Foreign
FG seeks stronger US ties amid Trump’s deportation threats
The message was conveyed in a statement issued by the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, on Tuesday.
Nigeria stressed the strong and historic ties between the two nations, highlighting their shared cooperation in areas such as the promotion of good governance, sustainable development, and the fight against terrorism and violent extremism.
The statement expressed Nigeria’s commitment to strengthening its strategic partnership with the United States under President Trump’s leadership, to advance the interests and well-being of both nations’ citizens.
The Federal Government said Nigeria looked forward to continued collaboration with the US in addressing global challenges and fostering mutual growth.
The statement read, “Nigeria and the United States of America have enjoyed cooperation in diverse areas of mutual interest, especially in the promotion of good governance, sustainable development, and the fight against terrorism and violent extremism.
“Nigeria, therefore, looks forward to further strengthening our historic, strong, and vibrant strategic partnership for the benefit of all our people.”
Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday during a historic inauguration ceremony held inside the Capitol Rotunda due to inclement weather.
Meanwhile, Nigerians in the United States were on Tuesday reassured that large-scale deportation efforts are unlikely to materialise, even as immigration policies are expected to become stricter.
Fears of mass deportations under Donald Trump’s administration may be overblown, according to experts who cite constitutional and logistical challenges as significant barriers.
During his speech, Trump touched on issues including immigration, border control, economic reforms, and energy policies.
Among the first executive orders signed by Trump was an attempt to end birthright citizenship, a right enshrined in the US Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court for over 125 years.
Trump also declared a national emergency at the southern border, announcing measures to combat illegal immigration and pledging to halt all illegal entry.
However, the Chairman Emeritus of Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation Americas and Director of the African Diaspora Congress, Obed Monago, who spoke to our correspondent reassured Nigerians in the US that fears of mass deportations under the Trump administration are unfounded.
According to Monago, the US Constitution does not allow mass deportations through executive orders, as such measures typically require Congressional approval.
He stressed the significant resources needed for such an initiative, resources that have not been allocated. Additionally, opposition from many border towns and counties further complicates the feasibility of implementing mass deportations.
Monago believes the Trump administration’s deportation threats are likely to remain unfulfilled campaign promises, though he acknowledges that US immigration policies are likely to become stricter.
“I don’t envision deportations of that magnitude to take place, so, the level of fear and anxiety should be minimal.
“For one, the constitution of the United States does not empower such actions through executive orders, but usually, through the act of the congress. So, expect some checks and balances.
“The deportation at the magnitude he is talking about can only be taken at the face value, because it is not feasible, given the amount of resources it will require. Such resources have not been appropriated for.
“The Trump administration will also need the cooperation of border towns and counties, some of which have out-rightly and openly kicked against such massive deportation initiatives.
“So, in the final analysis, Trump’s deportation threat can only be taken simply as an unfilled campaign promise. But, do not discount the fact that immigration policies of the United States will change,” he explained.
With the Republican Party in control of both the legislative and executive branches, more drastic measures are anticipated.
However, Monago argued that deporting millions of people is unrealistic. He noted that individuals with criminal records are the most likely to face heightened scrutiny under any new policies.
Also, a Nigerian technocrat living in Minnesota, Chief Azuka Aghenu, raised concerns about how specific policies could impact Nigerians, particularly undocumented immigrants and those holding visitor or business visas.
Aghenu advised Nigerians to avoid applying for employment illegally, engaging in unlawful activities, or driving under the influence, as these actions could attract the attention of immigration authorities.
He also warned that Nigerians traveling to the US to give birth for the purpose of securing citizenship for their children may face stricter enforcement under the administration’s policies.
“Two policies of Trump would affect Nigerians; those Nigerians without proper documentation residing in the US and those with visitors or business visas.
“If Nigerians in the US have immigration issues, they must not apply for employment, get drunk, or drive around.
“Those Nigerians that have plans of coming to the US to give birth to their children all in the name of citizenship, the policy would affect them,” he stated.
Additionally, Aghenu highlighted another area of concern: rising medication costs under new executive actions.
“One of executive actions that will affect Nigerian living in the USA will be on medication drug cost for those on Medicare and Medicaid, the lowered prices for drug cost will go up exponentially,” he noted.
A Nigerian resident in the US, who spoke on condition of anonymity, raised concerns about how specific policies could impact Nigerians, particularly undocumented immigrants and those holding visitor or business visas.
The source also warned that Nigerians travelling to the US to give birth to secure citizenship for their children may face stricter enforcement under the administration’s policies.
“Two policies of Trump would affect Nigerians; those Nigerians without proper documentation residing in the US and those with visitors or business visas.
“If Nigerians in the US have immigration issues, they must not apply for employment, get drunk, or drive around.
“Those Nigerians that have plans of coming to the US to give birth to their children all in the name of citizenship, the policy would affect them,” the source stated.
Additionally, the source highlighted another area of concern: rising medication costs under new executive actions.
“One of the executive actions that will affect Nigerian living in the USA will be on medication drug cost for those on Medicare and Medicaid, the lowered prices for drug cost will go up exponentially,” he noted.
Furthermore, a retired ambassador, Rasheed Akinkuolie, advised Nigerians abroad to have a clear plan for their future, particularly for retirement and urged them to invest prudently in Nigeria.
Akinkuolie emphasised the importance of building a sustainable life in their home country and adhering to cultural values in relationships.
“Nigerians leaving the country should think twice and weigh the options and opportunities available to them in Nigeria. There are good opportunities in Nigeria, for those who can dare and endure.
“The Nigerians living abroad should have a plan for the future, especially plan for old age when they can no longer work. They will not like to face the indignity of ending up in old people’s homes.
“The trend is that many people, especially the elderly are returning home to settle down.
“The younger people working abroad should be prudent with their earnings, invest wisely in Nigeria and avoid being defrauded. Nigerian couples should follow the excellent examples of Indians, who do not resort to extreme violence in settling their differences. There should be adherence to African culture and traditions in relationships,” he stated.
Also, a research professor at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof. Femi Otubanjo said Donald Trump’s threat of mass deportation was due to the perception among some white Americans of being under siege due to immigration.
According to Otubanjo, the growing influx of non-white immigrants is perceived as one that could alter America’s political balance, which has fueled Trump’s rhetoric and policies.
In an interview with The PUNCH, Otubanjo described Trump as a “racist” and an “extreme rightist” who aligns with the interests of Christian nationalists and far-right groups.
Otubanjo noted that Trump’s stance on immigration is rooted in a broader fear among white Americans of losing political and cultural dominance.
“He (Trump) believes America has decayed because of the inclusion of foreigners. This ties into fears that immigrants might shift the political balance in favour of non-whites,” Otubanjo said.
He explained that Trump’s administration targeted individuals with incomplete or inaccurate immigration documents, leading to a higher risk of deportation.
“Many people who overstayed their visitor visas or converted them into long-term stays are at greater risk. The policy also aims to eliminate automatic citizenship for children born in America to non-citizens,” he added.
Democrat states sue Trump
Meanwhile, Democrat-led states and civil rights groups on Tuesday filed lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship in the United States.
The order, issued shortly after Trump took office, denies US citizenship to children born in the country to mothers who are undocumented or temporary visa holders, and whose fathers are not citizens or lawful permanent residents.
A coalition of 18 states, along with the District of Columbia and the city of San Francisco, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston, arguing that the order violates the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.
This clause affirms that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.
“State attorneys general have been preparing for illegal actions like this one, and today’s immediate lawsuit sends a clear message to the Trump administration that we will stand up for our residents and their basic constitutional rights,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said in a statement, as reported by Reuters.
The lawsuits reference the US Supreme Court’s 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which established that children born in the United States to non-citizen parents are entitled to citizenship.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell criticized the order, stating it could strip citizenship from more than 150,000 children born in the US each year.
“President Trump does not have the authority to take away constitutional rights,” she said in a statement.
Among the plaintiffs is a Massachusetts woman with temporary protected status who is due to give birth in March.
Additional lawsuits were filed in New Hampshire, with cases likely to be reviewed by the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals. This court, based in Boston, is notable for having judges appointed exclusively by Democratic presidents.
In addition to the birthright citizenship order, other lawsuits have been filed against Trump’s executive actions, including one that eases the firing of federal employees and another challenging the Elon Musk-led “Department of Government Efficiency.”
The White House has not commented on the lawsuits.
A Nigerian-born Roman Catholic priest, Anthony Odiong, has been convicted by a jury in Texas, United States, for sexually assaulting women under his spiritual care, The Guardian reports.
Odiong, 57, was found guilty on one count of first-degree sexual assault and two counts of second-degree sexual assault after a trial in Waco, Texas.
The jury, made up of eight women and four men, delivered its verdict after about two hours of deliberation on Friday.
The court heard testimony from two women who said Odiong used his role as a priest to manipulate and pressure them into sexual relationships.
He was accused of exploiting his position as a Catholic priest to pursue sexual relationships with women he was providing spiritual direction.
Odiong, who pleaded not guilty, could face life imprisonment on the first-degree charge when sentencing begins on Monday.
Prosecutors said the offences involved two women who testified in court that the priest abused his clerical authority during periods of emotional vulnerability.
One of the women, identified in court documents as Mary Doe, told the jury that Odiong began a sexual relationship with her while providing spiritual counselling during a difficult divorce.
She also testified that her son once walked in on her and Odiong during intercourse at her home.
Another woman, Jane Doe, testified that he pressured her into sexual acts under the guise of spiritual guidance.
The case followed a 2024 report by The Guardian, which first documented allegations of sexual misconduct and coercion against the priest during his ministry in Texas and Louisiana.
Prosecutors said that report prompted one of the victims to come forward to police with further allegations.
Investigators later gathered additional evidence, including DNA linked to a child fathered by Odiong during his time in Louisiana.
Odiong, a naturalised US citizen, was ordained in Nigeria in 1993 and later served in Catholic parishes in Texas and Louisiana.
Authorities said he was suspended from the ministry in 2019 following earlier allegations of misconduct.
His lawyers argued during the trial that the relationships were consensual, but prosecutors maintained that he abused his position of authority as a clergy member.
A United States-based 23 year old tech-developer, Tony Kabilan Okeke, led a five-man team of Drexel University, Philadelphia, Penn., U.S. alumni and students to develop Xploit, an automated cybersecurity testing tool for AI agents, an ambitious concept that addresses a growing problem in AI landscape.
Beside Tony Okeke who is the Team Lead, other members of the team are Kamdi Okeke, Kiitan Fawole, Dalu Okonkwo and Michael Moemeke.
Speaking to our reporter on the development, Tony said, “As more businesses deploy AI agents that can take actions and use tools on behalf of customers, these systems become potential security risks. Unlike simple AI assistants, agents have access to tools and can perform real actions – meaning a security vulnerability isn’t just a PR problem, it could have serious real-world consequences.”
3rd from right, Team lead, Tony, Kamdi, Dalu, flanked by UEV partners
The team envisioned a tool that could automatically test an AI agent for vulnerabilities – essentially playing the role of a digital attacker to identify weaknesses before real threats could exploit them. This was the outcome of their brainstorming on November 21, 2025, when Tony led the group to build and pitch Xploit in the “Start-Up In a Weekend” Hackathon hosted on November 21 – 23, 2025 in Philadelphia, by The Foundry & Velric, a Philadelphia-based founder-first community that act as a startup ecosystem catalyst.
Tony designed the system’s architecture and created the initial prototype of the user interface (UI). The UI concept was crucial: it needed to visually show how their automated attacker was thinking, strategizing, and attempting different approaches in real-time, all displayed through interactive graph showing the attack process as it unfolded.
Responsibilities were strategically divided amongst the team. Some members created sample AI agents to serve as “victims” for testing. Tony developed the core attacking system. One person refined the user interface, and others handled the technical infrastructure connecting all the pieces together.
The attacking system itself works like a strategic game player. It would first choose an attack strategy, then create a detailed plan, execute that plan step-by-step by sending messages to the target AI agent, and analyze the responses to determine whether to continue or try a different approach. Throughout this process, the web interface displayed everything happening in real-time, allowing users to watch the automated tester work.
The team then integrated everything — making the attacker communicate with the victim AI agent systems, ensuring the automated testing loop ran smoothly, and polishing the final product. They recorded their demo video and submitted their project before the 9 am deadline on November 23, 2025.
During the afternoon judging session, the team delivered their pitch, framing their project around a massive, unaddressed market shift, highlighting a critical market gap: while the explosion of AI agents in 2025 has seen enterprises deploy them to manage everything from infrastructure to sensitive tasks like financial analysis and customer support, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are left vulnerable because they cannot afford to test them for security flaws. Unlike tech giants, SMBs lack the resources for dedicated AI security teams. Xploit, automated cybersecurity tool, directly addresses this need, positioning itself within a booming continuous automated red-teaming market projected to skyrocket from $495 million in 2024 to $4.9 billion by 2032. Xploit democratizes AI safety, levels the playing field, allowing any business to automatically test and secure their AI agents before deployment.
The judges were impressed enough that they took an unusual step — they asked to see the team’s code and development history to verify the project had actually been built during the hackathon weekend. This verification was necessary because the judges found it hard to believe such a polished product could be created in just one weekend.
The team won the “new project track” award and $1,500 in prize money.
“What made the achievement particularly remarkable” according to Kamdi Okeke, “wasn’t just that we built it over a weekend — it was that, competing amongst a diverse group of 100+ of Philadelphia’s most driven creators, we built Xploit in less than a day of actual development time, transforming an abstract idea into a working, polished prototype through focused collaboration and strategic planning.”
Speaking further, Tony said, “The experience at yet another hackathon, UEV’s Venture Building Weekend hosted in Philadelphia, March 12 – 14, 2026, was a turning point for us. The mentorship and feedback we received from industry operators helped sharpen how we think about the problem and where our approach fits in the market.”
United Effects Ventures (UEV) is a Philadelphia-based pre-seed venture studio. Through its Venture Building Weekend, a competitive hackathon, focused on problem validation and go-to-market strategy, teams refined their ideas with guidance from experienced operators and investors. After a grueling 48-hour sprint, Xploit came tops, outperformed 15 other competing teams, earning a cash award and two advisory sessions with partners at UEV; and most importantly, industry experts validated Xploit’s focus on continuous red-teaming as a strong approach to discovering vulnerabilities in AI-powered products.
Mentors at the hackathon validated both the team’s identification of the problem – the growing security risks posed by AI agents operating autonomously in enterprise environment – and their approach of framing the product as continuous red-teaming platform, which could support an ongoing service model.
The accusation comes after US Central Command said its forces had on Monday attacked missile sites and boats in southern Iran that were trying to lay mines in the Gulf, while Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it fired at US aircraft trying to enter its airspace.
“The US terrorist army, continuing its illegal and unjustified actions since the ceasefire… has, in the past 48 hours, committed a gross violation of the ceasefire in the Hormozgan region,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement.
It added that Tehran “will not leave any evil unanswered and will not hesitate to defend the Iranian nation,” without elaborating.
Tuesday’s statement came as a top Iranian delegation was in Qatar for talks as part of a “diplomatic process” aimed at ending the war with the United States, which broke out on February 28.
AFP
Iranian authorities held mass public weddings in Tehran for couples who signed up to a state-sponsored scheme declaring their readiness to sacrifice their lives in the war against the US and Israel.
The ceremonies conducted late on Monday involved hundreds of couples in several major squares in the capital, including more than 100 in the vast Imam Hossein square in central Tehran, according to reports in Iranian media.
They were broadcast on state TV in a bid to boost wartime morale, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly threatening new military action against Iran amid a shaky ceasefire which halted the fighting that began on February 28.
Those involved had signed up, according to Iranian media, for the so-called “self-sacrifice” scheme (janfada in Persian) where people pledged to put their lives on the line in the war by, for example, forming human chains outside power stations.
Iranian authorities say millions of people, including top figures such as the speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and President Masoud Pezeshkian, have put their names forward.
Couples arrived at the Imam Hossein square in military jeeps with mounted machine guns and were married on a stage in a ceremony presided over by a cleric, AFP images showed.
The stage was festooned with balloons and with a giant image of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public since being elevated to the position after the killing of his father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the war.
“Certainly, the country is at war, but young people also have the right to marry,” one young woman in a white Islamic bridal dress, who was not named, said beside her groom in footage published by the Mehr news agency.
A man in a dark suit, beside his bride-to-be, said they were happy the occasion marked the anniversary of the marriage of the Prophet Ali, revered by Shia Muslims, to Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed.
“We received their blessings. Furthermore, we came to offer our best wishes to the people in the streets,” he said.
Mehr said 110 couples had taken part in the Imam Hossein Square ceremony alone. The AFP images showed crowds of well-wishers clasping roses and watching on.
Since the start of the war, Iranian authorities have held, on a near-daily basis, major pro-government gatherings in a bid to highlight popular mobilisation amid the conflict.
AFP
The Nigerian community in the United States has been thrown into mourning following the sudden death of Eric Ezeokoli, a student of California State University, Long Beach.
Ezeokoli, who was born on October 6, 1960, reportedly died on Friday, April 11, 2026, at Saint Mary’s Hospital after a brief illness.
Until his death, he was studying Engineering at the university, also known as Long Beach State University. Sources disclosed that he had previously lived in San Jose before relocating to the Los Angeles area.
Tragically, at the time of his passing, Ezeokoli was said to be homeless and living in his car, with no fixed address.
The deceased was originally from Anambra State, although details about his exact hometown remain unclear. There are indications he may have hailed from Aguata, but this has not been officially confirmed.
Efforts are currently underway to locate his family members and relatives in Nigeria. Members of the Nigerian community and concerned individuals are appealing to anyone with useful information about Ezeokoli’s background or family to come forward.
A contact person, Paul Kizito Eze, has been designated to receive information that could help trace the deceased’s relatives.
The appeal has also been extended to people from Anambra State, particularly those familiar with communities in Aguata, to assist in identifying and notifying the family.
The situation has sparked renewed concern over the welfare of some Nigerians living abroad, especially those facing hardship and isolation.
Anyone with relevant information is urged to reach out urgently to assist in reconnecting the late Ezeokoli with his family for proper burial arrangements.
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