Article

Comment

Development

Politics

25 February 2025

4 min read

Downsizing in DC undercuts the lives of millions in Nigeria

Nigeria’s Christian communities will bear the brunt of USAID’s demise.

Chris Wadibia

Chris Wadibia is an academic advising on faith-based challenges. His research includes political Pentecostalism, global Christianity, and development.

Patient wait in a street clinic beside a sign.

A health project clinic in Lagos, Nigeria.

Christendom, the global community of over 2.5 billion Christians living worldwide, has many geographical capitals. Nigeria, like the United States, is one of them. Upwards of 100 million people living in Nigeria identify as followers of the Christian religion. These Nigerians belong to Christian denominations like Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Baptist Christianity, and Pentecostalism. On 6 February the Trump Administration announced plans to downsize USAID, the US government agency that administers foreign aid. In 2023 it managed over $40 billion, and has played a significant role in delivering aid and development support in Nigeria for decades.

Nigeria has one of the world’s lowest levels when it comes to spending on social issues. Its government’s underspending has trapped tens of millions of Nigerians in horrific, inescapable mazes of poverty. The significant challenges Nigeria faces are well-documented -socioeconomic, geopolitical, and religious ones. The protracted and infamously bloodthirsty Boko Haram insurgency (headquartered in the northeastern corner of the country) has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Nigerians and displaced over two million people, disproportionately affecting vulnerable women and children.

Abandoned by the government, many Nigerians look to their ethnic communities, religious groups, and even other state’s agencies and charities for the support and solutions they require to survive.

In 2021 USAID commemorated 60 years of providing development assistance to Nigeria. Its historical activity has prioritised agriculture and food security, democracy, human rights, and governance, public health, and energy production. In just 2021, USAID provided Nigeria with more than $787 million in development and humanitarian assistance.

Whilst USAID support for Nigeria has historically been blind to religion, the Trump-led downsizing of development and humanitarian assistance for millions of people living in Nigeria will especially impact tens of millions of Christians, They struggle to lead lives in a country rife with Christian suffering that is ignored by powerful global actors with the financial, political, and military resources to intervene in substantive and peace-generating ways.

Southern Nigeria is disproportionately developed compared to the North. Lagos, the economic capital responsible for a third of Nigeria's GDP, sits in the southwestern corner. The south contains a majority of the leading private universities, many of which are owned and funded by Christian churches, and is home to Nigeria's largest international airport. Literacy levels among Christians in Nigeria dwarf literacy levels among Muslims, especially when compared to Muslims living in the religiously archconservative northern states.

The southern region of Nigeria has an appetite for development and the political will needed to implement an inclusive development vision that simply does not exist up north. Downsizing USAID activity in Nigeria will disproportionately affect Christians in Nigeria who for historical and contemporary reasons have been able to benefit from USAID assistance in ways developing themselves to help Nigeria compete in the global economy.

In the current 21st century geopolitical climate US-Nigeria relations are far more likely to become more rather than less relevant.

Muslims in Nigeria, if unbridled by extreme religious dogma, could just as easily undergo the processes of self-development needed to excel in 21st century economic marketplaces. However, as Nigeria's religious landscape stands today, tens of millions of Muslims simply lack access to opportunities to gain the education, training, and work experience that could unleash the full potential of the legendary Nigerian human capital famous globally.

Millions of educationally and professionally ambitious Nigerian Christians view their work in vocational terms. Inspired by scripture and theological resources like Catholic Social Teaching and the Pentecostal Doctrine of Prosperity, these Christians intentionally seek out educational and professional opportunities because they believe their faith in Christ commands them to provide for their households and invest into their communities. They believe contributions to their homes and communities double as offerings to God himself. For over six decades, USAID has administered development and humanitarian assistance in Nigeria in ways hugely benefitting millions of Christians ignored by their government.

Administering USAID aid in Nigeria has never been perfect. Bad actors, many of them government officials exploiting the authority of their offices, have stolen development funds intended for marginalized Nigerians and used it to fund their kleptocratic networks and lavish lifestyles. However, in the current 21st century geopolitical climate US-Nigeria relations are far more likely to become more rather than less relevant. USAID support provides a valuable source of American soft power able to win over the hearts of vulnerable Nigerians whose children might one day seize the reins of state power. It also continues the postcolonial project of assisting in the sociopolitical and economic development of the Giant of Africa.

Downsizing USAID assistance to Nigeria undercuts investment in the lives of millions of Nigerian Christians disproportionately positioned to drive the country in the direction of evolving into just the kind of capable ally in Africa the US wants to work with long term.

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Review

Culture

Film & TV

Friendship

31 July 2025

5 min read

I’m going to cling on to The Ballad of Wallis Island

This comedy about fans and idols touches the heart too

Steve Dew-Jones

Steve is news director of Article 18, a human rights organisation documenting Christian persecution in Iran.

A couple site on a sofa, one holds a guitar

Cary Mulligan and Tom Basden.

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine told me I needed to see The Ballad of Wallis Island.

He said I’d like it. In fact, my friend went so far as to say he thought it would be one of my favourite ever films.

And now, having gone to see the new comedy-drama, I can confirm that he was right.

But just what was it about this film - quite short by modern standards at 1 hour 40 - that marked it out as one I would so obviously enjoy?

I was considering this as I sat through it, and as my guffaws eventually gave way to tears, I had my answer.

For when it comes to films - or anything in life, really - it’s those with deeper meaning that most enthrall me.

And James Griffiths’ new film certainly has this in spades - it’s a “ballad”, after all - as well as a good dose of humour, epitomised by the inimitable Tim Key, whom some of you may know from the 2022 sitcom Witchfinder.

As someone who grew up on the painfully awkward comedy of Ricky Gervais’ The Office, Key’s character, Charles, the bumbling super-fan of a folk duo, is a perfect blend of the endearing and the ridiculous.

From the moment “the great Herb McGwyer” (played by Tom Basden) arrives on Wallis Island to be met by a host who swiftly sends him head over heels into the sea, the stage is set for the relationship that will dominate the narrative.

Devotee and artist, wealthy loner and lonely superstar provide the perfect juxtaposition, whose success is no doubt aided by the fact that both lead actors were also co-writers.

One suspects the film’s success may also have something to do with the time it spent in development, having first been produced nearly two decades ago as a BAFTA-nominated comedy short, titled The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island.

But having now watched both 2025 film and 2007 short, which is available to watch online, the feature-length version is, to my mind, by far the better of the two.

And while some of the jokes from the original remain, such as the manner of Herb’s comical arrival and eventual departure - though I won’t spoil the latter for you - there are some notable improvements.

Chief among them, in my eyes, are the three female characters incorporated into the film: Carey Mulligan, who plays the second half of the McGwyer-Mortimer duo; Charles’ unseen former partner, Marie; and his new love interest, in the form of Wallis Island’s solitary shop-owner, Amanda (Sian Clifford).

It’s funny to think that my friend pitched the film to me as a “Rom-com”, given that in the original concept there was not even a single female character, let alone any romance. Yet from this viewer’s perspective at least, it is the addition of the three women (including the unseen Marie) that make the film.

Indeed, this major tweak to the plotline was the very element that ultimately brought tears to my eyes, as I considered the relational loss and loneliness that provide the common ground between the otherwise worlds-apart super-fan and idol.

I saw the same look in this woman’s eyes as I had seen in Charles’s as he watched his hero play the song that was his former partner’s favourite.

I was also forced to reflect upon the certain similarity I seem to share with the blundering Charles, having once lived two doors down from the real Carey Mulligan and, during our sole face-to-face encounter, chose the moment to express my great admiration for the music of her husband, Marcus Mumford, before awkwardly and very swiftly beating my retreat.

I am embarrassed to admit that I even later posted a copy of one of my books into the Mumford letterbox - possibly that very same day - in the hope that it might engender the start of a beautiful friendship.

Alas, I never heard from them again.

A similar motivation is clearly the driving force behind Charles’ invitation of his two idols to his home, which is filled with their memorabilia, as the audience is encouraged to consider how they may feel if given the opportunity to host their own heroes.

“Never meet your heroes,” Charles quips in the original short, but in the film the relationships are allowed to reach greater depths and, in spite of some initial suggestions that Charles’ affections may be bordering on stalker-like, it soon becomes clear that there is nothing sinister about this loveable simpleton.

The rave reviews the film has received, years after the idea was first hatched, are also surely an encouragement to any of us who may have long held a dream but never seen it come to pass.

The message of The Ballad of Wallis Island, I believe, is that we should hold onto such dreams and cling tightly to the things that matter most.

Before sitting down to write this article, I was walking through a local park when I passed a young woman who was sitting on the grass, crying, and I approached her to ask if she was all right.

It transpired that the woman’s partner had died a year before and that she liked to come back to the tree under which she was sitting to remember him, as it was a special place for them.

I saw the same look in this woman’s eyes as I had seen in Charles’s as he watched his hero play the song that was his former partner’s favourite.

"Cling to the things that matter most,” the woman told me, as we parted ways. And that’s certainly the message that both film and chance encounter have impressed upon me.

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