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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. President Trump has threatened

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Speaker 1: Nigeria with military action to tackle what he's claiming is

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Speaker 1: targeted attacks on Christians.

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Speaker 2: They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria and they

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Speaker 2: have other countries very bad.

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Speaker 3: Also.

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Speaker 2: You know that that part of the world they killing

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Speaker 2: the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. Not

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Speaker 2: gonna allow that to happen.

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Speaker 1: Nigeria's government has said the claims do not reflect reality,

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Speaker 1: as Nigerian assets tumbled in the aftermath of Trump's threats.

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Speaker 4: It's impossible for there to be a religious persecution that

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Speaker 4: can be supported in any way, shape or formed by

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Speaker 4: the government of Nigeria at any level.

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Speaker 1: On today's podcast, we're discussing why Trump is focusing on Nigeria,

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Speaker 1: where the false idea of a genocide against Christians is

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Speaker 1: coming from, and why Nigeria might have to think carefully

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Speaker 1: about how to respond. I'm Jennifer's Abasaja and this is

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Speaker 1: the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week

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Speaker 1: from the continent, driving the future of global growth with

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Speaker 1: the context only Bloomberg can provide. And joining me this

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Speaker 1: week is Neil Munchi Bloomberg's deputy Managing editor for the

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Speaker 1: Middle East and Africa and are a Buja based reporter

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Speaker 1: Nduka or Jinmo. Thank you both for joining us this week.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate you both being here. And Duka, let's start with

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Speaker 1: you because there's quite a bit to unpack with the story.

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Speaker 5: But we heard earlier.

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Speaker 1: Those comments from President Trump on Air Force One over

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Speaker 1: the weekend. We'll talk shortly about where some of those

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Speaker 1: claims that he's making are coming from. But let's just

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Speaker 1: start with what the President actually said, what the action

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Speaker 1: is that he's threatening, and whether or not we've gotten

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Speaker 1: any indication that he's going to follow through on this.

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Speaker 5: Can you can you break that down for us?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, let let's start from Friday. Then Trump posted on

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Speaker 6: the Truth social he's on platform, that thousands of Christians

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Speaker 6: have been killed in Nigeria, and then he blamed the

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Speaker 6: radical Islamistic for being responsible for that mass mother then

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Speaker 6: he went further, and that's simplest to designate Nigeria a

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Speaker 6: country of Particular Consent, which is usually reserved for countries

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Speaker 6: that show clear and consistent patterns of religious discrimination or persecution.

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Speaker 6: On Saturday, Trump then went further and directing the Department

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Speaker 6: of War, so prepare for possible military action in Nigeria.

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Speaker 6: He studied with Nigera government continue to allow the clean

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Speaker 6: of Christians, the US will immediately stop all aid and

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Speaker 6: assistance of Nigeria and me very well to use his

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Speaker 6: own words, now go into that. Now these based country

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Speaker 6: cons are blazing. Then on Sunday, he was asked, you know,

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Speaker 6: whether he might callin st rights or sending ground troops,

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Speaker 6: and he said a lot of things. At a moment,

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Speaker 6: we haven't seen any movements to indicate that any of

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Speaker 6: that is happening. He just still feels like it's the

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Speaker 6: usual Trump retoric. He hasn't really escalated to the points

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Speaker 6: where he's sending either the ground troops is talked about,

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Speaker 6: or you know, sending in any carriers into the West

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Speaker 6: African coast. So not in so fine in terms of

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Speaker 6: the military action, just talk from Trump and from niger government,

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Speaker 6: which we'll get into later.

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Speaker 1: And the timing of this is quite interesting, of course,

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Speaker 1: because we just saw the president during his Asia trip.

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Speaker 1: Now he starts to make these claims. Let's dig into

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Speaker 1: the claims a bit. Neil, if you can jump in here,

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Speaker 1: what do you make of the timing of this and

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Speaker 1: why President Trump is starting to focus on Nigeria now.

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Speaker 7: In a sense, it is sort of a matter of time, right.

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Speaker 7: So this kind of conspiracy theory around either persecution of

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Speaker 7: Christians in Nigeria or a genocide against Christians in Nigeria

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Speaker 7: has been circulated right wing Western circles and evangelical circles

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Speaker 7: for years, and you know, Trump dipped into it a

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Speaker 7: little bit in his first term when he similarly declared

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Speaker 7: Nigeria a country of particular concern by an administration pulled

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Speaker 7: them off that list. But in recent months you've seen

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Speaker 7: it kind of gaining steam. So you know, Senator Ted

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Speaker 7: Cruz A. Trump Bali introduced a bill to protect Nigerian Christians.

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Speaker 7: There was a sort of lesser known Republican congressman who

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Speaker 7: did something similar, and you've heard more and more chatter

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Speaker 7: about this, and so in a way, it was kind

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Speaker 7: of the way Trump often does, kind of pick up

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Speaker 7: on conspiracy theories that are floating among his base and

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Speaker 7: then elevates them. That seems to be what happened here,

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Speaker 7: and you can see it. It's broken out of the

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Speaker 7: kind of traditional right wing spheres. In the case of

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Speaker 7: say the comedian Bill Maher who has a show on

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Speaker 7: HBO every week, and I think we have a clip

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Speaker 7: of him talking about it too.

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Speaker 3: If you don't know what's going on in Nigeria, your

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Speaker 3: media sources suck. You are in a bubble. And again

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Speaker 3: I'm not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the

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Speaker 3: Christians in Nigeria. They've killed over one hundred thousand since

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Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. They've burned eighteen thousand churches. These

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Speaker 3: are their Islamis Bokoha rama. They are literally attempting to

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Speaker 3: wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where

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Speaker 3: are the kids protesting this?

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Speaker 1: So Bill Maher talking about this on his HBO show.

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Speaker 1: What do we know about the actual picture in Nigeria

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Speaker 1: on the ground there, Neil?

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Speaker 7: First off, you know in that clip he says they're

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Speaker 7: trying to systematically wipe out the entire Christian population of Nigeria.

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Speaker 7: That's just absolutely, factually inaccurate. You know, Nigeria is a

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Speaker 7: country of two hundred and thirty million people. It is

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Speaker 7: split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims. It is also

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Speaker 7: a country that has been racked by violence for decades

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Speaker 7: that impacts all communities and all people across Nigeria. The

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Speaker 7: way this violence has manifested over the last fifteen years

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Speaker 7: is kind of falls into a few buckets. One is

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Speaker 7: Jihadis and Islamists in the northeast, Ookalham being the most

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Speaker 7: famous one, attacking villages, army convoys, churches and Muslims too.

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Speaker 7: In the northwest it's armed gangs and bandits who are

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Speaker 7: criminals who have kidnapped and massacred thousands over the past

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Speaker 7: ten years. And then in the middle of the country

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Speaker 7: you have long running conflict between largely sedentary and Christian

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Speaker 7: farmers and nomadic cattle herders who are mostly Muslims. And

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Speaker 7: there is where you see it shade most into religious violence.

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Speaker 7: But again most of the violence of the country is

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Speaker 7: concentrated in the north, which is prenominantly Muslim, So just

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Speaker 7: kind of based on that, the proportion of victims, it's

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Speaker 7: higher in the Muslim community than it is in the

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Speaker 7: Christian community. But that is all to say that violence

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Speaker 7: impacts everyone in Nigeria and it is non denominational. As

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Speaker 7: the bokalhorm phenomenon and the kind of Jihadis phenomenon has

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Speaker 7: scaled back, the armed gang's bandits riding around on motorcycles

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Speaker 7: with AK forty sevens ramped up and I think it

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Speaker 7: should still be true today. But for a long period,

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Speaker 7: we're responsible for much more violence in the country than

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Speaker 7: Jihadis or Islamists. So you know, in these groups are

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Speaker 7: groups of guys with guns and motorcycles who live in

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Speaker 7: the forest and attack villages, mostly in the Muslim North,

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Speaker 7: massacre and kidnap for and some across the country. So

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Speaker 7: that kind of puts it in perspective. It's as if

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Speaker 7: the folks were saying Boco Haraam's killing one hundred thousand

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Speaker 7: Christians across the country are living in a world that

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Speaker 7: kind of Bocohran wished existed fifteen years ago, that they

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Speaker 7: were able to have done that, But that is what happened.

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Speaker 5: Stick with me, both of you.

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Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll talk about what the reaction

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Speaker 1: has been to some of the comments President Trump has

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Speaker 1: made and what we're likely to see moving forward from

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Speaker 1: the US president but also from the Nigerian government.

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Speaker 5: Welcome back today.

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Speaker 1: We're looking at President Trump's threat to deploy the military

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Speaker 1: to Nigeria to tackle what he's called, without evidence, systemic

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Speaker 1: attacks on Christians on Nigeria. Nduka or Jinmo and also

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Speaker 1: Neil Munchi are joining us this week. So Nduka, what

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Speaker 1: have we heard from the Nigerian government so far?

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Speaker 6: Those in statements from President boat Sin and he basically said, look,

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Speaker 6: Nigeria is a country that guarantees the religious liberty of citizens,

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Speaker 6: you know, Christians, we are not being persecuted and the

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Speaker 6: many points that Christians and Muslims you know, have been

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Speaker 6: targeted by these extremist groups, you know, by these armed

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Speaker 6: gangs in Nigeria and those sparing the war across religious lines.

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Speaker 6: I thought it was a very measured response. I thought

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Speaker 6: they really falling through the trap of going going with Trump,

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Speaker 6: you know, almost marching fire with fire, because Nigeria still

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Speaker 6: needs to kind of support that the US can providing

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Speaker 6: terms of providing military equipment, in terms of providing aid,

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Speaker 6: in terms of providing the kind of economic support that

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Speaker 6: you need to really keep the Goldment's reforms going. So

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Speaker 6: I thought it was a measured, measured response by the governments.

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Speaker 6: We've heard that there are shadowed talks between Nigeria's foreign

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Speaker 6: minister and officials in Washington. The fermis that you know

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Speaker 6: told me that two weeks ago that they are constantly

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Speaker 6: talking with officials in Washington, and that's the only same pitch.

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Speaker 6: But that was before from me those statements. Anyway, things

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Speaker 6: might have changed a little bit. But the impression I

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Speaker 6: got from speaking on the foreign means that was that

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Speaker 6: there are talks on going between both.

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Speaker 1: Sides, and some people are making the comparison to President

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Speaker 1: Trump's allegations about South Africa and what he said about

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Speaker 1: white africaner farmers and potentially sort of the tussle that

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Speaker 1: we saw between President Ramaposa and President Trump. Eventually Neil,

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Speaker 1: what's the risk here if we take a look at

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Speaker 1: President Tinubu's response, as Nduka just pointed out, quite measured.

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Speaker 1: What is the risk here though, especially if we look

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Speaker 1: at the current situation that he's dealing with domestically.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I think, you know, to that point, the measured

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Speaker 7: response is kind of the only play with Trump, because

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Speaker 7: he's shown, you know, for a long time that he

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Speaker 7: doesn't back down from a claim once he's made it,

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Speaker 7: no matter what evidence is shown to refute it. So

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Speaker 7: the example of South Africa, where he claims there's a

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Speaker 7: genocide against white people against all the available evidence, is

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Speaker 7: kind of exactly the situation Nigeria is finding itself in now,

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Speaker 7: and it's going to be tricky, and I don't think

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Speaker 7: South Africa has fully figured this out yet, and you know,

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Speaker 7: we're many months in to their situation. To placate Trump,

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Speaker 7: communicate to your people and the world that this is

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Speaker 7: not true, and maintain relations in a way that Trump

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Speaker 7: is able to save face and probably continue to repeat

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Speaker 7: these false claims. I don't think it's going to be

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Speaker 7: easy for them to navigate, but I think this metric

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Speaker 7: response is kind of the only way to do it.

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Speaker 7: And I think, you know, Tanubu's pretty well placed to

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Speaker 7: talk about religious pluralism in Nigeria because he's a Muslim

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Speaker 7: who was governor of Lago State in the predominantly Christian South.

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Speaker 7: He's married to a Christian woman who is also a pastor.

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Speaker 7: You know, for all his faults in tackling insecurity in Nigeria,

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Speaker 7: he kind of embodies the religious pluralism in many ways.

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Speaker 1: That's that's really fascinating. So then what what do we

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Speaker 1: watch out for now? As you mentioned, South Africa is

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Speaker 1: still trying to figure it out, and maybe you can

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Speaker 1: start for us. What what are you paying close attention to.

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Speaker 6: Well, and if for the escalations, we've seen meetings. Yesterday

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Speaker 6: the Nine Giant president had the cabinet meetings and that

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Speaker 6: was followed viola meeting by his national security advisor and

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Speaker 6: the service chiefs that he had just recently appointed. I

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Speaker 6: wouldn't necessarily conside that that's a response to trom sweatrics. Well,

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Speaker 6: we'll be looking for any any for the escalations. If

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Speaker 6: perhaps the US decides to begin moving military assets towards

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Speaker 6: the West African coast, then that will be a pointing

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Speaker 6: plan when we can then sy a where this is

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Speaker 6: really getting serials. I do not think we'll get to

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Speaker 6: that points. I think it's it's Trump's rhetorics, and I

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Speaker 6: think that in the transactional nature of politics and Washington

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Speaker 6: these days, there can be some trade off between the

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Speaker 6: nine drug government in and and folks in Washington. Nigeria

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Speaker 6: refused US application to take in some of the illegal

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Speaker 6: my Grand's control is going to send that would be

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Speaker 6: back on the cards now. Nadia has some minerals that

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Speaker 6: that Trump might be eyeing. So these are things that

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Speaker 6: really used to to have peace, do not Trump. But

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Speaker 6: I don't think there'll be the kind of military escalation

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Speaker 6: that Trump passed them as hinted.

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Speaker 5: Perhaps there's a resource transaction in the pipeline.

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Speaker 7: Neil I kind of would say the same thing. If

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Speaker 7: we see aircraft carriers and that kind of thing in

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Speaker 7: the Gulf of Guinea, will know that he is taking this.

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Speaker 7: As far as he has. The Venezuela situation, I don't

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Speaker 7: think that's in the cards either because I don't think it.

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Speaker 7: It's sort of at the heart of US policy or

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Speaker 7: his policy, the way that Venezuela and the drug trade are.

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Speaker 7: I think, yeah, the most likely is in the months

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Speaker 7: to come, as we see kind of trade deals and

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Speaker 7: that kind of thing. You know, the Nigerian government could

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Speaker 7: say we're very happy to accept US help and tackling

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Speaker 7: the scourge of Islamism, which, to be fair, like US

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Speaker 7: troops have been training Nigerian troops for years, that's been ongoing.

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Speaker 7: And you know, on the other side, maybe they can

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Speaker 7: offer US companies access to their largely untapped lithium reserves

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Speaker 7: or other minerals in the country.

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Speaker 1: And you can read Neo Munchi and Duka or Jinmo's

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Speaker 1: report on Bloomberg platforms.

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Speaker 5: Now we'll put a link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: Here are some of the other stories from the region

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Speaker 1: we've been following this week. Guinea's military leader Mamadi Dumbuya

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Speaker 1: will stand as a candidate in the country's first presidential

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Speaker 1: elections since he sees power in a coup four years ago.

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Speaker 1: And AI powered fintech firm Optasia Group rallied and it's

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Speaker 1: stayed you on the Johannesburg burse that marked the nation's

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Speaker 1: biggest initial public offering this year. Optasia's successful debut could

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Speaker 1: set a trend for other fintech firms considering borse listings

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Speaker 1: and help re energize market sentiment on the JS and

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Speaker 1: You can find these stories on Bloomberg platforms now, including

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Speaker 1: in the Next African Newsletter. Will put a link to

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Speaker 1: that in the show notes. This program was produced by

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Speaker 1: Adrian Bradley and tiwa Adebayo. Don't forget to follow and

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Speaker 1: review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts, But

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Speaker 1: for now I'm Jennifer's Abasaja.

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Speaker 5: Thanks as always for listening.