Donald Trump repeated, this Sunday, November 2, his threats of military intervention in Nigeria due to what he claims is persecution of Christians, after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu suggested a meeting with his American counterpart “in the coming days.”
When asked by an AFP journalist whether he was considering ground intervention or an airstrike in Nigeria, the US president responded aboard Air Force One: “It could be a lot of things. I’m considering a lot of things.”
“They are killing Christians and they are killing them in large numbers. We are not going to allow that to happen,” he said.
The day before, Donald Trump had already threatened Nigeria with military action if the country did not stop what the Republican president considers “murders of Christians” by “Islamist terrorists.”
There is no meeting scheduled at this time
“President Trump helped Nigeria a lot by authorizing the sale of weapons to this country, and President Tinubu knew how to take advantage of this opportunity in the fight against terrorism, which allowed us to obtain considerable results,” Daniel Bwala, communications advisor to the Nigerian presidency, wrote on the social network on Sunday.
“Both leaders will discuss and resolve whether terrorists in Nigeria are targeting only Christians or, indeed, all religions and non-believers, when they meet in the coming days, either at the State House or the White House,” he added.
However, no meeting has yet been recorded, Daniel Bwala confirmed to AFP by telephone.
These threats from Donald Trump come after months of lobbying by conservative American elected officials who believe Christians in Nigeria face “genocide.”
These accusations were also spread by Christian and evangelical associations and were echoed among far-right European politicians, although experts cast doubt on them.
“If the Nigerian government continues to tolerate the murders of Christians, the United States will immediately suspend all aid to Nigeria and could very well target this now disgraced country in an all-out attack to completely eliminate the Islamist terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” the Republican president warned on Saturday on his Truth Social platform, after having included Nigeria in the list of countries of “particular concern” (“Country of Particular Concern”, CPC) in terms of religious freedom the day before.
Nigeria is plagued with security problems. The northeast region is a hotbed of the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency, which has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced more than two million since 2009, according to United Nations estimates.
Source: BFM TV
