On Sunday, the New York Times published a feature story entitled “The Screwdriver Salesman Behind Trump’s Airstrikes in Nigeria,” a piece that has now gained prominence among many Nigerians. This story credited the December 25, 2025, US airstrikes in Sokoto to the publications of Mr. Emeka Umeagbalasi, of International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, otherwise known as Intersociety. Interestingly, only about four days earlier, Business Insider Africa reported that the Nigerian Government had paid the sum of $9 million to DCI Group, a lobbying firm in the US, to make a case for the government of Nigeria over the country’s designation as a country of particular concern by the Government of the United States. In consequence, what followed the publication in the New York Times was a natural link between the $9 million lobby fees and the feature story, which many commentators explained as a deliberate effort to scapegoat the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria, where the Intersociety is based.
The narrative is to the effect that Mr. Emeka Umeagbalasi, a screwdriver salesman based in Onitsha, Anambra State, was the one whom the US somehow relied on to decide to strike Jihadists in Sokoto, Nigeria, about a month ago. This, it is understood by many, would assuage Northerners and remove any political burden or consequences of the airstrike in Sokoto from the ruling APC government. Again, in the understanding that the removal of this political burden from the shoulders of the President Bola Tinubu’s government would earn them a fair share of Northern votes in next year’s presidential election. Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, will be standing for reelection in the country’s 2027 Presidential Election. The general assumption is that the story in the New York Times was inspired by the lobby fees, all geared towards the incumbent president winning the 2027 Nigerian presidential election. The conclusion from these commentators is that a screwdriver salesman in Onitsha has no hand in the US airstrikes in Sokoto. This is because, at least earlier, several Nigerian officials claimed that the strike in Sokoto was a collaboration between Nigeria and the US.
The irony of this is that the Nigerian Government, on the 8th of January 2026, honoured Gilbert Chagoury, Nigerian-Lebanese businessman and President Tinubu’s friend. Mr. Chagoury has long been accused of strong ties with the Abacha family, along with other sundry cases of money laundering. He was honoured with the second-highest National Honour of Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger – GCON, by President Bola Tinubu. Yet, this is a country whose leaders reportedly paid $9 million to a lobby firm in a foreign country. If Nigeria is sober about how the world sees it and still awards Mr. Chagoury a prestigious National Honour, the import is that Nigeria is just not to be taken seriously. I think this is the point of the New York Times publication. The story spent a great deal of time describing Emeka Umeagbalasi, and not as much effort was made to discuss his work. For instance, the report described Mr. Umeagbalasi as “a short man.” What has his height got to do with his work or the impact of his work? The report also described Emeka as a man who “owns a tiny shop selling screwdrivers and wrenches…in Onitsha.” Does this really change the seriousness of his work among his readers? Remarkably, the mention of Intersociety or Emeka’s works at Intersociety surfaced for the first time in the report after at least ten paragraphs in a publication whose focus is Emeka’s work on Intersociety that influenced Republican lawmakers in America, which in turn influenced the decision of President Trump to strike Jihadists in Sokoto, Nigeria.
The publication by The New York Times might be targeting a more fundamental agenda than many people have assumed. The focus of the publication on Emeka Umeagbalasi more often than on Intersociety and its works was a deliberate attack on data reliability from Nigerian sources. Why is Emeka a short man in Onitsha selling screwdrivers, instead of a researcher or team lead for Intersociety? Optics matter a great deal. The story did not query how Emeka manages his shop in Onitsha with the volume and frequency of his publications at Intersociety for years, or how he funds his work. There, they missed a cardinal inquest that is important to their story. Even more, while the New York Times writers might be focused on optics, or measurability, or data accuracy and sources, they also missed a very crucial point; those do not shape how Intersociety’s works are received by readers, especially because the government is not trusted and there are no readily available works to compare with. Lack of accuracy may not foreclose the influence of a work that is necessary, whether it was done well or poorly, and this is true in Emeka’s case.
For many years, Intersociety has sent out its frequent publications. Many influential writers and leaders receive their regular publications directly. These reports are often republished or shortened and reported as news stories by journalists, thus strengthening their reliability and credibility. Having done this for years, Intersociety is easily an authority in sectarian conflict and other conflict-related issues in Nigeria. While there may be gaps, a lack of rigour, or suspicion of inaccuracies in their reports, those considerations might only be secondary for many readers who do not trust the government and are likely to construe any effort to clarify with data as an attempt to downplay the seriousness of the reports by Intersociety.
If the popular suspicion that the New York Times’ story is targeted at shifting the blame for the December strike in Sokoto on the Igbo, the government is still burdened with the crisis of data collection because there is no credible government data. There is also no credible data from independent sources, as social research is often costly. The worry is, how then does the government plan? Again, no serious government relies on mere assumptions to govern. The Nigerian government is still heavily burdened with giving a revered National Honour to a known facilitator of financial impropriety. In the end, there is more to the story of a screwdriver salesman in a tiny shop in Onitsha, beyond the present, popular interpretation.
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