US President Donald Trump doubled down on his assaults on Nigeria on Friday, accusing the nation of failing to guard Christians, and utilizing the time period “genocide” for the primary time to explain the violence in Africa’s most populous nation.
“I feel Nigeria is a shame. The entire thing is a shame,” the American president stated on Fox Information Radio’s The Brian Kilmeade Present. “They’re killing folks by the hundreds. It’s a genocide. And I’m actually indignant about it.”
Earlier, Mr Trump threatened to take navy motion in Nigeria if its leaders didn’t take pressing and deliberate steps to halt the killings of Christians by non-state actors.
These murders, he claimed, have reached genocidal proportions. He doubled down on this false declare with an unprovoked denigration of the nation on Friday.
“And we pay, you already know, we give numerous subsidy to Nigeria, which we’re going to finish up stopping.
“The federal government’s executed nothing. They’re very ineffective. They’re killing Christians at will. And you already know, till I obtained concerned in it two weeks in the past — no one even talked about it.”
Mr Trump re-designated Nigeria as a Nation of Explicit Concern (CPC) over the allegation of persecution of Christians. Nigeria is likely one of the 13 nations that the US has positioned on that pariah checklist. Mr Trump had included the oil-rich nation in the identical class throughout his first time period in workplace in 2020, however his successor, Joe Biden, delisted it in 2021.
In line with Mr Trump, “If the Nigerian Authorities continues to permit the killing of Christians, the USA could very nicely go into that now disgraced nation, guns-a-blazing, to fully wipe out the Islamic terrorists who’re committing these horrible atrocities.”
He additional declared that the navy motion can be “quick, vicious and candy.” Because of this, he claimed to have ordered his Division of Conflict to arrange for the assault.
In response to Mr Trump’s rhetorics, President Bola Tinubu stated Nigeria would proceed to interact the US diplomatically and welcome assist to defeat terrorism.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that Nigeria’s Nationwide Safety Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and high authorities officers met with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on the Pentagon on Friday to debate the allegations of Christian genocide.
How true is the declare of Christian genocide in Nigeria
Nigeria faces completely different types of insecurity with numerous armed teams working in numerous components of the nation. The teams, with completely different motives, kill and kidnap hundreds of individuals throughout the nation.
On Friday, gunmen kidnapped over 200 college students from a Catholic college in central Nigeria. Earlier than then, on Monday, kidnappers took about 25 Muslim college students from a college within the northwestern a part of the nation. Rescue efforts are underway, however the destiny of the kidnapped college students isn’t identified.
Armed violence in Nigeria manifests in numerous however overlapping varieties, pushed by a mixture of historic grievances, ethnic tensions, financial disparities, non secular extremism, local weather change, and weak governance. A single narrative can not precisely seize this example, based on a PREMIUM TIMES evaluation of the safety scenario.
Whereas the North-east area faces rebel assaults from Boko Haram and different Jihadi teams who search to eradicate Western training and civilisation, the North-west struggles with armed banditry.
The North-central area offers with frequent communal, ethno-religious, and farmer-herder conflicts, the South-east faces agitations by separatists, and the South-south battles with militancy. Not one of the main sects has solely focused Christians as a part of an organised, systematic effort to get rid of them, as Mr Cruz and different Individuals have claimed.
Safety analysts and researchers additionally say the declare of a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria is fake and deceptive. They argue that it displays a deep misreading of Nigeria’s safety realities and exposes the undercurrents of a clearly mischievous agenda.
The Nigerian authorities has repeatedly rejected the allegations, describing them as “a gross misrepresentation of actuality.” Officers argue that terrorists “assault all who reject their murderous ideology — Muslims, Christians, and people of no religion alike
Credible media reviews, together with one by the BBC, have discovered that a lot of the information used to assist the genocide claims can’t be independently verified.
The New York Occasions reported on Friday that there isn’t any clear proof to counsel Christians are attacked any extra often than Muslims.
“Opposite to Mr Trump’s declare of a genocide, there are several types of violence occurring throughout the nation, with no one-size-fits-all clarification. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation, with, by some estimates, greater than 230 million folks. It’s geographically enormous and ethnically numerous, with over 300 languages spoken.”
“Even inside a single area, attributing the violence to a single group or motivation is difficult,” the New York Occasions reviews.
PREMIUM TIMES editorial additionally dismissed the genocide narrative as “false and deceptive,” on condition that there isn’t any official mastermind of such impunity.
“But, we acknowledged the fact of killings affecting each Christians and Muslims, perpetrated by non-state actors. This context exposes Washington’s gross misrepresentation of the details of Nigeria’s safety scenario and betrays the underbelly of a clearly mischievous agenda,” the editorial learn.
Knowledge from the Armed Battle Location & Occasion Knowledge (ACLED) venture, which makes use of verifiable sources, presents a distinct image from the one utilized by Mr Trump.
ACLED estimates that slightly below 53,000 civilians of all faiths have been killed in focused political violence since 2009. Between 2020 and September 2025, about 21,000 civilians have been killed in abductions, assaults, sexual violence and bombings.
ACLED recognized 384 incidents the place Christians have been particularly focused, resulting in 317 deaths, and 417 Muslims have been killed in related focused assaults.
On Thursday, the Director of the Africa Program on the Centre for Strategic and Worldwide Research, Oge Onubogu, warned that US navy intervention would worsen Nigeria’s fractures.
READ ALSO: Nigeria’s international affairs minister counters Trump’s allegations of Christian genocide
“If the Trump administration proceeds with unilateral navy motion in Nigeria, it may endanger the Christians it goals to guard and worsen divisions alongside non secular strains, she instructed the American Congress, including, the US–Nigeria engagement have to be “from a spot of honesty” and Nigerians should “acknowledge one thing have to be executed rapidly in regards to the ranges of insecurity.”
Ms Onubogu cautioned in opposition to a “slender narrative that reduces Nigeria’s safety scenario to a single story.”
