By GEB
THE diverse public reactions engendered by the Federal Government’s hiring of lobbyists to strengthen ongoing diplomatic collaboration with the United States on security are understandable. Many Nigerians are naturally alarmed by the $9 million reportedly being paid by Nigeria to a professional lobbyist. Certainly, that amount is princely for many states or local governments even in these days of galloping inflation. Other Nigerians construe the action as a desperate act by the government to convince the United States that terrorists’ killings in the country are not targeted at any particular group. President Trump and some in the U.S. Congress hold the view that there is Christian genocide in Nigeria.
Nigeria was designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) by the United States on October 31, 2025, for acts the U.S. considered to be violations of religious freedom. President Trump equally threatened to apply force if the government did not end the killings. In November, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, led a high-level delegation to the United States. They engaged with U.S. officials, including members of Congress and the State Department. In December, Rep. Riley Moore and his five-member congressional delegation visited Nigeria on a fact-finding visit. President Trump ordered airstrikes on a facility operated by ISIS in Sokoto on December 25, 2025, which the Nigerian government explained as a collaborative effort.
The U.S.-Nigeria Working Group was thus established as the basis for continued diplomatic engagement. Documents filed under the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) later revealed that Nigeria had engaged the DCI Group, a Washington-based lobbying and public relations firm with links to U.S. President Donald Trump, to manage the country’s image and counter allegations of targeted killings of Christians. The contract, dated December 17, 2025, authorises a monthly payment of $750,000 over an initial six-month period, amounting to $4.5 million, with a possible renewal bringing the total to $9 million. The deal was facilitated through Aster Legal, a Kaduna-based law firm, acting on behalf of the Office of the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.
Reacting, the African Democratic Congress (ADC) considers the contract as a misplaced exercise amid worsening insecurity and economic hardship. The party holds the opinion that no amount of lobbying can replace effective governance and protection of life and property. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) added that it amounted to an embarrassment for the government to abandon its media aides and the Ministry of Information and National Orientation, and outsource its image-making to firms abroad.
President of the Association of Foreign Relations Professionals, Ambassador Gani Lawal, said the resort to lobbyists could have been due to non-engagement of the country’s diplomatic channels, as ambassadors, who are a country’s first line of defence, are currently not deployed.
Indeed, since this government recalled its ambassadors in September 2023, the country’s embassies and high commissions have been without accredited representatives of the President. The reluctance or delay in posting substantive ambassadors to host countries is not grounded in any known foreign relations strategy. Instead, it seems to portray the country as having little value to diplomacy. In the last 10 years, Nigerians have had cause to lament the government’s failure to project Nigeria’s foreign policy in global diplomatic circles. Gradually, Nigeria has ceded its front-row position at world and continental bodies, settling for mere observer status at the BRICS. It is ironic that the same government that peddles funding constraint as a reason its foreign missions have lost verve and boisterousness, has the resources to so expensively engage lobbyists.
However, as foreign relations experts have argued, lobbying remains a standard practice among governments. That is, irrespective of the functionality or otherwise of ambassadors and foreign missions. They can actually exist side-by-side. Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebiefa, explained the engagement of lobbyists as well-thought-out and normal. “Engagement of foreign countries through lobbying is not out of place. Different countries adopt different strategies in managing complex situations. Lobbying is something that most countries do,” he charged.
Insofar as complex situations may require covert operations to deal with, the government should be concerned with the huge cost that its fight against terrorism and insurgency is claiming, both in the prosecution of the war that seems endless, and in seeking to convince the global, even localised communities, that the government is not complicit in killings of Nigerians, whether Christians or Muslims. Until the country gets rid of criminal jihadists, violent land grabbers and their sponsors in high places, it cannot avoid being perceived to be complicit or failing in its sacred and constitutional duty to protect the lives and property of the citizens.
It is not all situations that ambassadors are primed to handle. Where President Trump is concerned, for example, an ambassador may lack the expertise and gravitas. Many presidents struggle to stand up to the U.S. President. Therefore, exploring unofficial channels, through friends and close associates of world leaders, especially for unusual situations, is not necessarily inappropriate.
The lesson is that the government should not allow situations to deteriorate beyond repair. If Nigeria had handled the Boko Haram insurrection with the urgency and seriousness it required, and nipped it in the bud, there likely wouldn’t be any need for President Trump’s intervention.
Always, the government must be seen to project national interests in its engagements with the outside world. The motive must be clear, and the approach must not appear dubious. The government cannot afford to create further divisions at home in the bid to seek foreign solutions. Nigeria is not insulated from the far-reaching effects of global politics, and this must be borne in mind. Ultimately, Nigeria must deal decisively with terrorism in all its facets, so that the country can be considered not as a pariah state, but as a responsible country in the committee of progressive nations.
In this article