‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ Says Nigeria’s First Lady During Washington Charm Tour
By Douglas Burton and Mike Odeh James | TruthNigeria | Feb 10, 2026
(Abuja) Nigeria’s First Lady joined thousands in Washington last Thursday to celebrate the Good News, but back home the news was as bad as ever.
First Lady and former Senator Oluremi (“Remi)”) Tinubu, touched down in Washington last Monday to launch a charm tour to the Hudson Institute, to sit downs with Administration officials, and dignified dinners with editors of the Hill. Her tour concluded with a shout out from President Donald Trump at Washington’s National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.
The former Nigerian senator and ordained Pentecostal preacher had come to Washington with a retinue of aides apparently to counter the rising bad press about her government’s complicity with Christian genocide. The First Lady brought her modified, silky version of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” to Pennsylvania Avenue.
And if her goal was to build solidarity with the Trump Administration, her reviews by Fox Digital and The Hill suggest she scored big time. “Nigeria’s First Lady Says US strikes were a ‘blessing,” welcomes collaboration with Trump,” cooed a Fox Digital headline.
The Hill reported that she saw divine intervention in the fact that President Trump has taken a special interest in the mounting deaths of Christians in Nigeria, and continuing dialogue and trade could only be for the good. Her 4-day tour in Washington was to “build relationships and clear up some misconceptions about religious freedom in Nigeria,” The Hill reported.
The biggest misconception? According to her, right-wing lawmakers were swayed by the idea that Christians were in the cross hairs of genocide, when in fact, both Muslims and Christians were falling victim to jihadist attacks. “There are cases of theft, banditry, kidnapping for ransom, all of those are all intertwined,” she told the Hill. “What we have to establish — we are talking about attacks on Christians — we have to realize that Nigeria also is an emerging economy,” she said. Got that? It’s all about economics, privation: no sectarian motivation.
She got that message trumpeted in a respectful 1,000-word interview with Fox Digital which reported Tinubu and her husband argue that the violence plaguing the country is real and severe, but “not limited to any one faith.”
“We live in Nigeria. We know the situation on the ground,” she assured Fox Digital.
But as Madam Tinubu did her best to put Nigeria’s best foot forward, her nation’s other foot kept dropping loudly.
A Tsunami of violence swept Africa’s most populous country in February’s first five days, claiming 248 lives – most of them Muslims – and leaving 1,600 Christians abandoned in brutal hostage camps.
Between February 1 and 5, 2026, coordinated attacks by radicalized Fulani-tribe terrorists and jihadist ISIS-linked militants targeted communities across Nigeria’s Middle Belt and northwestern states, exposing the deepening security crisis plaguing President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
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