In a post on the Truth Social social network, the US president also threatened the Nigerian government that the US will also immediately suspend “all aid and assistance” to Nigeria
Donald Trump this Saturday ordered the US Department of Defense to “prepare for possible military action” in Nigeria if the Nigerian government continues to “allow the murder of Christians”.
In a post on the Truth Social social network, the US president also threatened the Nigerian government that the US will also immediately suspend “all aid and assistance” to Nigeria.
Trump went further and threatened that the US may “very well invade that now disgraced country, ‘guns blazing,’ to completely eliminate the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrific atrocities.”
Trump’s publication comes after another, published, in which the US president said he would place Nigeria on the list of countries of “particular concern”, a designation adopted under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, due to the persecution of Christians.
This Saturday, the president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, rejected accusations that the country is “intolerant” from a religious point of view.
“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a fundamental principle of our collective identity and will always remain so. Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it. Nigeria is a country with constitutional guarantees to protect citizens of all religions,” Tinubu wrote in X.
Nigeria stands firmly as a democracy governed by constitutional guarantees of religious liberty.
Since 2023, our administration has maintained an open and active engagement with Christian and Muslim leaders alike and continues to address security challenges which affect…
— Bola Ahmed Tinubu (@officialABAT)
Nigeria, whose population is almost proportionally divided between Christians and Muslims, has faced security challenges for several decades due to radical groups such as Boko Haram, responsible, for example, for the highly publicized kidnapping of 276 girls from a secondary school in the northeast of the country in 2014. A decade after the crime, in 2024, 82 girls were still missing.
Both Christians and Muslims are targets of attacks by radicals, however, Joseph Hayab, former leader of the Christian Association of Nigeria, says the situation
Allegations that a genocide is underway against Christians in the African country have been amplified by far-right figures around the world, including in Portugal, such as Rita Matias.
Today we are all experts in genocides and flotillas, however we always forget some. The lives of Christians also matter!
— Rita Maria Matias (@ritamariamatias)
