OPINION:Abuja: Why Are The Americans Running?

Monday Lines

OPINION:Abuja: Why Are The Americans Running?

By Lasisi Olagunju

(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on 13 April, 2026)

War commanders die cheap deaths; farmers are murdered on their farms, traders in their shops, landlords vanish on their lands, tenants in their rented rooms; students abducted from their studies. What more must happen before we become what Italians would call "Paese dei Morti" (Country of the Dead)? 

When I read last Thursday that the United States had asked all its non-emergency staff to leave its embassy in Abuja, and had followed this by suspending visa issuance in the city, I asked the question everyone had on their lips: why? What did America see that we failed to see? 

The deadliest earthquake in the history of Europe occurred in southern Italy on 28 December 1908 at 5:20 a.m. local time. The epicentre of that tragedy was the city of Messina which was utterly destroyed, losing more than half of its population. The tsunami that followed completed the devastation.

With thousands entombed in the ruins, Messina became the “City of the Dead” (Città dei Morti), as a 2008 centenary report recalls. The devastation it later suffered during World War II earned it yet another haunting alias: “the city without memory.”

In December 1908, shortly before the Messina earthquake, animals behaved strangely: cattle grew restless, horses uneasy, dogs howled, birds took frantic flight. The account, recorded by W. F. Palmer in 'The American Mercury' (1938), would later be explained by science as microseismic disturbance. The animals had felt what humans could not.

I owe Alexander H. Krappe for preserving this account, and others like it, in his 'Warning Animals' (Folklore, March 1948). There are more from him—further down.

Too many stories today? Perhaps. But when the mouth refuses to stay behind the lips, the jaw pays the price. This jaw has no price to pay, and so I don the armour of that Yoruba wisdom: Òwe l’ẹṣin ọ̀rọ̀—proverbs are the horses of speech. It is why, to tell my own, I turn to old stories of animals and birds that sense danger before disaster strikes, fleeing while humans remain unaware.

There was an earlier warning in the Calabria earthquake of February 9, 1783. Shortly before disaster struck, chickens fluttered in panic, horses reared, cattle trembled, cats fled their homes, and dogs howled. People noticed but did nothing. Only after the catastrophe did the meaning become clear.

I am very uneasy. America did not merely evacuate staff from Abuja on April 8, 2026; it went further, it warned its citizens to stay away from 23 of Nigeria’s 36 states. What did it see beyond what we feel?

A brief check shows that there are 104 foreign embassies and high commissions in Abuja. Yet America appears to be the only one alarmed by something coming to our capital city.

What did America’s birds see coming for Abuja that we, sightless, and the rest of the blind diplomatic world could not see?

To answer that, I returned to Krappe’s 'Warning Animals.' Every line reads like an oracle—if you know how to listen. Unlike Oliver Twist's workhouse master, the folklorist offers some more; and from him, I reproduce and retell them here in today’s English.

He gave us accounts preserved by Cassiodorus and Procopius of Caesarea, in connection with the siege of Aquileia in A.D. 452 by Attila, king of the Huns: Procopius records the episode in vivid detail:

“The city of Aquileia defended itself stubbornly, and Attila had already given up hope of taking it, when he beheld a single male stork, which had its nest on a certain tower of the city wall, suddenly rise and leave the place with its young. Attila interpreted this as foreboding some evil shortly to befall the place. His surmise did not prove false: soon afterwards the very part of the wall which held the nest of the bird, for no apparent reason, suddenly collapsed, and the Huns, entering through the breach took the city by storm.”

A parallel version of the story is given by Jordanes, who reproduces the now-lost account of Cassiodorus. In his telling, the siege has dragged on, and Attila’s soldiers are growing weary. Then the king observes a striking sign: the storks nesting in the gables of houses are carrying their young out of the city into the countryside. He draws his men’s attention to it and interprets the act: “You see the birds foresee the future. They are leaving the city sure to perish and are forsaking strongholds doomed to fall by reason of imminent peril.”

The events that follow confirm his reading: a part of the city wall collapsed, the king's men regained strength and confidence; the city of Aquileia was taken and utterly destroyed by Attila and his forces.

In ancient Greece, a tradition noted by Aelian (Hist. anim., XI, 19) tells of Helice, where mice, weasels, and snakes fled the city days before an earthquake swallowed it. What seemed odd became, in hindsight, a warning.

Last Thursday, America entered the folklore. It leaked to its people in Abuja what the storks of Aquileia told Attila in A.D. 452.

More stories: In an old Icelandic tradition, a crow once saved a holy bishop from death. The bishop, deep in prayer, was unaware of the danger gathering around him. But the bird spoke—its warning clear to the man of God. He rose at once and left the place, escaping just in time before a landslide crashed down where he had been.

There is a variation of the tale. It tells of a young girl described as "the gentle-hearted daughter of a godless farmer." A crow beckoned her, drawing her step by step up a hill, farther and farther from home. Trusting the bird, she followed. Moments later, a landslide swept over her father’s farm, sparing her life.

Krappe says there is another strikingly similar story told in Normandy, in the region of Côtes-du-Nord: “At Gros-Moëlan once stood the castle of a lord known for his impiety and fierce disdain for the Church. His contempt was so bold that one day he disrupted the Holy Mass itself, threatening the priest at the altar.

"Among his servants was a devout young girl. Deeply shaken by what she had witnessed, she left the church and hurried home. But no sooner had she arrived than a bird began to sing to her: ‘Gather your clothes! Gather your clothes and flee!’ Alarmed yet obedient, she quickly packed her belongings and ran. She had scarcely gone when an unseen force struck—the castle collapsed in ruin, burying the wicked lord beneath its stones."

The statement from the US Department of State sounds like an earthquake alarm, then flows like a dossier, each line tightening the frame: warning, risk, threat, displacement. It redrew the map of our country by danger.

Listen to the bits:

“Travel Advisory Update: Authorised Departure of Non-Emergency U.S. Government Employees and Family Members from U.S. Embassy Abuja.”

“Reconsider travel to Nigeria due to crime, terrorism, unrest, kidnapping, and inconsistent availability of health care services. Some areas have increased risk.”

“Do not travel to Borno, Jigawa, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Taraba, Yobe, and northern Adamawa states…”

“Do not travel to Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara states…”

“Do not travel to Abia, Anambra, Bayelsa, Delta, Enugu, Imo, and Rivers states (with the exception of Port Harcourt)…”

“Terrorists continue plotting and carrying out attacks in Nigeria… They may attack with little or no warning…”

“Violence in Northeast Nigeria has forced about two million Nigerians to leave their homes.”

“Civil unrest and armed gangs are active in parts of Southern Nigeria… Crimes include kidnapping and assaults on Nigerian security services. Violence can occur between communities of farmers and herders in rural areas.”

It reads like a roll call of a troubled federation: Borno, Yobe, Jigawa, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Taraba and northern Adamawa marked by terror and kidnapping; Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara burdened by banditry; and in the South, Abia, Anambra, Bayelsa, Delta, Enugu, Imo and Rivers—save Port Harcourt—flagged for crime and instability. It is less a map of a nation than a map of fractures, tears and blood.

Beyond that long list lies a louder silence: the states not mentioned. Benue, Kebbi, Nasarawa, and even southern Adamawa sit outside the advisory’s spotlight. Why are they not mentioned?

You know as I do that Benue, Kebbi and Nasarawa that escaped the US advisory do not escape daily headlines of tears, blood, and death. They have their daily harvests of killings, kidnappings and bandit attacks. The map drawn for us by the US may suggest degrees of danger; lived reality does not.

Omission is not immunity. Never mind that Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo are omitted in the US warning bell. The entire country is an ungoverned territory, vast in tragedy.

How did we get here? A country does not wake up one day and become a warning. It happens slowly, through ignored alarms, normalised violence, and a quiet adjustment to the unacceptable. Then one day, you read your country described in the language of caution: reconsider travel; avoid entire five of six regions; prepare for the worst.

Roman orator and statesman, Cicero, in a letter to Atticus (XIV, 9, 1), adds to this discourse. He notes that mice abandoned two of his shops (tabernae) because they were in poor condition and on the verge of collapse. The animals, it seemed, detected danger before humans did.

As you rue this, remember the words spoken in A.D. 452 by Attila the Hun to his men: “You see, the birds foresee the future. They are leaving the city doomed to perish, forsaking strongholds fated to fall in the face of imminent peril.”

So, what have the mice of America seen? Whatever they have seen does not scare us. Our strength lies not in knowing danger, but in domesticating it, in living with it, naming it, and continuing as if a life under siege were simply our normal.

The wild cat in our backyard has become a leopard. Boko Haram killed a General last week. We are still arguing over how many of his men fell with him.

Since those deaths, how many more have we recorded? We are helpless. The headlines say so—daily.

Our condition is captured in an old proverb: a great stone was thrown and crushed a lizard; the reptile said, “Thus the strong deal with the weak.” An ancestral lesson in power and helplessness.

We do not have an Attila to lead us in battle. What we have is a Nero, lost to his 2027 tambourine. From Lagos to Bayelsa, the emperor held court and waxed lyrical last week. Singing and dancing, he asked us to thank our stars that our darkness is lighter than that of others. The traumatised listened—and gasped. What a leader!

I also listened but I did not gasp. I laughed—and cast him a headline: “Thank God you are luckier than your ancestors.”

Like the Elemoso in Ogbomoso history, the enemy is in the forest killing officers, men and women unmatched. The man we voted to bring back the head of the terrorist stays in the city, harvesting instead the heads of opposition parties. We, the helpless, must do something for ourselves. No one should sit on the fence; it will collapse. There is guilt in inaction. As Elie Wiesel reminds us, “we must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” But what else can we do?

The Americans said they saw something in Abuja and moved last week. They did not tell us what they saw. They also warned their citizens away from 23 of our 36 states. That, at least, we understand.

The Americans moved but we have nowhere to run to. Thrown at the people is Ilé ò gbà á, ọ̀nà ò gbà á (home is hostile, the road is hostile). So, how do we defeat the enemy?

My Christian friend reads his Bible to me—the story of Jericho and its impregnable walls, from the Book of Joshua: "Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, 'Are you for us or for our enemies?'”

“Neither,” the man replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.

"Then the Lord said to Joshua: 'See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands… When you hear the long blast of the trumpets, let the whole army shout; then the wall of the city will collapse, and the people will go up, everyone straight in.”

"When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted… and the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in..."

My friend says it wasn't only the shout that crashed the wall: the people worked and sweated for seven days; then with hard labour, they marched round the city seven times and got the prize. We too can defeat the enemy, at home and on the road, if we shame our silence and take the right steps.

The first step is to find a Joshua. You know as I do, that we do not have one —one with a mind clean enough to “keep away from the devoted things,” from the silver and gold, from the bronze and iron of conquest. In high places, those we have are men who reach first for the spoils, and forget the war.

And so, finally, to Nero, fiddling as Rome burns, and to the demons in our forests, one proverb (or is it an incantation): Òru dúdú, ìgbé dúdú; òkùnkùn òru ni ó borí ìgbé - the night is dark, the forest is dark; in the end, it is the night that will swallow the forest.