The Nigerian Proxy Clash of Civilizations Re; The Crumbling of Nigerian “Christians Genocide” Narrative, By Umar Ardo – Part 1

By Olusegun R. Babalola

This DR. Umar Ardo’s disconcerting article, that cannot be thoroughly addressed in a single article, was brought to by notice by a Nigerian nationalist and federalist, Madu Bright O. Alwell. He noted; “We respectfully seeking a detailed response …” This has led 8-part response: The Nigerian Proxy Clash of Civilizations, Dr. Umar Ardo’s Role in the Proxy Clash of Civilization, Dr. Umar Ardo as Civilizational Strategist of Moral Violence, Understanding DR. Umar Ardo in the Age of Civilizationalism, DR. Umar Ardo’s Moral Violence and Kafkaesque Natural Justice Pretentions, Natural  Justice Rightly Understood; Case for Dialogue Between 2-Civilizations, The Fundamental Challenges; Neo-Crusade Between Muslims and Christians; and Nigeria @ Crossroads & the Way Forward. The general purpose is civic self-understanding of our problematic challenges towards a peaceful resolution and if possible, conversion.

This response examines proxy clash of civilizations between the two Nigerian broad civilizations; the Afro-Islamic (without a wall between religion and the State) and Indigenous-African civilizations (with a wall between religion and the State), driven by civilizationalism. These 2-civilizations succumbed to moral relativist and nihilist clash of civilizations due to the lack of enforcement of the “natural justice” (a part of the quasi-classical, Western and colonial Doctrine of Repugnancy) as the harmonization principle. This is to deepen and correct several misconceptions in Dr. Ardo’s January 24 article; The Crumbling of Nigerian “Christians Genocide” Narrative and his other articles.

There are four fundamental misconceptions. The first two are that he is oblivious (deliberately or unconsciously) of the realities of (1) the 2 ways-of-life or 2-Civilizations; the Afro-Islamic civilization (AIC) and the Indigenous-African civilization (IAC) civilizations which ought to be the basis of our search for his “fairness, respect and justice – not based on ethnicity, but on our shared humanity,” as the colonial British did with Western civilization’s Doctrine of Repugnancy (natural justice advocacy); (2) a proxy clash of civilizations between the 2-Civilizations with civilizational strategists on both sides, which Ardo is one, leading him to mis-understand that the “Christian genocide” narrative is “methodlessness,” and an “analytical collapse;” and that “Nigeria’s violence” are “chaotic, decentralized, economically motivated and often criminal rather than ideological.”

The third, (discussed in Parts 2-4), is that Ardo himself is a strategist for AIC who exploits the ideas of “natural justice” (such as “fairness, respect and justice” and “our shared humanity”- Parts 6-7) which should be used to end the on-going moral relativism and nihilism, as Kafkaesque proxy to disable resistance against his civilization in this clash of civilizations. The fourth, (discussed in Parts 5-8) posits that, rather than being pre-occupied with AIC alone, he should also consider the Nigerian Dream for global African leadership and renaissance, built on our 2-Civilizations, harmonized by the same but de-colonized Western civilization’s natural justice.

On the 2-Civilizations

There are two basic and actual “ways-of-life” or civilizations, in practice, within the Nigerian State with distinctly diverse values, interests and methods of competition for power; the AIC and the IAC, with each further divided into ethnic/religious factions. This is aptly captured in the co-chairs of the 2008-created National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria (NCTRN); the Sultan of Sokoto and the Ooni of Ile-Ife. Most importantly, it is evident in our two types of the colonially-derived customary jurisprudence; the Sharia-law (Islamic- law applied in Muslim-majority regions) and the various customary-laws (Indigenous ethnic practices), respectively, managed and harmonized with the single principle of Doctrine of Repugnancy (DoR) in customary jurisprudence serving as a validity test for customary laws based “natural justice, equity, and good conscience” (henceforth summarized here as “natural justice”) and incompatibility with, of course, colonial “public policy.” This historical reality and exceptionalism, a microcosm of the larger African realities, is the manifest secret of Nigerian manifest destiny as a global power and haven for all Africans – a potentiality that has continually eluded us.

There is a general distrust between these 2-Civilizations. Whilst the AIC sees the IAC with a wall between religion and State as kuffar (un-believers or infidels), mushrik (idolater), and mindless slaves of Western civilization; the IAC sees the AIC without a wall between religion and State as jihadist barbarians where a few aristocrats unjustly impoverish their multitude in the name of religion. The lack of communal education and enforcement of the commonsensical and harmonizing “natural justice” have led to moral relativism and nihilism between the two civilizations. The fundamental problem is that both sides are in competition often with explicit or proxy agendas driven by the will-to-dominate and fear-of-being-dominated by the Other – what Ardo called “epistemology of grievance,” where “conviction substitutes for verification and repetition stands in for proof.”  And this “epistemology of grievance,” true or false, driven by antagonistic civilizationalism have continued to breed distrust and forestall cooperation, spilling over into religious-war (“neo-Crusade”) narrative between Muslims and Christians (Part 7).

Civilizationalism of powerful civilizational-states, in our post-modern era, has final been brought to global consciousness by Xi Jinping’s 2023 Global Civilizational Initiative (GCI), Vladimir Putin’s 2023 Foreign Policy Concept, and Donald Trump’s Nov. 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) in the ongoing multipolar competition. Here, Trump also brought the ideas of civilizationalism, “civilizational confidence” and “civilizational erasure” to the fore towards survival of the West based on its will to defend its civilizational and religious identity against internal and external threats, rather than just military or economic might. Along the same line our 2-Civilizations have been exploiting this civilizationalism against themselves due to fears of civilizational erasure.

This distinction of and clash between 2-civilizations is obviously oblivious to Ardo, or else he would not have categorized “Ife/Modakeke” crisis as “violence between Christian groups” whilst defending the ideas of “natural justice” – the general sanctity of human life, questioning why killings by people of the same faith “do not count because the victims respectively share the same faiths with the villains;” and thus reminding us that not only Christians but Muslims too are being killed by radical Muslims. Ife/Modakeke violence was not between Christian groups but between two communities steeped in the same IAC with Freedom of Religion and Belief (FoRB) which accommodate Muslims, Christians and indigenous religious/humanists.

On “Christian genocide narrative”

Ardo accused the deceptive “Christian genocide” narrative, of being both “methodlessness,” and an “analytical collapse.” Again, he evoked “natural justice” sentiments; “Perhaps the most corrosive feature of the narrative is its moral arithmetic. Deaths are weighed not by their injustice but by the faith of the deceased. Christian victims are rendered hypervisible, while Muslim victims, often killed in larger numbers by the same actors, in the same regions, through the same mechanisms, fade into rhetorical insignificance. This selective mourning violates a basic ethical principle – that the value of a human life does not depend on the identity of either victim or perpetrator. To argue, implicitly or explicitly, that the killing of Muslims “counts less” because the killers share their religion is to reduce human beings to single-axis identities and to deny the complexity of social life in Nigeria’s vast conflict zones.”

However, Ardo omits (or ignores) two things here. The first is the ideological difference between a Muslim who subscribe to the IAC’s FoRB and a Muslim that doesn’t. Secondly, he ultimately failed to understand that this is just another example of the age-old proxy civilizational strategy in clash of civilizations between the 2-Civilizations against their fears of civilizational erasure.

Ardo is right though; “Recasting a crisis of governance and security as a religious extermination campaign offers a powerful export product, specifically under the current America’s political environment where persecution of Christians hypocritically resonates deeply within the Evangelical Republican Community. In this sense, the genocide narrative is less an empirical conclusion than a strategic translation – Nigeria’s complexity flattened into a moral binary legible to Republican audiences! That translation succeeded not because it was true, but because it was useful.” However, in this light, “Christian Genocide” is neither “methodlessness,” nor an “analytical collapse” but the desperate SOS, but a proxy alarm or what Ardo calls “evidentiary shortcut” against civilizational erasure, by a drowning IAC with FoRB for global attention. This strategic placeholding, consciously or even if unconsciously, is the live-and-death call of a dying civilization directed at the most powerful foreign power, which the Nigerian State is obviously either helpless at defending or as some among the IAC fear, has conspired to obliterate. They point to the shameful irony that the Nigerian government and military, which shamefully admits that thousands of Christians, Muslims and indigenous religious/humanists are being murdered and displaced from their aboriginal spaces by radical Islamicists, can stop a military coup in Benin Republic but cannot secure security at home for FoRB?

Whilst the narrative itself, is factually a proxy alarm since Christians, Muslims and indigenous religious/humanists, (with FoRB as their common way-of-life) are all victims of the same radical Islamicists (who despise FoRB), it was politically useful and successful as the term “Christian” stands as a place-holder for IAC’s FoRB. In this light, “Muslim victims”, do not “fade into rhetorical insignificance” but are protected within FoRB. This placeholding makes sense since the Enlightenment Christian way-of-life (with a wall between the State and religion which allows for FoRB), as opposed to the Medieval era and the full implementation of Sharia-Law (without a wall between the State and religion), as seen in the Nigerian 12 Sharia States, began politically in United States. Thus, by preserving the liberal Christian’s denominations and FoRB, one is preserving an age-old IAC.

Thus, this “Christian Genocide” narrative is far from crumbling “under rigorous empirical analysis, historical context and philosophical reasoning and scrutiny” as Ardo claimed. If Ardo noticed, the recent US publications have shifted from “Christian genocide” narrative to “Religious Freedom and Beliefs Violations” narrative. The ex-US-Commission on International Religious Freedom (US IRF) chair, Dr. Stephen Schneck warned on Feb. 4, 2026, in a written testimony ahead of the joint-hearing of the House Subcommittee on Africa and Subcommittee on Western hemisphere, against narrowing FoRB advocacy to the persecution of Christians alone and that the “International religious freedom, as defined in human rights laws, is universal” and protects all faiths and beliefs, noting that “Selective advocacy undermines both efficiency and legitimacy.”

An Antecedent of Proxy Clash of Civilizations Between the 2-Civilizations

The “Christian genocide” proxy by IAC has earlier precedents by the AIC. (Two examples would surface here, and another by Dr. Ardo himself in Part 2.)

First is the 2019 Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) policy, proposing rural settlements for nomadic pastoralists (primarily Fulani herders) with fenced grazing areas in all Nigerian state to end open grazing and solve what is called Herders/Farmers crisis caused by ecological issues like environmental degradation, population growth, banditry and resource scarcity. It was proposed by President Buhari’s administration and supported by the AIC, and was seen by the IAC as a proxy or Ardo’s “evidentiary shortcut” for civilizational expansionism and thus erasure by Fulbe-ric AIC. This follows a time-line observation that; in April 2011, the post-presidential election violence that erupted after Goodluck Jonathan defeats Muhammadu Buhari, leading to deaths, including Fulani cattle losses in Southern Kaduna and elsewhere, sparked long-term grievances among Fulani groups; in 2015, allegations emerge that foreign Fulani were “invited” from neighboring countries to Nigeria to aid Buhari’s 2015 election victory (by intimidating voters and causing unrest if Jonathan won), have become bandits when abandoned; in 2016, Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, made public admissions about compensating Fulani herdsmen (from neighboring countries, including Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, and Senegal) to halt violence (banditry and herder-farmer conflicts) in Southern Kaduna which according to him erupted after Jonathan’s victory in 2011 elections and not the 2015 elections (critics, including figures like Reno Omokri, have highlighted these statements as admissions of paying “killer herdsmen”); and in 2016, Buhari administration started Operation Safe Corridor towards deradicalization, rehabilitation and integration (DRR) program for “low-risk” former Boko Haram members and some graduates were integrated into civilian life or local security structures leading to public concern about infiltration. According to IAC, this time-line, reveals that RUGA is simply a proxy for civilizational expansionism and erasure.

Secondly, the April 14, 2014 Chibok kidnap of 276 students in Borno State by Boko Haram with foreign support is also now generally seen a proxy – exploited by the emerging APC, to discredit Goodluck Jonathan’s government, to usher Mohammadu Buhari, a popular representative of the AIC, into power. President Jonathan (who is from the IAC) had accused the Obama administration of “overwhelming” undermining his authority and re-election by politicizing the Chibok kidnap in his book, 2018 My Transition Hours. It was primarily a clash of civilizations, disguised as regime change based on multi-partisan politics, and openly supported by President Obama and his wife, Michele. Unfortunately, Buhari’s president was a tragedy. As Ardo noted; President Buhari’s achievements is limited to “marrying his daughters to billionaires.”

In this light, just as the IAC perspective sees 2015 regime change in civilizational lens as a proxy strategy in a clash of civilizations; and RUGA policy, as a proxy for civilizational expansionism of the Fulbe-ric AIC within the IAC spaces towards civilizational erasure; AIC now sees “Christian Genocide” narrative sold by Christians in the AIC (that accommodates FoRB) against civilizational erasure by the AIC as a proxy for what Sheikh Ahmad Gumi alarmingly called “neo-Crusade” between Christians and Muslims towards AIC erasure, after United States redesignated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern (under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act) in Nov. 2025, followed by Christmas bombing of terrorists in Sokoto State in response to the “Christian genocide” narrative in the subsequent month.

Both sides are scared of civilizational erasure, and both exploits civilizationalism. In this mortal discord, “intellectual honesty” is sacrificed. On both sides as Ardo stated, “In low-trust environments, conspiracy becomes a form of cognitive equilibrium.”