Former Chief of Army Staff and ex-Minister of Interior, Lt. Gen. AbdulRahman Dambazau (retd.), has warned that the United States may be preparing to establish a military base in Nigeria under the guise of addressing religious persecution and insecurity.
Speaking at the 7th Annual Lecture of the Just Friends Club of Nigeria in Abuja, Dambazau said recent statements from American politicians and religious figures alleging Christian persecution in Nigeria could be part of a broader geopolitical strategy by foreign powers.
The retired general questioned the US’s track record in neighbouring Niger Republic, where it maintained two military bases for over a decade without successfully curbing insecurity or terrorism. “In more than ten years of US presence in Niger, what did they do to prevent the growth of security challenges?” he asked.
He accused some Nigerians of unknowingly aiding foreign interests, warning that such collaboration could pave the way for external control over Nigeria’s sovereignty and security policies. Dambazau stressed that the US is known globally for prioritising its own national interests, even through military interventions.
According to him, Nigeria’s current wave of insecurity — including terrorism, insurgency, and banditry — forms part of a wider regional crisis spanning the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, and is not rooted in religious bias. Both Muslims and Christians, he said, have been victims of violence, with attacks recorded in mosques, churches, and against traditional leaders.
He urged Nigerians to rise above ethnic and religious divisions and instead unite to combat terrorism and criminality, noting that foreign nations could exploit internal fractures to advance their strategic objectives.
Dambazau’s remarks come amid growing tension between Nigeria and the United States over recent claims of religious persecution, which Abuja has dismissed as misleading and politically motivated.
