Photo Credits: Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon/Mark Schiefelbein
2025-12-17
According to CBS News (citing the Associated Press), a walkway in the White House’s West Wing that President Donald Trump has dubbed the “Presidential Walk of Fame” now includes new plaques installed beneath portraits of past presidents.
The plaques feature pointed, often subjective commentary about several predecessors. CBS/AP reports that the introductory marker says the display was “conceived, built, and dedicated” by Trump as a tribute to presidents “good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.”
Reuters reports that former President Joe Biden is uniquely not represented with a portrait; instead, the spot features an image of an autopen. Reuters also notes the plaques criticize Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and even Republican George W. Bush, framing their legacies in combative political language.
Credit: Echotitbits.com. Adapted from reporting by CBS News/AP and Reuters (both published Dec. 17, 2025). Original link provided: New York Post.
New York Post (link provided); CBS News/AP; Reuters
A member of the United States House of Representatives, Riley Moore, has renewed claims that Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are facing what he calls a “genocidal campaign” by Fulani militants, following a recent congressional mission that visited Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Benue State. Moore, who represents West Virginia, says he is preparing a detailed report for former US President Donald Trump on the violence and the humanitarian crisis he witnessed.
Moore led a small US delegation that travelled to Nigeria to investigate reports of targeted attacks on Christian farming communities. In Benue, the team met displaced families, church leaders and traditional rulers, including Catholic bishops Wilfred Anagbe and Isaac Dugu, as well as the Tor Tiv. Several reports quoting the congressman say he was told that more than 600,000 people—mostly Christian villagers—are now sheltering in IDP camps across the state after being driven from their homes.
In interviews and social-media posts, Moore described what he heard in the camps as some of the most distressing testimonies of his career. Survivors recounted attacks on villages, killings of relatives and destruction of farms and churches. One woman was said to have lost five children in a single raid, while another reportedly had her unborn baby cut from her womb after her family was killed. Moore accused armed groups he described as “Fulani and Islamist radicals” of carrying out a coordinated effort to drive Christians from their ancestral land.
The congressman has linked his visit to a broader push in Washington to respond more forcefully to religiously targeted violence in Nigeria. Last month he introduced a resolution in the US Congress condemning the persecution of Christians and calling for stronger action to protect vulnerable communities. He has now said he will submit a “high-level” briefing to Trump, outlining ways the United States could work with Nigeria on a joint response to terrorism and mass displacement if Trump returns to the White House.
Nigerian officials have also engaged with the delegation. Moore and his team met National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu and other senior figures in Abuja to discuss the security situation and ongoing counter-terrorism operations. The Nigerian government has generally rejected the “genocide” label, insisting that the country’s overlapping crises involve terrorism, banditry, farmer–herder clashes and criminal violence affecting multiple communities, not only Christians. Officials say they are working to secure rural areas, support state governments and resettle IDPs where possible.
The visit and Moore’s language have, however, drawn pushback from some Nigerian groups. A Muslim organisation recently accused the US delegation of consulting mainly Christian actors and of framing the conflict in narrow religious terms, warning that such portrayals risk deepening mistrust and ignoring attacks suffered by Muslims and other groups in the same regions. Nigerian and international analysts have likewise argued in separate commentaries that while atrocities and mass displacement are undeniable, the violence is complex and does not always fit neatly into a single “Christian genocide” narrative.
Despite the disagreements, the congressional tour has again pushed Nigeria’s Middle Belt crisis into the centre of US and diaspora debates. For displaced families in Benue’s camps, the key question is whether heightened attention from Washington will translate into more effective protection on the ground—and faster moves towards justice and safe return—for all communities caught up in the country’s overlapping conflicts.
This Echotitbits.com report draws on coverage and statements from SaharaReporters, TheNigeriaLawyer, Leadership, Punch Newspapers, PM News, Politics Nigeria, Premium Times, and The Guardian (Nigeria), published between November and December 2025.
A United States congressional delegation led by Congressman Riley Moore has concluded a fact‑finding trip to Nigeria over alleged genocidal attacks on Christian communities and is expected to brief former President Donald Trump before the end of the month. The team met internally displaced persons, survivors, religious leaders and top Nigerian officials, including the National Security Adviser and Attorney‑General.
Moore, speaking in a broadcast interview, described testimonies from victims as some of the most disturbing of his career and alleged that extremist groups were behind many of the killings. The planned briefing underscores how Nigeria’s internal security challenges are increasingly featuring in US political debates and among diaspora advocacy groups.
Source: Punch Newspapers – 12 Dec 2025
2025-12-12 10:00:00 Punch Newspapers – 12 Dec 2025 2025-12-12
Shortly after the Congressional certification of Biden-Harris’ victory, Trump was said to have issued a statement through a senior aide saying there would be “an orderly transition on January 20.”
According to Trump, “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.
“I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted.
“While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
The much awaited certification by the Congress of the United States of America (USA) for the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and his Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris in the November 4 presidential election finally arrived after a tumultuous day at the Capitol Hill.
The Congress quashed the objections to the Electoral Votes of Pennsylvania and Arizona and upheld that Democrat indeed won the election, thereby putting an end to the direct struggles by President Donald Trump to upturn Biden-Harris’ electoral win.
The Congressional affirmation was coming hours after supporters of President Donald Trump violently took over Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.
When the dusts of the violence settled down, four people were confirmed dead by Washington D.C. Police, while others sustained various degrees of injuries.
At the resumed Congressional session much more later, lawmakers overwhelmingly certified Biden-Harris’ electoral victory.
In his closing remarks, the outgoing Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a Joint Session of the US Congress, said after banging the gavel: “The whole number of electors appointed to vote for President of the US is 538, of which a majority is 270.
“Joseph R Biden of the state of Delaware received for President of the US, 306 votes.
“Donald J Trump of the state of Florida has received 232.
“The announcement of the state of the vote by the President of the Senate shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected president and vice president of the United States, each for the term beginning on the 20th day of January, 2021”
The United States President Donald Trump has taken a massive step towards admitting defeat in the country’s last presidential election Monday night by saying he was allowing the transition to Joe Biden to begin – but immediately claimed he could still overturn his defeat at the hands of voters.
MailOnline reports that General Services Administration Chief, Emily Murphy, told President-elect Biden in a letter that he could start accessing federal resources to begin the presidential transition process early Monday evening.
Murphy, in a letter to Biden, announced the move, but dedicated a considerable portion to defending her own reputation and claiming she had been threatened and harassed.
Her letter, notably, does not go so far as “ascertain” that Joe Biden is the winner of the election, despite networks calling the race 16 days ago, numerous states certifying their tallies, and Biden winning 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. She also called him “Mr.” instead of president-elect or vice president.
It came just over an hour after Michigan certified that Biden had won the state, putting another nail in the coffin of Trump’s bid to overturn the election result.
The move ends much of the controversy over Trump’s refusal to concede and means that a concession would be purely symbolic.
It allows Biden to get the same intelligence briefing as Trump, order FBI background checks on his picks for office and talk to senior officials in key roles – most notably, Dr. Tony Fauci.
But Trump tweeted defiantly that he had ordered Murphy to start the transition “for the sake of the country” and claimed he was sure he would win “the good fight.”
The just concluded US presidential election on many accounts births new records that earned it the ‘unprescedented’ label and also reserved it a frontline spot in the history of the one time world-power nation.
President-elect Joe Biden tallied votes not less than 74 million, numbers described as the highest recorded by a candidate in the history of America’s presidential election.
President-elect, Joe Biden and Vice President-elect, Kamala Harris at their acceptance speech event Saturday night, Nov 7, 2020.
Similarly, running mate and now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris shattered the glass ceiling setting new records of not only becoming the first woman, but also the first black woman of Asian root to become Vice President of the United States of America. It was as though she knew of the election outcome before hand when she chose ‘Pioneer’ as her Secret Service call-sign many weeks ago.
In an article published on Sunday by National Geographic, Amy McKeever said: “Even though Joe Biden has secured enough votes to become president-elect of the United States, President Donald Trump has given every indication that he won’t accept the result as fair. Trump also has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
“Both moves would be historical firsts if Trump refuses to concede even after all legal challenges are resolved. U.S. history has seen a handful of bitterly contested elections, most recently in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore called Republican George W. Bush to concede in the early hours after election night—only to call back and retract his concession when the race unexpectedly tightened up. While their first conversation was congenial, the second was tense, with Gore famously telling Bush.”
In ways that are familiar to Nigerians, a London based Nigerian journalist, Ayo Akinfe on www.ayoakinfe.com highlights 10 things that would likely have happened had Donald Trump been a Nigerian president.
File Photo: Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari visits US President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington.
(1) First of all, many Inec officials would have obeyed his instructions to stop counting the votes immediately the president called for it
(2) Leaders from his ethnic group would have held meetings and declared their unalloyed support for him
(3) Troops would have been dispatched to seize all those ballot papers at the counting centres
(4) Troops, policemen and DSS operatives would have been dispatched to seal off any media networks that defied the order and continued reporting results
(5) The youth from the president’s ethnic group would have held solidarity marches in his support
(6) Counter-marches would of course been organised but troops would have been sent to open fire on them as we saw at the Lekki Toll Gate
(7) Those Inec officials who refused to be intimidated, insisting on showing integrity, would have been picked up by the DSS
(8) The EFCC and Code of Conduct Tribunal would have been used to arrest and bring charges against the owners of media houses who keep announcing results, as happened to Walter Onnoghen
(9) There would have been no shortage of sycophants and praise singers taking to the media to back the president. His own party in particular would be solidly behind him
(10) By now, the uncounted ballot papers would have been destroyed prompting calls for a fresh election. Court orders would have been obtained making this legal
Against the popular finger pointing at Nigerian leaders as the main culprit in the many woes that the most popular black nation suffers, Akinfe differs that: “We complain about Nigeria a lot but refuse to accept that the only problem with Nigeria is Nigerians themselves.
“When I see how leaders of the #EndsSars movement are currently being persecuted and how a shameful meeting in Kaduna recently backed the government, I just shudder.
“Nigerians are their own worst enemies. What is most scary is the number of sycophants wanting to eat crumbs from the oga-at-the-top’s table who will mortgage their consciences for a mess of porridge.”
Also commenting about the heterogeneous ethnic nature of the Nigerian social milieu, a peculiar factor that has been critical in the many ethnic stress experienced from time to time, Akinfe stated that: “One other thing that makes my blood boil is the way Nigerians take sides based on ethnicity and religion. I just hope this latest US saga helps debunk the myth that the problem with Nigeria is bad leadership.
“Our biggest problem is poor followership. Bad leaders like Trump exist everywhere but how far the people are prepared to go to resist them is what makes the difference between good and bad governance.”
President Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his loss in the 2020 election has sparked concerns that the presidential transition would be sabotaged.
The Guardian on Monday reported that a Trump appointee refused to sign off on funding for the transition and the Trump campaign announced an expanded legal strategy in a quest to reverse the election result.
The Center for Presidential Transition, a nonpartisan advisory board, urged the Trump administration on Sunday to begin the handoff to staff supporting Joe Biden, whose victory continued to grow in magnitude as states completed their ballot counts.
“We urge the Trump administration to immediately begin the post-election transition process and the Biden team to take full advantage of the resources available under the presidential transition act,” the transition center said in a letter Sunday.
“This was a hard-fought campaign, but history is replete with examples of presidents who emerged from such campaigns to graciously assist their successors.”
However, neither Trump nor his campaign nor political appointees has the power to stop the transition, and there was no sign that the basic steps toward Biden’s installation as president were at risk of interruption.
But non-cooperation by the Trump administration in the transition could slow the ability of some agencies to act on directives by Biden in essential areas such as pandemic response and the reinstatement of environmental regulations, protections for migrants and international accords, The Guardian wrote.
The President-Elect of the United States of America, Joe Biden will have series of extraordinary challenges no incoming President ever has the moment he steps into the White House in January 2021.
The newly elected President’s former boss, ex-President Barack Obama said this on Saturday in his reaction after Biden and Kamala Harris, the Vice President-Elect beat Incumbent President Donald Trump in an unprecedented election in the history of America.
“I could not be prouder to congratulate our next President, Joe Biden, and our next First Lady, Jill Biden.
“I also couldn’t be prouder to congratulate Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff for Kamala’s groundbreaking election as our next Vice President”, Obama expressed gladness.
Commenting about the election process that has been described as emotionally exhaustimg, ex-President Obama said: “In this election, under circumstances never experienced, Americans turned out in numbers never seen. And once every vote is counted, President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris will have won a historic and decisive victory”.
Obama expressed confidence about the the competence of his erstwhile Vice President in changing the economic trajectory of a nation that is widely divided at the moment.
“We’re fortunate that Joe’s got what it takes to be President and already carries himself that way. Because when he walks into the White House in January, he’ll face a series of extraordinary challenges no incoming President ever has – a raging pandemic, an unequal economy and justice system, a democracy at risk, and a climate in peril.
“I know he’ll do the job with the best interests of every American at heart, whether or not he had their vote. So I encourage every American to give him a chance and lend him your support. The election results at every level show that the country remains deeply and bitterly divided. It will be up to not just Joe and Kamala, but each of us, to do our part – to reach out beyond our comfort zone, to listen to others, to lower the temperature and find some common ground from which to move forward, all of us remembering that we are one nation, under God.
“Finally, I want to thank everyone who worked, organized, and volunteered for the Biden campaign, every American who got involved in their own way, and everybody who voted for the first time. Your efforts made a difference. Enjoy this moment. Then stay engaged. I know it can be exhausting. But for this democracy to endure, it requires our active citizenship and sustained focus on the issues – not just in an election season, but all the days in between.”
In the last 3 days, analysts and public commentators have condemned President Trump’s inflammatory comments one of which was his unproven claims of wide spread fraud in an election that is now judged unprecedented in terms of numbers of voters.
“Our democracy needs all of us more than ever. And Michelle and I look forward to supporting our next President and First Lady however we can”, Obama added.
One of the highpoint of this election is the Vice President-Elect, Kamala Harris, who has made history as the first woman of colour, a black woman of South Asian origin, to be elected as the number two leader of the US.
Hours after results indicated that Joe Biden has won the race to Washington with over 74 million votes on Saturday night, CNN reported that President Trump refused to call or invite the President-Elect to the White House. He is not expected to speak as at Saturday night, President Trump is not expected to speak on am election that has taken a disappointing turn. He has demonstrated that he will go to court to contest the result of the election.
The 46th elected president of the US, who crossed the electoral threshold of 270 is expected to address the nation 8pm Saturday.
Vice President Joe Biden has been elected 46th President of the United States of America (USA).
He polled 290 more than 270 electoral college votes required to be crowned as the number one citizen of God’s Own Country.
Biden also recorded a historic winning votes of more than 74 million.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., born November 20, 1942, is now being officially addressed as the President-elect of the United States.
A member of the Democrat Party, Biden and running mate, Kamala Devi Harris, defeated incumbent President Donald Trump in the 2020 United States Presidential election.
Harris would serve as First Female Vice President of the United States of America.
Biden had served as the 47th Vice President in the Barack Obama administration from 2009 to 2017, and as a United States Senator for Delaware from 1973 to 2009.
Reacting to his victory, Biden said: “America, I’m honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country.
“The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a President for all Americans — whether you voted for me or not.
“I will keep the faith that you have placed in me.”
The President of the United States, Donald Trump and the First Lady, Melania Trump both tested Positive to the deadly coronavirus.
In a Twitter post by POTUS tonight, he shared the information.
The President twitted:
“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”
It was reported earlier Hope Hicks, one of aides closest to President Donald Trump, had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The White house however reported that the President and the First Lady will continue to carry out their daily duties while in quarantine. No details on this yet
More details will be coming later
“His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace,” the President added.
Donald Trump had reportedly visited his younger brother in hospital on Friday, after it was revealed he had been “very ill.”
SkyNews says cause of death has not been disclosed, however the businessman reportedly spent at least 10 days in June in the neurosciences intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.
After he left hospital he sued his and the President’s niece, Mary Trump, over her plan to publish a book about the Trump family.
However, Robert failed in several court actions to stop publication of the book, which is called Too Much And Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man.
Robert argued that Mary Trump had violated a non-disclosure agreement she signed with him, the president and their sister, retired federal appeals court judge Maryanne Trump Barry.
Mary Trump and her brother allegedly signed the agreement with their uncles and aunt over their share of the estate of Fred Trump Senior, the president and Robert Trump’s father, and Mary’s grandfather.
Mary’s father, the late Fred Trump Junior, died in 1981.
Despite their different personalities, the president was said to be very close to Robert, calling him “much quieter and easy-going than I am” and “the only guy in my life whom I ever call ‘honey.’”
Robert had run some of Mr Trump’s projects in the 1980s, and managed his family’s real estate portfolio. He was also part of New York’s social scene.
However, during his brother’s presidency, Robert stepped away from the limelight and retired to the Hudson Valley.
He said he supported his brother’s White House run “1,000%” during an interview in 2016.
Idowu Sowunmi
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