Me & Ms. Hanatu

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What this is really about

There is no such thing as darkness. There is only the absence of light.

I went to Nigeria the first time to give a talk, and I fell in love with the place. Anybody who has been knows why. It is the most alive country I have ever set foot in — the music, the faith, the sheer nerve of its people. Whatever you have read, that is what is actually there.

Then in 2019 I took a wrong turn down a dirt road in the capital and found a camp the government says does not exist, and a teacher inside it who had lost everything and was still teaching. I promised to tell her story. Keeping that promise took six more trips into places our own State Department says not to go, and it cost me things I don't put in a brochure.

Here is what I found. Christians and non-jihadist Muslims are being killed and driven off their land, and the government that profits from it says nothing happened. Ten to twelve million people are displaced. Camps are given another name so they don't have to exist. This is not the first time the world has watched it happen there and looked away.

That is not chaos. It is a stranglehold, and the ruling elite of the Sokoto Caliphate holds it.

But the fight was never with flesh and blood. Paul wrote that to a church in Ephesus — a city run by the same arrangement, a religion and a trade and a government all feeding each other. He told them what to do about it too: have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

That is what this film is. Not a lament and not a report. A light aimed at something that only survives in the dark.

And ending it is not a feeling. It starts with IDP justice and restoration — recognition, aid, and families walking home. That is the whole point, and it is what I promised her. But none of it holds while the stranglehold does, so it takes a new constitution, free elections, and self-determination for every nation inside the country known as Nigeria that wants it. A new and brighter future for the people of that land.

I have watched one room full of cameras do more in an afternoon than five years of reports. That is what finishing this film buys.

The film

In 2019 I took a wrong turn into a displacement camp in Nigeria's capital and met a schoolteacher who had lost everything and was still teaching. I promised to tell her story. Six trips back to Nigeria later, Me & Ms. Hanatu is shot, the story is locked, and it goes to our editor in three weeks.

What it already did

In October 2025 the Nigerian government flew me to Abuja to headline a press conference and confirm that the killing of Christians and non-jihadist Muslims was a hoax. I read them an indictment instead. The Nigerian Senate convened an emergency session that same day. Seventeen days later President Trump threatened to go in "guns-a-blazing," and on Christmas Day American forces struck a terrorist stronghold in Sokoto. It is all on camera, and it is in the film.

Who is asking

"A former mayor of a little town in Texas who has taken on and dramatically exposed the government of Nigeria for its role in genocide against Christians. Prompting President Trump, among other things, to step in and protect those who are being victimized."

Frank Gaffney — Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan

Mike Arnold is the man who risked his life to expose the Nigerian Christian genocide and the radical Islamic agenda behind it. More at MikeArnold.org.

What Thursday is

Forty minutes, and I'll end on time. Ten minutes of footage nobody outside the production has seen, a straight account of where the film stands and what it costs to finish, and the back half is your questions. My co-executive producer Kyle Saylors is on with me — more than 150 festival wins and nominations including Sundance, multiple top 10 theatrical releases, and deals with all the major streaming platforms.