By TONY ERHA
In the unpredictable history of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, Stephen Osemwegie stands firm on its pendulum, being a relentless swordfighter for the countrys well-being and Africas free-human-enterprise. His is a Watchdog predisposition, where his notable humanitarianism translates in tangible feats and good examples for others to follow. He advocates and treads ceaselessly for Nigeria’s cohesion and virility, as authentic pivot for African nations that crave to free the continent from the manacles of backwardness.
He is likened to the late sage, Chief Anthony Enahoro, a palpitated role-model and shrewd negotiator for Nigerias welfare, who as a youth had accelerated Nigeria’s independence from the tenacious British colonialists.
For Nigerians of the yore and the now, particularly the oppressed, Stephen Osemwegie is a true-Nigerian-patriot etched in the marbles, like the late Chief Enahoro, who hailed from Edo State, the same nativity of Osemwegie. Whilst the late Chief Enahoro exhibited a nationalistic advocacy fervour, on the springboards of the National Assembly and the proletarians, Stephen Osemwegie has equally grown his advocacy teeth on ‘aluta continua’, (the struggle continues), through hazardous street struggles, to mount the dais on a global large-scale Ombudsman, in God’s-own-country of the United States of America (USA), to further move for Nigeria and Africas immensity.
With him as president of the Save Nigeria Group – USA (SNGUSA), a not-for-profit, which he founded with some other activists, Osemwegies name is anchored on a singsong, to free his native country and people from the firm grips of extreme jihadists and terror attacks that have maimed, killed and plagued the Nigerian populace, over a decade.
Following an iron-cast desire to save his native country from insurgencies, a difficult road so many people avoid, Osemwegie, the resolute campaigner for a safe Nigeria, nay Africa, have his ideological pathway crossed by that of Mr. Donald Trump, the come-back blazing president of the United States of America (USA), who has galvanized a coterie of watchdog American institutions and notable minds, such as the Congressman, Mr. Riley Moore and others, to halt the incessant pogroms that had stained the pricking conscience of the world.
For an eagle-eye government of President Trump, with empirical intelligence gathering of unabated bloodsheds, killings, maiming and destructions to local communities, no one needed to inform or hoodwink President Trump that Nigeria do not deserve the US redefinition as a Country of Particular Concern and another rider of shamed country. Following the firsthand intelligent information and field attestations, the Trumps government had walked the tough promises of bombing out terrorist ISWAP, ISIS and other Islamic bandits that cause the Christian Genocide.
Although the Christian Genocide labelling has rattled President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led government and a host of Nigeria-based Islamic groups and individuals, Stephen Osemwegie and the Save Nigeria Group-USA (SNGUSA), remain unfazed that the attacks were mostly directed at Christians and their places of worships, although they acknowledge the coincidences of negligible attacks on moderate Muslims and mosques.
Stephen Osemwegie and SNGUSA (with Victor Ben Onyeka, its Media Director) are consistently in support of President Trumps declaration to conduct military operations against such extreme jihadist and terror groups like ISWAP, ISIS, Lakurawa, Boko Haram and others, known for relentless deadly attacks on Christians. SNGUSA, in its worldwide moves to protect Nigerians, stoutly synergises with the Save Nigeria Initiative (SNI), a Nigeria-based civil society coalition.
Although Osemwegie is an adherent to Christianity, whose members are being killed, maimed and dispossessed, particularly in the Nigeria’s northern region, the humanity in him is continually rekindled by his single-mindedness and stiff opposition to the persecution of moderate Muslims and other believers, thus indicating his disposition to a freedom of religion and worship.
It isnt sheer coincidence but a design that Stephen Osemwegie is one of the very few Nigerians invited to speak at the International Religion Summit 2026, holding now (from 2nd to 3rd February, 2026) in Washington DC, USA. In the global gathering of 1728 attendees from over eighty countries, Osemwegie is honoured as President of the Save Nigeria Group – USA, to amid other organisers of the event co-chair Senator Sam Brownback, the former 47th Governor of the US state of Kansas, who once served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for the International Religious Freedom. Osemwegie is billed to speak on Nigerian Christians Genocide.
Osemwegies challenge is the misrule of Nigerian in the country’s fledgling democratic experience, marked by unbridled official corruption, shenanigan democratic culture and tinted societal practices, which had given way to the same religious extremism, jihadist expansionism, terrorism and insecurity, which snowballed to Christians Genocide that dominates its national discourse.
In a bid to dispense good governance to the weary people of Edo, his state-of-origin in Nigeria, he opted for the populist Labour Party (LP) governorship nomination process, where he was rigged out and denied the ticket. But, in order not to be seen as one driven by selfish political interest, in his innate advocacy for religious and other freedoms, he had had to resign from the LP.
In Nigeria, his country of birth, as well as in the US, he is ever a newsmaker, known for his fearlessness, frankness and public-cause, which however, make him interviewers’ delight. And his prolific media assertions earn him public respect, as he was (and still) one of the forthright exceptions that continually praised President Trump for bombing the ISWAP and ISIS’ operational camps in the North-West state of Sokoto.
He has just scripted a threesome books, a trilogy, that are added to the fillips for tireless advocacy for religious freedom and a better life’s deal for despondent Nigerians and Africans, much as he desires that all and sundry learn from his perspectives and experiences.
Tony Erha is a journalist and activist based in Abuja, Nigeria.
