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US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he had instructed his Defense Department to get ready for military action in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, if its government does not take action to stop the killing of Christians in the country.
He also said the US government will stop all assistance and aid to Africa’s top oil producer, posting on Truth Social. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action,” he wrote. “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious and sweet…”
Trump’s Nigeria post on Saturday was a rapid escalation from one he had posted on Friday evening announcing that the West African nation was being added to the State Department’s Country of Particular Concern list because of Christian killings.
“The characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said on social media after Trump’s first post.“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so,” he added.
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Yinka’s view
The Nigerian government can’t say this Trump move has come as a surprise. The “Christian killings” in Nigeria narrative had picked up steam in recent weeks as it made its way from fringe right wing conservative Chrisitan media circles to lower profile Congressmen then on to Sen. Ted Cruz. It was clear that this would eventually get to Trump.
The most notable failure of the Nigerian government is that successive administrations have in over a decade and a half been unable to end the scourge of Boko Haram and other Islamist or related terrorist groups that have indeed killed thousands of Christians. But as the Nigerian government has repeatedly noted, these terrorists have also killed thousands of Muslims. As Cheta Nwanze of SBM Intelligence in Abuja told us, while he wouldn’t go as far as saying there’s a “Chrisitan genocide” it is clear to him the “Nigerian government has dropped the ball significantly.”
Indeed another note for Tinubu’s administration is that, even while this White House in Trump’s second term is unpredictable in some ways, the art of diplomacy is still a powerful and effective tool in Washington DC. But Nigeria does not currently have an ambassador or high profile special envoy to have helped get ahead of this.
But that said, Trump’s talk of going in “guns-a-blazing” into Africa’s most populous country is a once-outlandish image — which is now being taken seriously as Nigerian leaders watch US forces move in on Venezuela.
“It is the last thing needed and the one thing that is sure to be counterproductive,” said Ebenezer Obadare, an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations. “Instead of putting Boko Haram in the crosshairs, it will change the conversation to the ethics of intervention and the perceived highhandedness of a superpower riding roughshod on an African country.”
Notable
- No, Bill Maher, there is no ‘Christian genocide’ in Nigeria: the Nigerian government defends its position in an Al Jazeera op-ed.