Samuel Omang
United States President Donald Trump has issued an extraordinary threat of military intervention in Nigeria, accusing the government of failing to curb what he described as large-scale killings of Christians in the country.
In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump alleged that Christians in Nigeria are facing “an existential threat” and claimed, without presenting evidence, that “radical Islamists” are behind “mass slaughter.”
He warned that the U.S. could suspend all aid to Nigeria and potentially launch an assault on the country “guns-a-blazing” if the situation does not change.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote.
The president added that he had instructed “our Department of War” — a reference to the U.S. Department of Defense — to prepare attack plans, vowing that any strike would be “fast, vicious, and sweet.”
His comments followed an earlier post on Friday in which he urged U.S. lawmakers to investigate reported attacks on Christians in Nigeria and labeled the country a “place of particular concern” for religious freedom.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu swiftly rejected Trump’s statements, insisting that Nigeria remains a nation committed to religious liberty and tolerance.
“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so,” Tinubu said in a response issued Friday. “Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it.”
Nigeria has long grappled with deadly violence linked to banditry, terrorism, and farmer-herder conflicts — crises that have affected both Muslims and Christians across different parts of the country.
While Christian groups in Nigeria have often raised alarms about targeted killings, security analysts note that victims span religious and ethnic divides in a country almost evenly split between a Muslim-majority north and a mostly Christian south.
Trump’s renewed focus on Nigeria comes amid ongoing political and security debates in both countries, with critics warning that such rhetoric risks inflaming tensions and distorting the complex nature of Nigeria’s internal conflicts.
The Nigerian government has not yet issued further reaction to the latest threat, but observers expect diplomatic channels between Abuja and Washington to be tested in the coming days.
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