Trump inauguration: Why Nigerian Pastors Bassey and Kumuyi went to Washington

In a statement from the Global Crusade ministry, Pastor Kumuyi said he was participating in inauguration-related festivities to “celebrate a return to religious freedom in America and support for other nations in combatting religious persecution”.

Trump is popular with evangelical Christian voters in the US and has promised to uphold Christian values.

In 2019, during his first presidential term, Trump hosted the first meeting of foreign ministers focused solely on religious freedom. In a 2020 Executive Order, he wrote that “religious freedom for all people worldwide is a foreign policy priority of the United States”.

Dion Forster, professor of public theology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, says both Trump and Pastor Kumuyi will benefit from the Nigerian’s invitation to the inauguration.

He says Pastor Kumuyi can demonstrate that he is a friend to the most powerful man in the world.

For his part Trump and his team can use the pastor’s popularity to gain influence, the professor argues.

“The genius – and I hate to use that word – of the Trump political machine is that they really know how to work outside the traditional structures of national politics,” he says.

“Where [former President] Joe Biden would have set up connections with ambassadors, senior business leaders, Trump’s the kind of guy who asks ‘where does the power lie outside of those structures? And how can I bring those kinds of people closer to me?'”

Caleb Okereke, founder and editor of Minority Africa, agrees that the backing of popular religious figures like Pastors Kumuyi and Bassey could help Trump gain popular support on the African continent.

Mr Okereke believes shared political views unite US conservatives and African evangelists.

“There’s a marrying of global conservative ideals so I think Pastor Kumuyi and Pastor Nathaniel Bassey are only a small representation of what I think is a huge alignment between US politics and politics on the continent,” he says.

“I see them as a signifier of something that is much more entrenched, which is this agenda of aligning on the hatred of LGBTQ+ populations.”

However he believes there is a “cognitive dissonance” in Africa when it comes to Trump.

He points to the US president referring to African nations as “shithole countries” and restricting immigration from several states on the continent, including Nigeria, as part of a controversial travel ban during his first term.

“I am amazed at how much gender, sexuality almost blinds everybody to whatever else they’re saying,” he says.