Bulletin en ligne du CODESRIA, No. 12, Novembre 2025 

par Yusuf Bangura

The widely circulated article in Global Geopolitics (2 November 2025), ‘America’s Hypocrisy as Policy’, offers a thoughtful reaction to US President Donald Trump’s insane but self-serving threat to invade Nigeria under the pretext of stopping a so-called Christian genocide. Trump tweeted on 31 October and 1 November 2025 that ‘Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria’, named Nigeria as ‘a Country of Particular Concern’, and announced that the US was ‘ready, willing and able to save our Great Christian population around the World’. He also ordered the military to prepare to intervene in Nigeria and boasted that ‘if we attack, it will be fast, vicious and sweet’ (Winter 2025).

Trump has often been described as a narcissist—someone who is deeply self-infatuated and impulsively seeks attention and adulation. Earlier this year, John MacArthur (2025), the publisher of Harper’s Magazine, writing in The Guardian, described him instead as a solipsist—a word he borrowed from the investigative psychiatrist Robert Lifton. A solipsist is someone who makes no attempt to court or please others, since the only point of reference is himself. Solipsists revel in making outrageous statements because they love being attacked to draw attention to themselves.

It is easy to dismiss Trump’s inflamed anti-Nigeria rhetoric as the rants of a narcissist or solipsist, since anyone who is familiar with Nigeria knows that the violence in that country affects both Christians and Muslims. ‘He cannot be serious’, some have argued. However, his insanity or wild outbursts may not be without material foundation. Trump often follows through on his rants if he does not face stiff resistance—especially when his anger is directed at groups, individuals or institutions he considers weak. Read the Full Text