Former Republican Mayor of Blanco, Texas, Mike Arnold, has sparked controversy by mocking Nigeria’s former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, over a viral video showing Pantami crying following the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, killed in US-Israel airstrikes amid escalating Middle East conflict.
Arnold, in a scathing social media post, sarcastically comforted Pantami using phrases commonly deployed by terror sympathisers to downplay atrocities.
He wrote: “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.”
The Texas mayor’s barb draws direct parallels to rhetoric often used to dismiss terrorism in Nigeria’s farmer-herder violence, flipping the narrative to critique Pantami’s emotional response to Khamenei’s death as reported by The Guardian.
Arnold’s remarks follow his earlier analysis of US military strikes against ISIS in Sokoto State on Christmas Day, author
