Nigeria and the Danger of Partition!
(Translated)

Al-Rayah Newspaper - Issue 577 - 10/12/2025
By: Ustadh Nabeel Abdul-Karim

Nigeria is the largest country in Africa in terms of population, with an estimated 220 million people, and it plays a central role in West Africa. Therefore, any change within Nigeria affects the entire region. It contains more than 250 ethnic groups, the most important of which are the Hausa and Fulani in the north, who are Muslims; the Yoruba in the west, who are a mix of Muslims and Christians; and the Igbo in the east, most of whom are Christians. For this reason, Nigeria is considered vulnerable to religious, ethnic, and political tensions.

If we look back briefly to understand the reality of this country, we find that during the British colonialist period (1914–1960), Britain merged three regions that had previously been administratively independent—the North, the West, and the East—into a single colony that became the Protectorate of Nigeria. During the First and Second World Wars, many Nigerians were killed as soldiers fighting under British command.

In the transition from direct to indirect colonialism, several political-educational movements emerged to adapt to this new stage. At their forefront was Nnamdi Azikiwe, whose father had been a clerk in the British administration, as well as Obafemi Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello, who later became statesmen during the independence era. Nigeria obtained independence as a single state in form only because Britain always leaves behind a fuse of conflict in every colony it departs from, ready to be ignited whenever it chooses. For this reason, Nigeria was effectively divided along ethnic and religious lines.

Independence first produced the Kingdom of Nigeria under the British Crown, and then the Republic of Nigeria in 1963, with Nnamdi as president, and the system was federal. A military coup took place in 1966 that overthrew the civilian government, followed by a counter-coup by officers from the Noeth in 1967. At that point, the Igbo general Odumegwu Ojukwu declared the secession of the region of the Eastern, under the name “the Republic of Biafra.” This triggered the civil war from 1967 to 1970, which claimed the lives of one million people. The central government emerged victorious and the country was reunited.

After that, from 1970 to 1979, Nigeria went through a period of military coups, the last of which ended with power being handed over to a civilian government. With the return of civilian rule in 1999 up to the present—during which Bola Tinubu came to power in 2023 as the current president—his government continues to face major crises every day, including:

• Security issues: the presence of Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria, the Islamic State–West Africa Province, ongoing clashes in the central region between Fulani herders and farmers, and widespread crime, kidnapping, and armed robbery in the western part of the country.

• Economically: Despite Nigeria’s wealth—especially its oil—the country has been driven toward severe inflation due to government corruption. The naira, the national currency, has lost half its value since 2023, which pushed the government to take on an additional 1.15 trillion naira in domestic borrowing (equivalent to about 784 million USD) to cover the deficit in the 2025 budget. Nevertheless, prices have continued to rise, the cost of living has increased, the effectiveness of some public services has declined, and parts of the infrastructure have collapsed, leaving the country exhausted.

Given this difficult reality—produced by colonialism, the Cold War, and America’s attempts to bring this country under its authority to implement its plans of control and then partition—Nigeria has become ripe for division into three major regions. For this reason, we find that US President Trump is hastening to achieve this goal, threatening military intervention or cutting aid to Nigeria, if it does not stop what he called the killing of Christians or targeted violence.

At the beginning of November 2025, Trump announced that America would designate Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern (CPC)” due to its violation of religious freedom and its continued violence against Christians. He stated word for word: “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.” (The Guardian, 1 November 2025).

Although religious and ethnic issues form part of the media and political momentum, experts warn against oversimplifying the situation as merely a Muslim-Christian conflict.

Therefore, the specter of division remains present—whether through an official negotiated referendum, a unilateral declaration of secession, a civil war and prolonged armed conflict, or through external intervention or international pressure.

I lean here toward the scenario of a prolonged armed conflict—similar to what occurred in Sudan—through which all other international powers are pushed out and US influence is imposed. Supporting this likelihood are the following; the weakness of the central leadership, which makes it easier to remove, the presence of armed movements that are acceptable internationally, and the broad popular support within rebellious regions seeking secession. This would lead to genocide, the complete disintegration of the state’s components, and the drafting of new constitutions for the newly separated regions—developments that ultimately serve America’s interests in the region.

The issue of Nigeria is not a religious one, even though efforts are being made to portray hostility between Muslims and Christians in order to serve certain interests elsewhere and to tarnish the image of Muslims through such events. In reality, the matter stems from the absence of a true guardian who preserves human values. Today, no state carries these values. All the states are colonialized by capitalism and driven by utilitarianism.

The solution begins with establishing a state that respects human beings, treats them with dignity, and cares for their affairs regardless of differences—one that establishes justice and equality.

There is no entity capable of undertaking this role except the Khilafah Rashidah (Rightly-Guided Caliphate), for it is the state that would grant people their due, establish Shariah justice, and give every person their rights. It would completely abolish colonialism and bring people into the justice of Islam. Therefore, hasten to work with Hizb ut Tahrir to establish the Khilafah (Caliphate) and place it in its proper position in the international arena in order to change its balance and rules.