Article
Comment
Development
Politics
4 min read

Downsizing in DC undercuts the lives of millions in Nigeria

Nigeria’s Christian communities will bear the brunt of USAID’s demise.

Chris Wadibia is an academic advising on faith-based challenges. His research includes political Pentecostalism, global Christianity, and development. 

Patient wait in a street clinic beside a sign.
A health project clinic in Lagos, Nigeria.

Christendom, the global community of over 2.5 billion Christians living worldwide, has many geographical capitals. Nigeria, like the United States, is one of them. Upwards of 100 million people living in Nigeria identify as followers of the Christian religion. These Nigerians belong to Christian denominations like Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Baptist Christianity, and Pentecostalism. On 6 February the Trump Administration announced plans to downsize USAID, the US government agency that administers foreign aid. In 2023 it managed over $40 billion, and has played a significant role in delivering aid and development support in Nigeria for decades.  

Nigeria has one of the world’s lowest levels when it comes to spending on social issues. Its government’s underspending has trapped tens of millions of Nigerians in horrific, inescapable mazes of poverty. The significant challenges Nigeria faces are well-documented -socioeconomic, geopolitical, and religious ones. The protracted and infamously bloodthirsty Boko Haram insurgency (headquartered in the northeastern corner of the country) has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Nigerians and displaced over two million people, disproportionately affecting vulnerable women and children.   

Abandoned by the government, many Nigerians look to their ethnic communities, religious groups, and even other state’s agencies and charities for the support and solutions they require to survive.  

In 2021 USAID commemorated 60 years of providing development assistance to Nigeria. Its historical activity has prioritised agriculture and food security, democracy, human rights, and governance, public health, and energy production. In just 2021, USAID provided Nigeria with more than $787 million in development and humanitarian assistance.  

Whilst USAID support for Nigeria has historically been blind to religion, the Trump-led downsizing of development and humanitarian assistance for millions of people living in Nigeria will especially impact tens of millions of Christians, They struggle to lead lives in a country rife with Christian suffering  that is ignored by powerful global actors with the financial, political, and military resources to intervene in substantive and peace-generating ways.  

Southern Nigeria is disproportionately developed compared to the North. Lagos, the economic capital responsible for a third of Nigeria's GDP, sits in the southwestern corner. The south contains a majority of the leading private universities, many of which are owned and funded by Christian churches, and is home to Nigeria's largest international airport. Literacy levels among Christians in Nigeria dwarf literacy levels among Muslims, especially when compared to Muslims living in the religiously archconservative northern states.   

The southern region of Nigeria has an appetite for development and the political will needed to implement an inclusive development vision that simply does not exist up north. Downsizing USAID activity in Nigeria will disproportionately affect Christians in Nigeria who for historical and contemporary reasons have been able to benefit from USAID assistance in ways developing themselves to help Nigeria compete in the global economy.    

In the current 21st century geopolitical climate US-Nigeria relations are far more likely to become more rather than less relevant. 

Muslims in Nigeria, if unbridled by extreme religious dogma, could just as easily undergo the processes of self-development needed to excel in 21st century economic marketplaces. However, as Nigeria's religious landscape stands today, tens of millions of Muslims simply lack access to opportunities to gain the education, training, and work experience that could unleash the full potential of the legendary Nigerian human capital famous globally.  

Millions of educationally and professionally ambitious Nigerian Christians view their work in vocational terms. Inspired by scripture and theological resources like Catholic Social Teaching and the Pentecostal Doctrine of Prosperity, these Christians intentionally seek out educational and professional opportunities because they believe their faith in Christ commands them to provide for their households and invest into their communities. They believe contributions to their homes and communities double as offerings to God himself. For over six decades, USAID has administered development and humanitarian assistance in Nigeria in ways hugely benefitting millions of Christians ignored by their government.  

Administering USAID aid in Nigeria has never been perfect. Bad actors, many of them government officials exploiting the authority of their offices, have stolen development funds intended for marginalized Nigerians and used it to fund their kleptocratic networks and lavish lifestyles. However, in the current 21st century geopolitical climate US-Nigeria relations are far more likely to become more rather than less relevant. USAID support provides a valuable source of American soft power able to win over the hearts of vulnerable Nigerians whose children might one day seize the reins of state power. It also continues the postcolonial project of assisting in the sociopolitical and economic development of the Giant of Africa.  

Downsizing USAID assistance to Nigeria undercuts investment in the lives of millions of Nigerian Christians disproportionately positioned to drive the country in the direction of evolving into just the kind of capable ally in Africa the US wants to work with long term.  

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Article
America
Character
Culture
Leading
Politics
1 min read

A question of character: why do some evangelicals back Trump?

Whatever leaders say, it's what they do and who they are that matters.

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

President Trump speaks in the White House
The White House.

The USA is a strange place. At least to us foreigners. Already this year I have spent two separate weeks there. The first was a week in Texas where Trump/Vance flags flew triumphantly and shops proudly displayed MAGA hats and related merchandise. The second was a week on the liberal west coast, in San Francisco and Seattle, where it was Pride flags that fluttered in the wind, and Trump and his lackeys were viewed as the enemy of everything good and true. There could hardly be a greater contrast. 

I've been trying in particular to get my head around why evangelicals have so solidly backed Donald Trump, especially so since I grew up with and still to an extent own that label here in the UK. I spoke recently with Walter Kim, a gentle, thoughtful Korean-American leader of the National Association of Evangelicals. He pointed out that the evangelical constituency in the USA is far more ethnically diverse than the image of the white, country-music loving, confederate flag-flying southern Republican that we often assume in Europe. Many evangelicals worship in churches which are ethically very mixed, and who have no time for Trump whatsoever.  

For him, the name ‘evangelical’ had been hijacked by a political movement. Many people assumed that if you are Republican in your sympathies, voted for Trump, and are resistant to the ‘woke’ policies of the Democrats, then you must be an ‘evangelical’ regardless of your religious or theological convictions. Bizarrely, he pointed out that in a recent survey, a significant number of Muslims had claimed the designation ‘evangelical’. I told you America was a strange country. 

Now of course, many evangelicals do support Trump. Yet even among them, it is hard to find anyone who will mount an argument for him as a moral exemplar, a shining example of virtue and integrity. Even those who support him acknowledge his own moral frailty, his murky past in relation to women, financial dealing, and truth-telling. Be that as it may, there appear to be two broad positions evangelicals take for supporting Trump. 

One is to say that his character may be flawed, but his policies are good. Tim Alberta's book on American Evangelicalism, The Kingdom the Power and the Glory, suggested that for some evangelicals, voting for Trump was “nakedly transactional - Christians trading their support sans enthusiasm in return for specific policies.” 

Most evangelicals are of the opinion that there is something fundamentally wrong with putting an essentially male boxer in a ring with a female one. They feel distinctly uneasy with the widespread and cavalier destruction of what they consider to be nascent human lives in the womb. They value traditional marriage and the family as a key building block of a healthy society and as the best means to bring new lives into the world and nurture them through their formative years. Some think the right to carry a gun is a safeguard against lawlessness and encroachment on the privileges of the individual.  

They may also be nervous of the impact on the USA of illegal immigration, dislike economic policies which have raised the cost of living - especially tough if you are poor, are anxious about the rise of China as a world power which, if its growing influence across Africa is anything to go by, threatens domination across the globe in coming decades with an atheistic regime hostile to Christianity and religious freedom. 

For them, the Democrats under Joe Biden seemed to ignore all of these things. They seemed to be wrapped up in a small bubble of their own marginal issues and grew out of touch with ‘mainstream America’. And so many evangelicals voted for Trump, with deep reluctance given his moral frailty. His polices were OK, but the deal was worth it, even if his character was dodgy. 

Yet, as Alberta observes, there is now a different strand of evangelical support for Trump, much more bullish and brazen. He is, they claim, yet another of many flawed leaders that God has used for his purposes in the past. In the Bible, King David had his mistress’s husband murdered so he could marry her; his son Solomon had a weakness for women and yet was used by God to build the great Jerusalem Temple; King Cyrus was a Persian king who allowed the Israelites to return from exile. Trump is now the chosen one of God to restore America as a Christian nation, despite his flaws. 

In both of these approaches, the assumption is that good character is desirable, but not essential for leadership and establishing good government.  

I am not so sure. 

Of course, getting good policies matter. Yet character matters just as much, if not more. 

As it happens, the story told in the Bible doesn’t think flawed, unrepentant leaders are good leaders for a nation. After the contract killing, King David realised he had done something terribly wrong and was deeply remorseful for his actions. Solomon's wandering eyes caused untold damage to Israel in future years, leaving it open to all kinds of destructive idolatry. And Cyrus was never a king of the nation of Israel anyway, just a neighbouring potentate whose foreign policy enabled something good to happen. 

The problem with adopting an unrepentant leader with deep moral failings is that leaders set the tone for the organisations that they lead. It's true of any school, church, business or government. Whatever leaders say, it's what they do and who they are that matters just as much. And that is because what they do and how they are gives an idea of the kind of behaviour that is least permissible, but at most recommended, to get things done.  

A leader who achieves results through bullying, demeaning opponents, getting rid of the people who confront him, and who thinks that making a lot making a lot of money is both the main aim in life and the marker of success, sends out the unspoken message that bullying, domineering and making money are the thing to do. This is how to get on. Such behaviour will always be overlooked with a smirk, or even rewarded. He - or she - sets the tone for the nation / business / organisation / church. 

It's an age-old rule. Kids pick up the behaviour of their parents. Churches reflect the personality of their pastors. Businesses end up taking on the character of their CEOs. Boris Johnson fell from grace as Prime Minister of the UK not because of his economic or social policies (if he had any), but due to his character – an inability to tell the truth eroded trust and came home to roost in the end.  

Of course, getting good policies matter. Yet character matters just as much, if not more. We might argue the toss over whether Trump's tariffs, his standing up to China, his approach to getting a peace deal in Ukraine, his reversing of illegal immigration is, or is not, the right policy. But the way he goes about these things speaks more loudly than the policies he adopts. The way we do things is as important as what we do.  

In leadership, competence and chemistry matter. But in the long run, character matters the most. 

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