INTERNATIONAL (NPA) — March 10, 2026 — Mike Arnold, a former mayor of Blanco City, Texas, USA, and now a leading activist on religious violence in Nigeria, has ridiculed Nigeria’s pioneer Minister of Digital Economy Technology, Isa Pantami, after a viral video showed him weeping over the killing of Iran’s former Supreme Leader, Ayotola Khamenei.
Arnold, founder of Africa Arise International and Africa Arise USA, issued a sarcastic statement on Monday in response to Pantami’s grief. He asserted that the U.S. President’s bombing of Iran and the killing of its leader should be seen as nothing more than a “farmer-herder conflict.”
He wrote: “Oh, poor terrorist. He should know that Trump bombing Iran is not really Trump’s fault. He couldn’t help himself; it was just global warming. A simple farmer-herder conflict. Maybe he should dialogue with Trump, understand his position, offer him government money and jobs. They are brothers, after all. Maybe then Trump will stop bombing Iran and we could all be happy together.”
Arnold’s remarks reference the official stance often taken during the Buhari administration, in which Pantami served as a cabinet member. At the time, the government frequently described widespread killings by armed Fulani herdsmen as “farmer-herder clashes.”
That narrative persisted until the Tinubu-led government reclassified such attacks as acts of terrorism, declaring that anyone who sacks villages and kills civilians would be treated accordingly. Analysts note that this shift in terminology has sharpened the mandate of security agencies, enabling them to respond more decisively to protect communities across Nigeria.
