for the care of all 12 girls I brought even when he had none and bribed the families of the only two schoolgirls he eventually got by building them houses in Nigeria.
God indeed rules in the affairs of men. Its 25 years since I fled to exile in America from a military dictatorship who had abducted, imprisoned and tortured me. Like David, I can say, the God who delivered me from the lion and the bear in Africa, delivered me from Goliath in America and all of Ann’s and Wead’s evil machinations and minions.
Though they’ve covered up his disgraceful end, as the article below shows, heaven knows! https://www.floridabulldog.org/2021/12/conservative-florida-pundit-awaiting-trial-funneling-russian-money-to-trump-dies/
My defamer is discredited, arrested, dead and buried but I remain ravaged from his evils by those who would rather side with a crooked white guy than an innocent other. As they say, it is easier to be rich, white and guilty than to be poor black and innocent in America. Still, I press on.
But aside from poetic Justice above, there’s a stickier injustice I’d like to draw to your attention. Last month, the US government said it has reached a deal to return millions of dollars looted by my captor Gen. Abacha to the corrupt family that helped him launder it in the US. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-nears-agreement-nigerian-governor-084613737.html?mibextid=tv9c0b&fs=e&s=cl
What this means is that not only did late Gen. Abacha (he died eight months into my exile) not pay for his atrocities against me and others but even from the grave he and his cronies are getting paid millions of dollars by the US government for the crime they got caught for.
The US cannot argue that the insecurity and terrorism in northern Nigeria is not religious but a result of poverty, corruption and neglect and then reward the very people who looted billions creating the chaos! Rather we’re advocating for the Abacha loot to given to victims of his brutal reign, of present security forces and of terror.
I learnt of a child born to Boko Haram from an abducted Christian girl who helped a Christian college student escape captivity. She was born and bred in terrorism but she still managed to know and have the moral clarity and courage to do the right thing which so many governments have failed to do.
Please join her and others in stopping this travesty and seeking Justice and relief.
One quick update. In my final valedictory I shared about the murdered pastor’s daughter whom I relocated to the US. She was stolen from her Virginia school while I was ambushed by cops and taken to Tennessee where I only last year learnt that she dropped out of college with a teen pregnancy. The white family who took her apparently dumped her back in Nigeria, pregnancy and all.
This was devastating news to me as I had fought for her visa to come to America after two denials. With no skills and having become Americanized she was in grave danger. Worse still she gave birth to American interracial twins in Nigeria. I was glad to learn that she and the kids are now safely back to the USA despite the sabotage that undid the great effort I undertook to bring her originally.
Again hugely ironic that an 11 year old child of terrorists guided an adult Christian captive college girl to safety while adult American Christians dumped a pregnant college girl orphaned by Boko Haram in danger.
Incidentally, she was the first orphan I brought to the US, again, in September 2013…
I thank all who have been positive parts of my journey and my story during this last unplanned and unexpected quarter century.
One of my life verses is Gen 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
I daresay we gave it a great shot!
Justice for Jos 