The year 2025 ended with the humbling of the Nigerian state by a foreign power. That humiliation began in November last year when Donald Trump, the US president, described Nigeria as “that now-disgraced country” and designated it as a “Country of Particular Concern” after alleging it harboured “Christian genocide”. Having tagged Nigeria with those derogatory labels, like giving a dog a bad name to hang it, Trump threatened to deploy US soldiers to the country “guns-a-blazing” to stop “Islamic Terrorists killing our CHERISHED Christians.”