 "Why is Donald Trump threatening military action in Nigeria?")
Donald Trump has long declared himself the ‘peace president’. Trump has claimed to have solved a number of wars, which has been disputed by experts, and even campaigned for a Nobel Peace Prize for himself this year.
Yet, the United States seems to be on the verge of action in Venezuela and is now seemingly threatening to do the same in Nigeria. Trump has said he has asked the US Defence Department to prepare for quick military action in Nigeria.
But what do we know? Why is Trump threatening Nigeria?
What we know
Trump has ordered the Defence Department to be ready for fast military action in Nigeria. Trump, taking to social media, called Nigeria a “disgraced country”.
“If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and 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 wrote.
“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 added.
To which Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth responded on social media, “Yes Sir.”“The killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria — and anywhere — must end immediately. The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Hegseth added.
Trump on Sunday said the US military could deploy troops to Nigeria or carry out air strikes to stop what he called the killing of “very large numbers” of Christians there.
"I envisage a lot of things," Trump said aboard Air Force One. “They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen,” he added.
Nigerian presidency spokesperson Daniel Bwala said the country would welcome US assistance in fighting Islamist insurgents “as long as it recognises our territorial integrity.”
“I am sure by the time these two leaders meet and sit, there would be better outcomes in our joint resolve to fight terrorism,” Bwala added.
Bwala sought to play down tensions between the two states. “We don’t take it literally, because we know Donald Trump thinks well of Nigeria,” Bwala added.
Trump’s remarks came after the US administration added Nigeria back to a “Countries of Particular Concern” list of nations the US says have violated religious freedoms. Other nations on the list include China, Pakistan, Myanmar, Russia, Cuba and North Korea.
“Under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998, the President is required to annually review the status of religious freedom in every country in the world and designate each country the government of which has engaged in or tolerated ‘particularly severe violations of religious freedom’ as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC),” the State Department says.
The first Trump administration had added Nigeria to this list. However, the Biden administration in 2021 removed Nigeria from this list when then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken found the country “did not meet the criteria.”
Why Trump is threatening Nigeria
The West African nation comprising 230 million people and 200 ethnic groups has been facing attacks from Islamist groups for years. The country is split into the largely Muslim north and mostly Christian south.
While Islamist insurgents such as Boko Haram and Islamic State-linked groups have killed thousands of people in Nigeria over the years, experts say it is false to claim that they are singling out Christians. In fact, most of the attacks have occurred in the Muslim areas and most of the victims are indeed Muslim.
They say claims that this is occurring on religious lines is a misreading of the entire situation and that in fact the conflict is primarily driven by ethnic disputes and arguments over ownership of land. For example, they cite the case of the Fulani herders against Hausa communities, both Muslims, in northern Nigeria.
In central Nigeria there have been frequent clashes between mostly Muslim herders and mainly Christian farmers over access to water and pasture, while in the northwest of the country, gunmen routinely attack villages, kidnapping residents for ransom.
Experts say such assertions have been long made by the far-right and hold no water.
“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.”
“It is divisive, and it is only going to further increase instability in Nigeria,” Bukarti added. “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.”
The Nigerian government too has pushed back against such claims.
Nigeria “does not discriminate against any tribe or religion in the fight against insecurity,” Bwala said. “There is no Christian genocide.”
Kimiebi Imomotimi Ebienfa, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Al Jazeera, “We are not proud of the security situation that we are passing through, but to go with the narrative that only Christians are targeted, no, it is not true. There is no Christian genocide in Nigeria.”
“We’ve continuously made our point clear that we acknowledge the fact that there are killings that have taken place in Nigeria, but those killings were not restricted to Christians alone. Muslims are being killed. Traditional worshippers are being killed… The majority is not the Christian population.”
“Insurgent groups such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa often present their campaigns as anti-Christian, but in practice their violence is indiscriminate and devastates entire communities,” said Ladd Serwat, senior Africa analyst at US crisis-monitoring group ACLED.
“Islamist violence is part of the complex and often overlapping conflict dynamics in the country over political power, land disputes, ethnicity, cult affiliation, and banditry,” he said.
ACLED research shows that out of 1,923 attacks on civilians in Nigeria so far this year, the number of those targeting Christians because of their religion stood at 50.
Serwat said recent claims circulating among some US right-wing circles that as many as 100,000 Christians had been killed in Nigeria since 2009 are not supported by available data.
Security experts said any US air strikes would most likely seek to target small groups scattered across a very large swathe of territory, a task that could be made more difficult given the US withdrew its forces last year from Niger, which borders Nigeria in the north.
The militant groups move between neighbouring countries Cameroon, Chad and Niger, and the experts said the US may require help from the Nigerian military and government, which Trump threatened to cut off from assistance.
With inputs from agencies
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