US President Donald Trump has threatened to carry out attacks in Nigeria in response to purported anti-Christian violence, saying he instructed the recently renamed Department of War to “prepare for possible action”.
In a social media post on Saturday, Trump said the United States would immediately cut off all assistance to the African country “if the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians”.
The US “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, without specifying which groups or alleged “atrocities” he was referring to.
“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! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!” he wrote.
The Nigerian government did not immediately respond to Trump’s threat.
The social media post comes a day after the US president announced that Nigeria – a country almost evenly divided between a Muslim-majority north and a largely Christian south – would be added to the Department of State’s list of “Countries of Particular Concern”, which is set up to monitor religious persecution around the world.
In recent months, right-wing lawmakers and other prominent figures in the US have claimed that violent disputes in Nigeria are part of a campaign of “Christian genocide”.
While human rights groups have urged the Nigerian government to do more to address unrest in the country, which has experienced deadly attacks by Boko Haram and other armed groups, experts say that claims of a “Christian genocide” are false and simplistic.
“All the data reveals is that there is no Christian genocide going on in Nigeria,” Bulama Bukarti, a Nigerian humanitarian lawyer and analyst on conflict and development, told Al Jazeera. This is “a dangerous, far-right narrative that has been simmering for a long time that President Trump is amplifying today,” he said.
“It is divisive and it is only going to further increase instability in Nigeria,” added Bukarti, explaining that armed groups in Nigeria have been targeting both Muslims and Christians.
“They bomb markets, they bomb churches, they bomb mosques and they attack every civilian location they find – they do not discriminate between Muslims and Christians.”
Ebenezer Obadare, a senior fellow for Africa Studies at the Washinton, DC-based Council on Foreign Relations, agreed, and said the Trump administration should work with Nigerian authorities to address the “common enemy”.
“This is precisely the moment when Nigeria needs assistance, especially military assistance,” Obadare said. “The wrong thing to do is to invade Nigeria and override the authorities or the authority of the Nigerian government. Doing that will be counterproductive.”
A few hours before Trump’s threat, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu released a statement stressing that his government “continues to address security challenges which affect citizens across faiths and regions”.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians,” Tinubu said on Saturday.
“Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it. Nigeria is a country with constitutional guarantees to protect citizens of all faiths,” the statement continued.
“Our administration is committed to working with the United States government and the international community to deepen understanding and cooperation on protection of communities of all faiths.”
Kimiebi Ebienfa, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stressed his country’s commitment to protecting all of its citizens.
“The Federal Government of Nigeria will continue to defend all citizens, irrespective of race, creed, or religion,” Ebienfa wrote in a statement on Saturday.
