Diplomacy Meets Reality: What the Piers Morgan Interview Reveals About Nigeria’s Governance Gaps
John Onyeukwu
Why Nigeria’s Global Messaging Cannot Succeed While Insecurity and Silence Define Its Domestic Reality
By John Onyeukwu
Published in the Policy and Reform column of Business a.m. newspaper, on Monday November 24, 2025. Pull out attached.
When Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs appeared on the Piers Morgan Show, he walked into a conversation the country could not avoid. His follow-up statement on X, where he described Nigeria as “a nation of remarkable complexity” and cautioned against “simplistic or one-dimensional lenses”, reflects a necessary diplomatic instinct. But diplomatic framing is only meaningful when grounded in lived reality. It must acknowledge pain, insecurity, and the widening gulf between official narratives and citizens’ daily experience. And Nigeria’s reality, today, is bleeding.
The Minister emphasised nuance, context, and the danger of sensationalism. He is right: Nigeria is a mosaic, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural, and home to over 230 million people. No fair analysis of this country can ignore its history, constitutional design, or the long, unfinished work of nation-building.
But three painful events in recent days reveal a deeper truth, one that no diplomatic framing can soften.
On 18 November 2025, gunmen invaded CAC Oke Isegun Church in Eruku, in Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara State, opening fire during an evening service. At least three worshippers were killed, including a young man volunteering in the church, and about 15 others, including the pastor, were abducted as the attackers escaped into surrounding forests on motorcycles. The incident followed a troubling pattern of religious-space attacks across the Middle Belt.
Just a day earlier, on 17 November 2025, armed men stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Danko/Wasagu LGA of Kebbi State, around 4:00 a.m. The attackers scaled the school fence after an exchange of gunfire with local security personnel, killing the school’s Vice Principal, Malam Hassan Yakubu Makuku, and abducting 25 female students. One of the girls later escaped, but the majority remain missing, adding to the grotesque normalisation of mass abductions targeting schoolchildren in northern Nigeria.
And in the Northeast, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) claimed responsibility for capturing and executing Brigadier General M. Uba near Wajiroko, Borno State, in a statement issued on or before 17 November 2025. Although the Nigerian Army has publicly denied the claim, dismissing it as propaganda, the mere plausibility of such an attack, and the speed with which it circulated, underscores the entrenched capacity and audacity of extremist groups that have tormented the region for more than a decade.
These are not narrative distortions. They are not sensationalism. They are the lived realities of Nigerians.
And because these tragedies are neither isolated nor new, the silence or hesitancy of the state becomes even more jarring. When government appears slow to speak, slow to empathise, and slow to act, the vacuum becomes louder than any diplomatic nuance. Citizens do not compare press statements; they compare pain, fear, and the unbroken pattern of insecurity. Every unacknowledged tragedy reinforces the belief that leadership is distant, or worse, indifferent.
Diplomacy is interpretive. Insecurity is not. Bloodshed is unambiguous. Kidnapping is not complex. Failure to protect citizens is not a matter of perspective; it is a matter of governance.
In his tweet, the Minister stated:
“The work of diplomacy includes correcting misconceptions and providing clarity where narratives are distorted.”
This is true, but only partially. Diplomacy cannot stand alone; it collapses when domestic governance fails to match the narrative being projected. You cannot sell stability abroad when citizens at home are searching for safety, clarity, and reassurance.
Today, Nigerians feel abandoned by a leadership class that appears emotionally distant, practically disengaged, and strategically incoherent. A President who rarely speaks after national tragedies leaves the impression of indifference. A government that does not address crises swiftly fuels public anxiety. A political class that hides behind “complexity” risks weaponising nuance to escape responsibility.
Worse, this disconnect is becoming structural: tragedies occur, citizens cry out, officials retreat into silence, and only after public outrage do statements emerge, often perfunctory, detached, and devoid of empathy or clear action steps. This pattern erodes trust far more quickly than any “misconception” created by international media.
Complexity cannot become an alibi. It cannot be the intellectual shield behind which leaders retreat while citizens bury their dead and negotiate for the release of their children.
The Minister did what diplomats must do: defend the nation. But the interview and subsequent tweet highlight a larger issue; Nigeria is attempting to win the global narrative without first winning back domestic trust. Diplomacy cannot substitute for governance, and narrative management cannot replace the work of securing lives or rebuilding a broken social contract.
You cannot correct misconceptions abroad while ignoring legitimate fears at home. You cannot ask the world for nuance while offering your citizens silence. You cannot lecture on complexity while Nigerians bury worshippers, search for abducted children, and mourn a slain General.
The harder truth is this: the world is not misreading Nigeria. Nigeria’s leaders are misreading the urgency of its crises. Global audiences will not be persuaded by talking points when realities on the ground contradict the message. And Nigerians, increasingly disillusioned, will not be soothed by diplomatic language that fails to reflect their lived experience. What global audiences need is the truth. What Nigerians need is leadership. And those two obligations cannot contradict each other.
The Minister repeated familiar arguments about reforms, resilience, and long-term national vision. These points matter. But reforms must coexist with empathy, urgency, and clear communication. Technical adjustments cannot succeed in a climate where citizens feel unseen and unheard. Today, inflation punishes families. Food insecurity is rising. Insecurity stretches across regions, and public confidence erodes.
When reforms feel disconnected from daily suffering, they lose legitimacy. When government communication lacks emotion, citizens lose trust. When silence meets tragedy, hope collapses.
Nuance is not the antidote to neglect.
Reforms require presence, the kind of leadership that speaks when it matters, acts when it counts, and signals through words and behaviour that citizens are not alone in their pain. Nigerians are not asking for perfection; they are asking for acknowledgment, compassion, and decisive action. Without these, even the best-designed reforms appear abstract, elitist, and indifferent to the realities of ordinary people. A government that seeks legitimacy must first demonstrate that it understands, and feels, the weight of its people’s suffering.
One of the most telling moments of the interview came when Piers Morgan asked whether Nigeria’s political will is constrained by elite interests. The Minister did not need to answer. Nigeria’s daily realities answered for him. Political will in Nigeria often appears strongest when defending government decisions, and weakest when defending Nigerian lives. Real political will does not ask citizens for understanding while offering them insecurity. Real political will does not defend the state abroad while withholding comfort at home. Real political will does not reduce tragedy to complexity.
Crucially, political will is not measured by reforms announced in Abuja, but by safety felt in in states across the country. Nigerians are not misreading their leaders; they are interpreting the silences, delays, and absence of genuine empathy. When leaders speak more forcefully to international media than to their own people, something fundamental is broken.
Nigeria must not only be deeply understood, it must also be effectively governed. A nation of 230 million cannot survive on nuance alone; it needs courage, proximity, accountability, and the unwavering resolve to confront insecurity with the full weight of the state.
The Minister’s tweet is an important reminder that Nigeria is not a simple country to analyse or govern. Yes, nuance matters. Yes, context is essential. And yes, a nation as vast and diverse as Nigeria cannot be reduced to headlines or sound bites. But complexity is not an excuse for complacency, and global engagement is not a substitute for national responsiveness. No amount of diplomatic framing can compensate for a void of domestic leadership.
Nigeria does not need perfect leaders. It needs present leaders, leaders who speak quickly, act boldly, reassure credibly, and take responsibility consistently. Leaders who understand that silence communicates as loudly as words, and often more painfully. Leaders who grasp that empathy is not a political weakness but a governance necessity.
Nigeria needs leadership that does not wait for outrage before acknowledging tragedy, does not hide behind technocratic language when citizens are grieving, and does not outsource honesty to international interviewers. Diplomacy can project strength. But only governance can build it.
In moments of national pain, Nigerians listen not for nuance, but for presence. A government that seeks to regain trust must first show up, speak up, and stand up for its people. Only then can diplomacy abroad align with reality at home.
http://www.policy.hu/onyeukwu/
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The songs are two :
Pharoah Sanders - Let Us Go into the House of the Lord
(https://www.google.com/search?q=Pharoah+Sanders+%3A+Let+us+Go+Into+The+House+of+The+Lord
Pharoah Sanders - Hum Allah Hum Allah Hum Allah ( Prince of peace won’t you hear my plea, and ring your bells of peace, let loving never cease…?
As always there is next to nothing to disagree with when it comes to John Onyeukwu’s moralising. But for the fact that the moralisation is never religious or couched in religious language, I hesitate to speculate that John could be an incarnation of one Nathan Söderblom who if he were with us today would probably be having an axe to grind with anybody - any person, persons or country being accused of a heinous crime such as Christian genocide or state-sponsored terrorism against Christians.
And why should a Swedish Bishop , a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for that matter, reincarnate as John Onyeukwu - a Nigerian political analyst? Well, you know, ” God moves in His mysterious ways” , so let us leave it at that before I start suggesting other candidates for reincarnation, such as e.g. Dag Hammarskjöld, perhaps my way of saying how highly I think of him.
Sadly, BBC Hardtalk is no more.
Also gone: Dateline London
Thank God for Amy Goodman’s
On the one hand, calling the shots, TV host, Piers Morgan
on the other hand Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar
As far as “grilling” is concerned, Morgan must have anticipated an easy subject, and that’s what always happens, beset by a sea of troubles, when the shit hits the fan, it’s usually the Minister of Foreign Affairs of whatever country that’s sent to clarify matters and to do some damage control; we saw this happen with allegations of Genocide in Gaza which Israel managed to wriggle out of despite the ICC and ICJ's communiques on the allegations of Genocide in Gaza. Danny Danon their ambassador to the UN merely wrinkled his nose and scoffed at the idea of “Gaza Genocide” and - double standards and hypocrisy, Trump did not threaten to straighten out the miscreants to save the Gaza Christians and their churches, nor is Trump threatening invasion /military action in Nigeria to save the Muslims and Mosques that are constantly under attack…
Up to this point, neither the ICC nor the ICJ has issued any statement on the alleged “ Genocide of Christians in Nigeria”. Has Trump or any of Nigeria's Christian leaders taken up the matter with the ICJ or the ICC, or are we to believe their and Trump’s allegations as Gospel truths?
John Onyeukwu’s opening sentence could have read “When Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs appeared on the Piers Morgan Show, he walked into a trap”, with his eyes wide open of course and well prepared to show his mettle warding off the pre-selected array of opposition voices including that misleading Iranian opposition element/ free electron also doing her share of lying, malicious disinformation and distortions of Nigerian reality, but, of course, to know exactly what we’re talking about we would have to access the interview, available here : Piers Morgan Uncensored -the whole show, and some of the inevitable fallout, mostly Nigerian :The Piers Morgan Show : Nigeria's Yusuf Tuggar -and we must admit Yusuf Tuggar did a good job explaining the Nigeria’s complexity and opposing the exaggerations
( to be continued