Nigeria condemns Trump’s war threats, says his genocide claims against Christians are baseless
Trump’s threat of military intervention in Nigeria sharply contradicts recent comments by his senior adviser on Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, who insisted there was no evidence of genocide against Christians.
United States President Donald Trump has threatened military action against Nigeria, accusing the country’s government of allowing and condoning widespread attacks on Christians.
In a post on his Truth Social account on X, Trump said he had directed the Pentagon to prepare potential intervention plans, a day after claiming that Christianity was “facing an existential threat in Nigeria.”
Trump also warned that Washington could suspend all aid to the West African nation unless its government takes stronger measures to protect Christians from persecution.
“If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA 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 said on Saturday.
“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet. Warning: The Nigerian government better move fast.”
Contrasting remarks
His remarks contrast sharply with those of his senior adviser on Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, who said in mid-October that there was no evidence of a “genocide” targeting Christians in Nigeria.
On Friday, Trump reiterated that the alleged attacks on Christians were being carried out by extremist groups in the country.
“Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter. I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘country of particular concern’, but that is the least of it,” he said.
“I am asking Congressman Riley Moore, together with Chairman Tom Cole and the House Appropriations Committee, to immediately look into this matter and report back to me. The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria and numerous other countries.”
While Nigeria continues to grapple with a surge in violence — including bandit raids and extremist attacks that have claimed both Christian and Muslim lives — analysts caution that portraying the unrest as a religious conflict could deepen sectarian divisions and embolden terrorist groups in the region.
Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar rejected Trump’s statements, insisting that there is no ongoing genocide in the country.
“For the avoidance of any doubt, and out of respect for all the victims and survivors around the world of this unique and appalling crime against humanity, let the record show that there is no genocide, now or ever, in Nigeria,” Tuggar said in a social media post.
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