Trump threatens Nigeria with military action over violence against Christians

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Donald Trump has threatened to deploy the US military in Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” if attacks against Christians in the country continue.

In a post on his social media site Truth Social on Saturday, the US president called on the Nigerian government to end the killings, and warned that the US “will immediately stop all aid and assistance” if it fails to do so.

The US military “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 added.

“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”

Senior figures within Trump’s Maga coalition have in recent months seized on attacks against Christians by Islamist insurgents in Nigeria, with some claiming that the targeted killings constitute a “genocide”.

Texas senator Ted Cruz, a Trump ally, claimed last month that the Nigerian government may be complicit in the violence.

“Officials in Nigeria are ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamist jihadists,” Cruz said.

Trump on Friday claimed that Christianity was facing an “existential threat in Nigeria”, blaming “radical Islamists” for the attacks. He designated the West African state as a “country of particular concern” — a step that can proceed the imposition of sanctions against a specific nation.

Earlier on Saturday, Nigeria’s president Bola Ahmed Tinubu criticised the designation, saying “the characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality”. He committed to work with the US “on protection of communities of all faiths”.

“Nigeria is a God-fearing country where we respect faith, tolerance, diversity and inclusion, in concurrence with the rules-based international order,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a separate statement.

Nigeria, whose population is roughly evenly split between Christians and Muslims, has long struggled with militant and separatist violence.

In recent months, it has been battling a number of attacks by Boko Haram and other Islamist groups — in which hundreds have been killed — against communities of both faiths, especially in rural areas.

Massad Boulos, Trump’s adviser on Arab and African affairs, told Nigerian media last month that “Boko Haram and ISIS are killing more Muslims than Christians”, and that “people are suffering from all sorts of backgrounds”.