Mayor. Missionary. MBA.
Compelling Clarity
There’s a lot of fog out there. I go where it’s happening and dig until it makes sense. Then I bring it back as a story you won’t forget — so you can see what’s true, and what to do about it.
There’s no such thing as darkness. It’s just the absence of light.
Mike Arnold: The frontline investigator who triggered America’s Christmas bombing of Nigeria, and now the #1 target of Nigeria’s $9M Washington lobbying campaign.
Help 650+ children build a future beyond the camp.
Ms. Hanatu survived the Gwoza Massacre. Before Boko Haram took her town, she was a school principal. I met her in 2019 in the New Kuchingoro camp, inside Abuja, where her people were living on ground the government twice sent bulldozers to clear.
She did not ask me for food. She did not ask me for money. She said: “Please educate our children so they will have a future.”
I said yes. That yes became Arise Academies. Three campuses are open now — New Kuchingoro, Durumi, and Wumba. A fourth is going up at Wassa with room for five hundred more. Nigerian teachers run every one of them. School is free. There is a meal.
Children arrive wanting a gun so they can go back and kill. Later they talk about going back to rebuild Nigeria.
Inside Abuja, more than fifteen thousand displaced children still have nowhere to go in the morning.
Enlighten. Entertain. Empower.
A master storyteller with a lifetime of impact and adventure.
I bring firsthand experience in business, government, ministry, and the front lines of Nigeria to the stage. Through candid stories and practical insight, I help audiences question what they’ve accepted, recognize possibilities they’ve overlooked, and see where they can make a difference.
Whether we’re talking about leading through change, putting AI to work, living out our faith, or confronting injustice, I draw on work I’ve done and lessons I’ve had to learn. Expect plain talk and an occasional laugh.
For conferences, churches, leadership gatherings, podcasts, and broadcast interviews.
Speaker reel.
What people say.
“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 · Securing America · Center for Security Policy“Mike Arnold, one man from a small town in Texas, is doing more to help Nigeria’s Christians than the Pope or Churches/Christians across the world. Why is that?”
Lara Logan · Former CBS News Chief International CorrespondentHelp finish the film. Let the world meet Ms. Hanatu.
Me & Ms. Hanatu
She lost her home and kept teaching. I met her in a displacement camp and promised to tell her story. Following that promise took me into communities living through persecution, loss, and a struggle to be heard.
Me & Ms. Hanatu brings audiences into that world through the people living it: their courage, their friendship, and their determination to give their children a future. Years of filming have captured the story. Completion funding will help us finish the edit, sound, and picture and prepare the film for audiences.
Watch the trailer. Help us bring it to the screen.
Put these ideas to work.
Understand the forces shaping world events. Lead your business through technological change. Rediscover what it means to live your faith.
EPICENTER
Go beneath the headlines to examine the history, power, and interests driving Nigeria’s crisis. Drawing on years of travel and investigation, I connect what is happening on the ground to the forces shaping Africa and the wider world.
Buy EPICENTER
THE ALIGNMENT IMPERATIVE
Make informed decisions about AI: where it can help, what needs to change, and how to keep your people and purpose at the center. A practical framework for leaders responsible for turning new capabilities into useful results.
Buy The Alignment Imperative
UPRISING
What did Jesus mean when He proclaimed the Kingdom of God—and what does it ask of us today? Explore our identity, responsibility, and calling as believers, and put that understanding to work in everyday life.
Buy UPRISINGNarrative War Leadership
Give your mission a strategy—and the means to carry it out.
Kingdom Strategies brings consulting, media production, technology, and organizing together for businesses, ministries, and movements. We clarify the mission, develop the plan, create the content, and mobilize people to act.
The Sun Will Rise Again is our flagship campaign. It wages a narrative war against the cover-up of persecution in Nigeria, turning public awareness into organized pressure for freedom and self-determination. Africa Truth Network carries the story. Africa Arise Alliance organizes the coalition. The Sokoto Declaration sets out the principles, and the Covenant Republic proposes a constitutional way forward. Free & Fair 2027 gives people a way to add their names.
Four Nikao houses do the making. Nikao Productions — film and video. Nikao Press — books and long-form. Nikao Sound — music and soundtracks. Nikao AI — technology and disclosed AI experiences.
Bring us the challenge you’re ready to take on.
It’s been an adventure.
I’ve stared down a charging bull hippo in Tanzania and caught giant squid in the Sea of Cortez. I traveled by dugout canoe to become the first outsider to reach a remote Moskito Coast village, where I preached the gospel through two translators. I’m curious about people, what makes things work, and whatever’s cooking at the roadside. That last one has led to some remarkable meals—and a few I’d rather forget.
I’ve built a television news network, founded a nationwide youth ministry, served as a Texas mayor, and helped establish schools for displaced children in Africa. I investigate, write, speak, and build.
I started my adult life digging ditches for minimum wage and worked my way through school delivering pizzas and waiting tables. Since then, I’ve worked with presidents and billionaires, mentored boys around campfires, and made friends in communities most people never hear about. I’m as comfortable talking with a street vendor as I am sitting in a boardroom. There’s something to learn in both places.
My Christian faith gives the adventure its purpose. At home, I’m a husband, father, grandfather, and country boy who loves to cook, build things, hunt, fish, and grow something worth eating. Amy and I have made our life in the Texas Hill Country. There’s still plenty I want to learn—and plenty of work worth doing.
With the administration of Plateau State University in Bokkos, May 2024.
Follow the evidence. See what others miss.
My investigative reporting leads news cycles, and my briefings have helped shape U.S. policy. I draw on firsthand reporting, documents, and relationships built over years to expose what deserves scrutiny and explain why it matters.
Alongside the investigations and policy briefings, you’ll find my writing on faith, leadership, business, technology, and the experiences behind the work. Read the latest, or subscribe to receive new pieces directly.
Help make the next assignment possible.
Every investigation, journey, and new undertaking takes time and resources before it produces something the world can see. The Roots is a circle of monthly partners who support my ministry and help make that work possible.
This is personal ministry support, separate from gifts designated for the schools or the film. If you believe in the work and want to help sustain the person doing it, I’d welcome you.