Understanding DR. Umar Ardo in the Age of Civilizationalism Re; The Crumbling of Nigerian “Christians Genocide” Narrative, By Umar Ardo – Part 4

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 analysis explores the rise of a competitive, transactional, and unpredictable multipolar world order, where superpowers and civilizational-states converge on three key features: civilizationalism (civilizational-statehood), civilizational realism, and civilizational self-reliance. These drive demands for global reforms toward predictability and national reforms, especially in the Global South, including Nigeria. Against this backdrop, Dr. Umar Ardo, a prolific civilizational strategist, applies these features selectively only to his Afro-Islamic Civilization (AIC), while weaponizing “natural justice” (echoing the colonial Doctrine of Repugnancy) as moral violence against the Indigenous-African Civilization (IAC).

Nigeria stands at a crossroads amid profound global shifts over recent decades. This profound global shift is unfortunately still oblivious to the majority, especially, the Nigerian political class. Though, Donald Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) followed Xi Jinping’s 2023 Global Civilizational Initiative (GCI) and Vladimir Putin’s 2023 Foreign Policy Concept by two years, many middle-powers, beneficiaries of the U.S.-led post-WWII/Cold War rules-based liberal international order, view Trump’s foreign policy as a rupture. At the January 2026 Davos (56th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum), Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney declared, “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.” Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever added, quoting Antonio Gramsci “If the old is dying and the new is not yet born, you live in a time of monsters.” To understanding this rupture, on must begin from U.S. beginnings.

U.S. Humble Beginnings

American civilization extends the Enlightenment’s Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian heritages. The U.S., Enlightenment rationalism’s golden child, marked a historical rupture, “modifying what it does not produce” (Tocqueville) till date. Founded as a civilizational-state, it rests on two pillars: the Constitution and constitutionalism. The Constitution draws from classical/republican philosophy evident in the 1787 Northwest Ordinances, (establishing local government principles based on ancient constitutionalism) and federalist liberal/modern philosophy evident in the 1787 Constitution focusing on security (economic and military). Constitutionalism incorporates Roman elements like “Senate” and “Capitol,” with Greco-Roman architecture in monuments. Leo Strauss once noted that ‘‘the authors of the Federalist Papers signed themselves ‘Publius’: republicanism points back to classical antiquity and therefore also to classical political philosophy.”

Civilizational realism, as articulated by Vadim Tsymbursky (in his 2017 Morphology of Russian Geopolitics …), posits: 1) a state-civilization as a rational agent pursuing interests; 2) sovereignty making it dependent on peoples seeking protection, legitimizing the regime through gravitational pull. This justified U.S. policies like the Monroe Doctrine and interventions in the two World Wars and beyond, countering threats like fascism, communism, and cultural relativism.

Philosophical dualism between classical and modern elements fueled republicanism-liberalism tensions, sustaining the regime through partisan dynamics and culture wars in every election year when each party has its own mix of republicanism and liberalism. The U.S., thus, embodies capitalism with a republican Western variant—the modern Rome, dialectically balancing republicanism and liberalism. Easily replicable in the West, for example in U.K., the republican variant is replaced with Britain’s monarchical mixed government.

Post-WWII, republicanism waned for Panglossian liberalism, per Richard Hofstadter and Louis Hartz, who saw American tradition as only Lockean liberalism. Modernism dominated as Modern architecture dominated federal buildings, while republican and classical traditions lingered. This era solidified the rules-based liberal international order: U.S.-led institutions, free trade, democracy promotion. Republican revival in the post-modern age, via Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, and J.G.A. Pocock eventually led to Reaganism domestically, but liberal internationalism persisted, ignoring civilizationalism except, except where it conflicted with US security, economic or strategic interests. Such international Panglossian liberalism led to Francis Fukuyama’s idea of “End of History.” These explains Trump’s politics.

Civilizationalism (Civilizational-Statehood)

Trump’s rupture stems from global shifts, as noted at 2026 Davos. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “China, with strategic foresight, has worked its way into the ranks of the great powers. The United States’ global pole position is being touched. And Washington reacts by radically reshaping its foreign security policy.”  Oxford’s Ngaire Woods added, “Every country on the continent (Europe) is facing a competition between outside powers, the U.S. and China, for control.” The U.S. seeks to close liberal internationalism’s loopholes to remain “the greatest nation.” This fosters multipolarity, as China and Russia reject Western polarization, dysfunction, corruption, populism, culture wars. Via Sino-Russian “no-limits” partnership, they decry U.S. manipulation of the same rule-based international order, for its own interests and power.

Russia’s civilizationalism stems from Soviet collapse, 19th-century thinkers (Nikolai Danilevsky, Konstantin Leontiev), and Western rejection during Yeltsin/Putin eras. It establishes Russia as a “state-civilization” (1,000 years), blends Orthodox Christianity, Eurasianism, sovereignty against an alien European fascism and progressivism. It started with opposition like Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Gennady Zyuganov; and later, figures like Yevgeny Primakov, Patriarch Kirill (the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church), Sergei Lavrov, Alexander Dugin, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vadim Tsymbursky. Since 2012, Vladimir Putin, the most powerful civilizational agent, has vigorously institutionalized Russian as a “unique state- civilization,” distinct from, and often opposed to, the West leading to the 2023 Foreign Policy Concept – positing a multi-polar (polycentric) world order, countering Western influence and strengthening ties with the Global South and East. It defends against Western dominance, non-traditional values (“sexual deviations”), secularization’s “morality crisis” (Mezhuev). Ukraine invasion, along this line is justified as civilizational defense.

China’s civilizationalism draws from the “century of humiliation,” Confucian past, and post-revolutionary failures. Leaders shifted from ideology to integrating 5,000-year civilization with socialist modernization. Deng Xiaoping’s 1982 “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” initiated this; Jiang Zemin (1996) integrated it with the Communist Party of China (CPC). Figures like Hu Jintao, Wang Huning, Victor Gao, Zhang Weiwei advanced it. Weiwei’s 2012 The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizational State explored Chinese exceptionalism whilst questioning Western assumptions on “End of History,” human rights, liberal democracy and notions of good governance. However, unlike the West in general, China would rise with speed since Deng, without foreign violence. President Xi Jinping, the most powerful civilizational agent, began his vigorous civilizational push in 2012 leading eventually to Chinese foreign policy’s 2023 GCI which advocates respects for civilizational/cultural diversity, rejection of a single universal model of modernization, promotion of a polycentric world order based on mutual learning, dialogue, and “common values of humanity.”

U.S. civilizationalism revives founding as historic civilizational-state, whilst addressing post-Cold War “overreach” or “foolishness” of rules-based liberal international order, driven by trade/commerce ties in “a world without borders,” which was exploited by some nations like China to protect “their economies and subsidized their companies to systematically undercut” US, leading to deindustrialization, loss of “critical supply chains” and also to “unprecedented wave of mass migration. This entails the preservation of 5,000-year Western civilization linking U.S.-Europe “spiritually” and “culturally” (Marco Rubio). Pushed by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Ronald Reagan, Kathryn Spielvogel, Samuel Huntington, JD Vance, Stephen Miller, Rubio, Steve Bannon. Donald Trump, the most powerful civilizational agent, via his “America First” agenda, eventually led to 2025 NSS to ensure US remains “the greatest and most successful nation in human history.” This policy, posits “American First” realism, prioritizes national sovereignty, border security, and economic power whilst demanding greater defense burden-sharing from allies and recentering focus with ““Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine” on the Western Hemisphere over broad global engagements that accommodates the non-ideological Sino-Russian polycentricity of a world with several civilizations.

Trump has been advancing a powerfully coordinated reforms: values (“Rededicate-250,” history, family), policies (ending migration, “radical left,” gender ideology), architecture/urbanism (Greco-Roman revival). What is interesting is that Trump is not entirely creating, but re-affirming deep realities that were part of U.S. founding and history – leading one to conclude that U.S. didn’t particularly start 250 years ago as a liberal democracy but a liberal civilizational-republic, which Trump is strategically reactivating based on the Plutonic cycle in a fresh Aquarian era

Civilizational Realism

The West, led by U.S., is no longer sole gravitational civilizational-state. Multipolarity includes superpowers Russia, China; middle-powers Japan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey.

At October 2025 Valdai Club (“Polycentric World: Instructions for Use”), Putin said, “Each culture and civilization should make its contribution because no one knows the right answer separately.” In 2018 (World Russian People’s Council), Putin also acknowledged civilizations pluralism as “a multifaceted complexity” which “supplements and enriches the others.” He quotes Danilevsky “No civilization can call itself supreme, the most developed one.” In 2023 Valdai: Putin stated “the world is on its way to a synergy of civilization-states … Nobody should betray their civilization; this is the path towards universal chaos.” Tsymbursky’s civilizational realism counters ideological universalism/liberal internationalism (seen as fundamentalism), securing Russia as attraction center: against NATO, colonialism whilst appealing domestically/Global South. Per Mezhuev, it substantiates U.S.-West agreements on Eastern Europe status quo, security, integrity – “the right of their ethnic and sub-ethnic groups to cultural and linguistic identity.”

Xi’s 2013 Moscow address introduced a “Community of Shared Future for Mankind” which pushes multipolar order where civilizations like China’s lead, challenging US-led institutions and admitted that China’s path draws from its ancient heritage while learning from others. Belt and Road Initiative (2013): connectivity across continents, 140-150 countries started in Sept., same year. China pursues military buildup in the South China Sea, with “commitment to expanding Chinese influence across the Indo-Pacific, Eurasia and the Arctic;” contesting “US primacy in East Asia and the western Pacific, and securing the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland.” There is also the “expansion of China’s footprint” in “Central Asia” with Russian approval. Whilst rejecting Western values as universal and framing their civilizations as resilient alternatives to liberal Western models the Sino-Russian partnership is vigorously involved in the BRICS, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Both also appeal to the “Global South” via decolonization rhetoric.

Trump’s realism: 2017 Warsaw speech, MAGA culture wars, 2016 tweet on migration as “civilization destruction” would culminate in 2025 NSS where he used such phrases such as “civilizational self-confidence,” (2ce) “civilizational advantages,” “Flexible Realism,” “civilizational erasure,” and “defend ourselves and preserve our way of life.” Trump justifies polycentricity via Declaration: “America’s founders laid down a clear preference for noninterventionism in the affairs of other nations and made clear the basis: just as all human beings possess God-given equal natural rights, all nations are entitled by “the laws of nature and nature’s God” to a “separate and equal station” with respect to one another.” He nevertheless added a clause that “rigid adherence to non-interventionism is not possible” which opens the door for US’s ““Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine” preserves the Western Hemisphere for itself. Thought the NSS ends liberal fundamentalism (democracy promotion), accommodates polycentricity (Middle East/Africa); it focuses interests against competitors. “Flexible Realism” would also encourage and not impose democratic reforms where they “emerges organically,” and also tackle “resurgent Islamist terrorist activity in parts of Africa” without long-term “presence or commitments.”

Rubio’s February 2026 Munich Security Conference (MSC) speech presents a central thrust of Trump’s rupture towards the restoration of U.S.’s civilizational gravitational pull: “civilizational erasure” menaces U.S.-Europe; need “new alliance” beyond military such as addressing mass migration, de-industrialization, mutual interests; regain Europe’s “self-confidence” affecting Russia relations (seen as existential threat); end Ukraine hostilities: manage Russia ties; stabilize economies; prevent hostilities expansion; Ukraine pot- hostilities reconstruction; strategic stability in Eastern Europe; European alliance to compete for market share (e.g. critical minerals) in the economies of the Global South. Others are deterring China. U.S. would not abandon the U.S.-built liberal internationalism but will no longer prioritize global order over U.S. interests, But would reform it against those who hide under it whilst violating it for their own interests to “endanger” U.S. and “global stability.” NSS is more explicit. It critiques past China assumptions by “four administrations” in “three decades”: “that by opening our markets to China, encouraging American business to invest in China, and outsourcing our manufacturing to China, we would facilitate China’s entry into the so-called “rules based international order.”” Instead, “China got rich and powerful, and used its wealth and power to its considerable advantage.” NSS goal is to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China,” help “rebalance China’s economy towards household consumption” whilst avoiding “military confrontation” and deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Unlike Sino-Russian humility, Rubio asserts Western superiority: “greatest civilization in human history,” with no pretense of equality noting that “Armies fight for a way of life.”

Civilizational Self-Reliance

Self-reliance dialectically couples civilizationalism (local tradition/civilization for good life/government) with complementary ideology, creating middle-class (Tocqueville’s “equality of condition”). Much of the relationships between national ideology (economic realism built on self-reliant political philosophy) and civilization (political idealism built on anthropological metaphysics), with respect to China and United States are explained in this 2008 book, Policy of Self-Reliance.

Formula: Self-Reliance = Civilization + Complementary Ideology (Political-Economy)

China made manifest the well-kept secret of the justness and necessity of coupling a complementary ideology with civilizationalism for the survival and excellence of any modern state. Starting with Deng’s “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” the key is the civilizational revival of the Confucian ethics, especially towards innovation and meritocracy. At the 19th CPC Congress, Oct. 2017, “Xi Jinping Thought” enshrined cultural revival, raising traditional culture to equal status with socialism. In Oct., 2025, at Sochi whilst attending the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled “The Polycentric World: Instructions for Use,” Putin stated; “The overwhelming majority of states worldwide are oriented towards pursuing their own civilizational interests, chief among which is their balanced, progressive development.” Trump’s 2025 NSS noted how European “economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure” and that “Competence and merit are among our greatest civilizational advantages.” (Compare to Confucian ethics and meritocracy).

Competitive Multipolar Order and the Need for Reforms

Peripheral states are vulnerable in multipolar order led by civilizational superpowers. We see this in 2014 when Ukraine chose the West, and regions of Eastern Ukraine chose Russia; and recently in the Trump’s Jan. 2026 “deal framework” for US acquisition or control over Greenland. Samuel Huntington had predicted this in his famous 1993 essay The Clash of Civilizations? that peripheral states “will inevitably be tested for their ability to stay neutral.” Moreover, each of these three civilizational-states has domestic dark sides devoted to the civilizational erasure of minorities who are racially different from the regimes.  In addition, all share selective immigration, at different degrees. These reveal future possibilities. The dark side of civilizationalism is the exclusive but soft-fascism. The conclusion at 2026 Davos by middle-powers who have benefited from liberal internationalism, which was silent about the virtues of civilizationalism, is the need for national, continental and multilateral reforms if a nation doesn’t want to end up on the “menu.”  Unfortunately, we have always been in the menu. Transactional competitions between US and China over African resources are a common knowledge. For us in the Global South, the current change can only be a “rupture” and “transformation,” only if we pursue civilizational reforms or else, it would just be business as usual.

Dr. Umar Ardo’s Civilizational Reforms

What is clear, most of all, is that Trump’s policies, particularly exposes the half-truth of post-WWII advocacy of liberal fundamentalism on Global South. And, telling ourselves the truth, the Nigerian state has the potential to be a 2-Civilizational state middle-power but is far from any of those global middle-powers that share or have somehow benefited from the US-led liberal international order. What is thus important is that Nigeria need a “clear strategy of its own” – civilizationalism, civilizational realism and civilizational self-reliance.

But, with Nigeria at crossroads, Dr. Ardo is bordered only about what happened to his own people and their way-of-life or civilization. As several civilizational Chinese have stated, Chinese civilization has been around for over 5000 years and would be around in the next 5,000 years. Marco Rubio, the US’s Secretary of State, recently made similar 5000-year-old case for Western civilization. In the same way, as any civilizational strategist, like Dr. Ardo, is bordered about what happened to his own people and their way-of-life or civilization, rather than focusing on the Nigerian manifest destiny as middle-power civilizational-state; a microcosm of the African realities with IAC and AIC civilizations.

Rather than focusing on the Nigerian manifest destiny as middle-power civilizational-state; a microcosm of the African realities with IAC and AIC civilizations, Ardo employs civilizationalism for pulaku unity of his Fulbe people (settled and herders); civilizational realism for a Fulbe’s West African policy with Nigeria as the center of civilizational gravity; and civilizational self-reliance via resource control by coupling civilizationalism with a covetous ideology or “initiatives” packaged as “Pulaku Initiative.”