Trump's Threats Against Nigeria & The Global Transition

Like I said before, you really need to to stop just reacting to anything and everything that Trump says. I'm not saying that you need to, dismiss anything and everything that he says, but there has to be some sort of a reality to, you know, contextualize or to corroborate anything that he says. Trump can't just tweet things into existence. You understand? Like, I've seen some commentators, like, spiraling off, into all sorts of analyses as to what is prompting the imminent US attack on Nigeria, you know, oil, gas, an indirect attack against the Sahel alliance and so forth.

As if there is actually an an an imminent US attack that's about to take place against Nigeria. This is not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. I mean, obviously, nothing is actually impossible, but the strategic probability of anything like this is under 5%. Maybe it's like 2% or 3% likelihood.

Realistically, it's not likely whatsoever. You know, politics is not really that different from everyday life. Interpersonal relations and international relations actually mirror each other. I remember seeing a video one time of a guy who was talking about experiencing a glitch in the matrix, you know, alternative timelines and what have you, overlapping timelines and all of this kind of nonsense. He was going into all of this all because he and his girlfriend went to the gym and some other girl came up to them while they were at the gym and acted like she knew him.

And she even used a name for him that only people use who know him very well, who know him intimately. Okay? Now this man knows that his girlfriend is one of those types of people who believes in the in the in the whole multiverse idea, though the intersecting timelines and all of that. So he convinced her that this girl must know him from some parallel universe, and that they just experienced the glitch in the matrix together. That's what happened.

And he made the video about this, about this so called supernatural experience. Also, that he could double down on this story and because he knew that a video like that would, you know, algorithmically draw a bunch of other people who would also find that story convincing. Thereby recruiting the internet, that section of the internet, the internet to back up his story in the comment section and get him off the hook. Get him off the hook for obviously having a secret relationship with the girl at the gym. You see you see, he was just gaslighting his girlfriend.

And it was blatantly obvious to any sensible person. But like I say, his girlfriend apparently is a little bit goofy. And so the story was, about the glitch in the matrix is all he needed to get himself out of trouble. Well, Trump is in trouble for many reasons, for so many reasons. He's in trouble with the Christian evangelical demographic, that that base core demographic of his.

He's in trouble with them because of Israel, because of Epstein, because of his relations with Saudi Arabia, with Qatar and UAE, and so forth. Because because because there's so many reasons. And because the Christian right wing is historically aligned with the neocons, historically. They're aligned with the neocons, the military industrial complex, and therefore, they are aligned historically with the nationalistic OCGFC. But, of course, Trump serves the a national OCGFC.

So he has to serve the agenda of one faction while placating another faction, appeasing another faction. Do you understand? So the way I see it, we all know that Christians love more than anything else the idea of the crusades. That's their favorite chapter in history. These turn the other cheek, love thy neighbor Christians love nothing more than the idea of violently attacking the Muslims anywhere in the world.

Especially if they can do it on the pretext of so called protecting Christians. They love war more than anything. So yes, America will publicly threaten to attack you. Attack you, a friendly country, a trading partner. They have no problem whatsoever in threatening to attack you just to score political points at home domestically.

Domestic political points with a segment of their population. Mean, back in the day, they would actually go through with it too. America has attacked multiple countries that never posed any threat to them whatsoever, and they only did it to score political points at home. That's how little you mean to them. That's how little your security and your peace mean to them.

So it's just like the guy making up the story about the interdimensional time warp fantasy scenario to cover up him cheating on his girlfriend. See, they'll concoct a whole fantasy narrative that justifies whatever it is that they want to do So they can make it look like it's something else. You understand? But that was back in the day. They would actually carry it out back in the day.

But as things stand now, there is, as I say, almost no danger whatsoever of America doing anything like that whatsoever to Nigeria today. There's not gonna be an Iraqi style invasion or military campaign against Nigeria. No way. That's not what's going on here. But like I say, Trump has two factions that he has to deal with.

He has the very problematic faction of the nationalistic OCGFC, the neocons, the right wing Christians, and so forth. And then he has the actual faction that he serves, the a national OCGFC. The owners and controllers of global financialized capital who operate untethered to any sort of national entity, any country, and any country's national interest. Trump's job is to serve them, and that means to dismantle American empire, to do to withdraw America, to withdraw The United States from the global stage as much as possible, and to, of course, accelerate the domestic decline of The United States. So just like what he did about South Africa, again, largely for domestic political points, you know, fabricating this narrative about a white genocide in South Africa, threatening to cut aid, threatening to sanction South Africa, and so on.

You need to see what's really what what he's really doing, what Trump is really doing. Trump is signaling to the world that you need to reduce your ties with America. This is part of withdrawing The United States from the global stage. It's part of prompting South South trade and South South partnerships. Part of trying to nudge the global South, nudge Africa and Asia and The Middle East towards China and towards BRICS.

America is falling apart, but he can't just come out and say that, obviously. Again, domestic politics prohibits any politician from just saying that. The only way that you can disassemble The United States Of America is if you call it construction. You take it down while you're saying that you're building it up. That's Trump's job.

See, I've talked about this many times. You have to make a distinction between the two blocks of the owners and controllers of global financialized capital. Like I said, you have the the nationalistic block. That's the original block. The nationalistic block that's essentially welded to the to the to The US as a state.

It's tied to the military industrial complex, politically represented by the neocons. That's the traditional empire builders. They want aircraft carriers, forward bases, dollar dominance, and obedient client states. That's their vision of the world. That's their paradigm.

Then you have the a nationalistic block. They have no loyalty to any flag. They move capital through New York, through London, through Dubai, through Shanghai, through Riyadh, through Singapore, wherever it serves them. They don't care. For them, America, quote unquote, is just one vehicle and it's a deteriorating vehicle.

They favor BRICS plus, GCC soft empire, multipolar finance, and legal architectures that spread risk and authority across many jurisdictions. In this model, Trump is not the champion of so called America first. He's the wrecking crew. Trump is the wrecking crew. Loud, theatrical, wrapped in the language of nationalism, wrapped wrapped in the language of western white civilizational rhetoric and so forth.

But in material terms, what he's doing is undermining trust in US commitments. He's undermining and fracturing alliances. He's weaponizing the dollar so visibly to all the countries in the world that it will make more and more countries accelerate de dollarization. He's making The United States appear unhinged and unreliable. He's making The United States appear dangerous, but not as an enemy.

He's making them look dangerous as a partner. You understand? This is exactly what the a nationalistic OCGFC block need in order for them to extract their wealth and their operational centers from America, from the American shell. It's what they need for them to be able to push the global South to to more quickly pivot towards alternative platforms like bricks banks and golf sovereign wealth funds and so forth. Chinese infrastructure like the Belt and Road.

Chinese infrastructure initiatives like the Belt and Road. Regional security packs and so forth. They need that so that they can leave The US holding the political blame and the social anger and the internal fragmentation from all of the policies that they're pursuing. So let's talk about Nigeria. Because what I'm talking about is really crucial for Nigeria to understand, as well as for all the rest of Africa and for all the rest of the global South.

You don't need to misread or misconstrue what's going on because if you do, it's really it's very problematic for you. Then you're gonna make the wrong moves and you're gonna make bad decisions based upon your misinterpretation of what comes out of Washington. Because I think, in my opinion, that many Nigerian politicians might be stuck in an obsolete paradigm about America and Africa, about the relationship between America and Africa. Because they're used to a certain dynamic and they're operating in conformity with that dynamic. It's a historical dynamic.

But the dynamics have changed or they are changing. And it's time for a new posture. It's time for Africa to take a different posture. But whether you understand it or not, that's what Trump is actually trying to push for. For countries in the global south to take a new posture vis a vis The United States.

And you can't have a situation where the chain has been broken, but the captive still only moves as far as the chain used to allow him to move because in his mind he thinks that the chain is still there. Do you understand? It's like inmates who are standing around a crashed prison transfer bus instead of making a run for it. Like, you know, when you have shackles on your ankles, you know, you and your hands behind your back, you do the sort of prisoner shuffle. These little tiny steps when you walk.

You don't wanna end up thinking that that's your normal gait, that that's your natural stride to where you keep walking like that even after the shackles have been removed. And I think that that's what a lot of the countries in the global south might be doing. Because look, Nigeria is at a crossroads, just like the rest of the global South, frankly. They're at a crossroads. You know, you have you've got one road that leads to sovereignty.

And the other road, which is the road that you have been on all this time. This whole time you've been on this road, and that's the road of subordination. But the thing is that the road that you've always been on, you know, the road of subordination turns out it's a dead end. That road leads nowhere actually. But you've been on that road for so long that you think it is just gonna go on forever.

While the turn, you know, at crossroads, the other road, the road of sovereignty, you're not quite sure where that leads. So the instinct is just to keep going with what you're familiar with. But the road of subordination actually is leading right off of a cliff. That road is coming to an end. See, for for for for for decades, Nigeria has been independent in the same way that a worker who has a single employer is independent.

It's neo colonialism. Imported food, imported machinery, imported weapons, imported experts, consultants and so forth, stability for the currency. And your exports are basically the the raw materials and the human beings who are leaving the country. So now, especially with the rise of Bricks and with what's going on with the Sahel alliance and all the hype that's going on around multipolarity and so forth. Well, there's a wave among particularly young people towards real independence and real sovereignty.

There's a domestic sentiment for that. So in my opinion, the government of Nigeria is making gestures towards that domestic sentiment. But they still think that the road of subordination is the safe direction, it's the safe path, it's a familiar direction. And they're only talking about taking that different road, the road of sovereignty. It's not really that different from Trump, you know, talking about defending Christians in Nigeria for domestic political points.

While no actual substantive action is going to be taken militarily in this regard. So Nigeria is talking about, for example, Nigeria first, they're talking about building self sufficiency, and they're doing that for domestic political points. But most of the substantive steps that they're taking still actually reflect the subordinate mindset. Their economic reforms, for example. The the the recent economic reforms are basically IMF style neoliberal measures.

Neo colonial measures that the West has always dictated that the West has always dictated as necessary for economic survival for any, global South country. But these measures have only ever subjugated real economic sovereignty anywhere that they've ever been implemented, anywhere that they've ever been imposed. You're still taking advice from the colonizers. And you're not necessarily doing that because you're convinced that their advice is good for you, but you're doing it because you are still afraid that not taking their advice will be bad for you because you think that the colonizers will make it bad for you if you don't listen to them because that's what you're used to. And I understand that.

But look, removal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria, currency liberalization, aggressive tightening of monetary policy, fiscal so called consolidation. This is the whole orthodox neoliberal package. That's all there's there's nothing but that. These are all the things that you're supposed to do because this is what the colonizers have always said that you're supposed to do. And if you don't do those things, then they have historically, have punished you.

You know? When a country gets too indebted and inflation spikes, then the currency is under pressure, then they trot out the script. Scrap subsidies that keep the basic goods affordable for the population. Let prices for fuel, food, and currency float towards so called market reality. Raise interest rates and squeeze credit for regular people.

Cut your deficits above all else. The deficit is the most important thing to deal with. So there's no doubt that the creditors come first, not the not the Nigerian people. So that means that the average Nigerian is gonna pay three, four, five times more for transportation and for food and so forth. Also, that the state can reassure lenders you will be paid.

The people will absorb the shock. Now, this is not a path of independence. This is the service manual for keeping a peripheral economy exploitable. Keeping it exploitable. Keeping them able to pay, able to import, able to offer assets and labor to foreign investors at a discount.

Exploitation, neocolonization, that's all that is. So when the West applauds Nigeria for doing this, when the IMF applauds you for doing this, obviously, they're not clapping for Nigerian sovereignty. They're clapping because the machine has made another adjustment at the bottom to to stabilize the top. From a middle nation perspective, you can't treat that as a win, not at all. Stabilizing the old hierarchy is not liberation.

It's maintenance of the same old neo colonial system. It's just continuing to drive down that same old road of subordination. But like I said, in Nigeria there is talk of sugar self sufficiency, of building metallurgy as the sort of skeleton of industry, of trying to push agro processing inside the country instead of just shipping raw commodities. There's talk of trying to strengthen domestic defense production so that the army doesn't have to beg for ammunition from The United States or from other countries. Okay.

This is where the real instinct for sovereignty lives. And it's an instinct that I think young Nigerians want their country to act upon. And even if it seems to make no sense, the truth of the matter is that the a national OCGFC want Nigeria to act upon this instinct too for their own reasons obviously. But I think that the politicians in Nigeria have not yet recalibrated to this. They're not reading the road signs properly.

Look, true independence isn't just like you you don't just declare it in your constitution. It's not on a piece of paper. It's manufactured in your workshops, in your farms, in your laboratories, in your foundries. Liberation and independence is grown in your fields. It's poured in your steel, in your refineries, in your petrochemical factories, in your industrial zones.

Political independence is a byproduct of economic sovereignty. So when Nigeria says we need our own sugar, our own steel, our own machinery, our own weapons. Okay. This is the correct direction. That's the instinct that we recognize at Middle Nation.

The refusal to accept a permanent role as a dumping ground for foreign goods and as a source of raw materials and cheap labor for foreign countries. See, like I say, there are two currents. There's a sovereignty current, local industry, food security, defense autonomy, Nigeria first, and there's a dependency current. Austerity for the people, comfort for the creditors, prices and policies tethered to world markets instead of national needs. Now bring Trump into the picture.

You have this man threatening Nigeria in the language of religious war saying we're we're gonna cut aid, we're gonna sanction you, we're gonna defend the Christians and we're gonna go into your country guns blazing. Well, people in Nigeria hear this and they start asking themselves, is war actually possible? Are there gonna be United States air strikes against us? Are we facing an Iraqi style invasion? No.

No. There's gonna be no US military action against Nigeria, not over this issue, not in this current configuration of power that exists in the world, not with this balance of risk that exists. The Pentagon knows this, obviously. Serious policymakers in Washington know this. The entire apparatus understands that attacking a huge strategic African state in this way would be absolutely catastrophic.

It would be uncontrollable and it would be pointless, more importantly, for their real interests. From the perspective of a national capital, their goal is different. They don't need a so called loyal Nigeria. They want a Nigeria that has enough, resentment and distrust of The United States that they will finally turn decisively towards China, towards the BRICS plus, towards the GCC, and so forth, for long term alignment. Trump's outburst against Nigeria signals to every serious policymaker in Abuja, this partner is fundamentally unstable.

The United States is fundamentally unstable. Every election cycle, you can, your entire strategy can be thrown into chaos by one man's pandering to his domestic fanatic religious base. The rational long term response for Nigeria is to limit your exposure to The United States and to deepen ties with actors that appear less erratic, like Beijing, like Riyadh, like Abu Dhabi, like all the Bricks institutions and regional African platforms. So Trump, in the name of so called America first, pushes Nigeria into the arms of a very multipolar architecture that is preferred by a national capital. Okay?

So publicly, he's threatening them. But structurally, he is advertising the urgency of decoupling from The United States. Like I say, Trump is the demolition contractor for the American empire. He's hired basically by the a national owners and controllers of global financialized capital who are tired of being tied to one country, one legal system, and one angry erratic population. They wanna move their center of gravity into a multipolar landscape, you know, capital in The Gulf, manufacturing ties in Asia, financial arrangements that are gonna be spread all across the BRICS plus countries.

Legal and political cover that's distributed across all many different countries so that no single state's voters can seriously threaten them. For that transition to work, the world has to stop trusting The United States as a stable anchor depending upon them, I should say. Trump's job is to make that distrust permanent. So he'll storm onto the stage and wave the cross and shout about persecuted Christians or persecuted white people or what have you and threaten an African giant with sanctions and with guns blazing. But what message does that send?

Well, sends a message to the Nigerian elite and the the policy class. You cannot build your future around this partner, around the American partner. No. Your whole country, your whole economy can be thrown under the bus just for the sake of scoring political points in a domestic culture war. And it sends a message to the rest of the global South as well.

If you depend upon The United States for aid, if you depend upon The United States for security or for finance, then you can be turned into a campaign slogan overnight. From the point of view of the a national OCGFC, well, is exactly what they want. They want The US to lose its central role as the unquestioned manager of the global system. They want the global South to pivot towards a more spread out, more multi center architecture. And the same owners of capital will reappear inside that new architecture holding stakes in Gulf funds, in Asian infrastructure projects, in African debt, in bricks platforms and so forth.

Notice the symmetry. Nigeria wants to get away from suffocating dependence on The United States, and the a national obviously GFC elites also want the whole system to get away from suffocating dependence on The United States. Outwardly, they seem aligned, but the the the difference is purpose. Nigeria's instinct for sovereignty is about feeding its people. It's about industrializing.

It's about defending itself. It's about building a dignified life for Nigerians under Nigerian control. The a national OCGFC's project is about freeing capital from any national accountability, including American accountability. It wants delinking from states, not delinking from exploitation of states. Okay.

Chuck fits this role perfectly. He loudly proclaimed that he's making America great again and making America feared again while his actions actually convince more and more countries that they need to step back from America and they need to embed themselves in alternative partnerships. Trump is accelerating Nigeria's psychological exit from the American orbit and he's nudging Nigeria towards South south and East South partnerships. It's helping the a national OCGFC elite migrate their influence into the multi polar order where Nigeria will increasingly be operating in the future. From the middle nation perspective, the question is not whether Nigeria moves away from The United States.

That part's necessary. The question is how and on whose terms. If Nigeria walks away from Washington only to lie down in front of Beijing or to lie down in front of Dubai without a clear national project of their own, then nothing essential has changed. If Nigeria uses this moment of American unreliability to assert control over its own food system, its own industrial core, its own monetary and fiscal tools, its own security doctrine, then delinking becomes something real. That means subsidies for example, are not just removed to please creditors.

They are reengineered into targeted support for farmers, for example, for local industry, and for transport that serves the needs of Nigerian the average Nigerian citizen first. The exchange rate is not supposed to be left to the mercy of speculators, but managed under a national plan that protects production and employment. Trade policy should not be written to guarantee access for imports. It has to be written to guarantee survival and growth for domestic producers in strategic sectors in the Nigerian economy. Don't just get a a sort of a a a soft and fuzzy feeling about South South ties, and that you just sign contracts as a in the in the spirit of multipolar friendship.

No. They'll they have to be negotiated line by line to secure local control. Local local control and local benefit. Because Nigeria's sovereignty project is not automatically safe just because they move closer to BRICS plus. And this goes for every country in the global South, by the way.

Understand the same a national OC GFC that is tired of the American vessel will happily operate through China, through gulf sovereign wealth funds, through African elites, through new development banks and so forth. The same people, the same predatory system. Exploitation isn't gonna disappear just because the exploiters relocate their headquarters. From the middle nation perspective, if you strip the theater away, Nigeria is in the early phase of a sovereignty struggle just like many countries in the global South, and that sovereignty struggle is mainly economic and institutional, not revolutionary. The American political system in its current form is structurally incapable of being a stable partner, for that sovereignty project.

Trump just makes this underlying reality more obvious. The a national owners and controllers of global financialized capital are simply repositioning. They're perfectly happy for The United States to appear increasingly dangerous and increasingly unreliable, like I said, because that drives the whole global South into a new architecture. The danger for Nigeria and for the entire global South is to think that the story is just America is bad and bricks is good. No.

That's not real sovereignty. That's not thinking. Real sovereignty is when your food system domestically can withstand external shocks. When your industrial base is rooted in your own workforce and your own knowledge, your own technology, your own skills, and when your financial system is not held hostage by any foreign capital's mood swings. You understand?

When your security apparatus in your country is equipped by you and commanded by you in a way that serves the people, that doesn't serve foreign patrons, and doesn't serve the local oligarchs, the the collaborator oligarchs who are serving as subcontractors for those foreign patrons. So don't think that Trump is the boss. Like I say, he's the demolition contractor, and he's paid in domestic applause and ego inflation to swing the wrecking ball into the credibility of American leadership. When he shouts at Nigeria, he's helping Nigeria in their long term argument that the country must reduce its exposure to Washington. Just like every other country in the global South.

Trump's message is basically, don't build your future under the shadow of an empire that that can turn bombing your country into a campaign talking point. They'll just bomb your country just for the sake of having something to say in a debate. What needs to emerge and this is where middle nation thinking comes in, is a third path, an alternative path, tactical engagement with all sides by strategic independence from all sides. You understand? Using Gulf Capital without becoming the appendage of Gulf capital.

Using Chinese infrastructure without letting your economy be completely written in Beijing. Using bricks banking without accepting a new generation of conditionalities in different packaging just like neoliberalism. Nigeria today, in my opinion, is a live demonstration of this moment in history. You have a formally, formally independent country that's struggling towards real autonomy, that's being bullied by a declining empire, that's being courted by a rising multipolar order, and that's being stalked and being hunted by a national owners of capital who are already thinking fifty years ahead of everyone else. This is why I've said, and why I think it's important to understand that the transition of the global economy to the South and to the East should not be understood, and the rise of bricks and so forth.

This should not be understood as a revolution of the global South. It's not an unseating of western power. It's not an overthrow of western power. It's a managed transition. It's a survival strategy for the OCGFC.

A survival strategy born out of necessity, which they intend to result in the continuation of their dominance. They want a multipolar order as long as it exists under a unipolar private sector a national empire. That's what's happening. And if Nigeria's leadership is still thinking in late twentieth century paradigms, then the a national OC GFC are gonna get the drop on you. Trump's threats rely upon you thinking that America's moment as the global superpower wasn't just a moment, but is a perpetual forever state of affairs.

Well, it's not. The truth is that this moment of American superpower dominance has already passed. They are not the threat. America is not the threat that you think they are. And while you're busy thinking about them as a threat, well, you're gonna completely miss the real threat that you're facing.

And in doing that, you will permanently miss the turn in the road, from the road of subordination to the road of sovereignty. You're gonna completely miss that turn and you'll be stuck on the road of subordination that actually is gonna lead you right off the cliff.