ABUJA: Nigeria on Sunday suggested a meeting between its President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his US counterpart Donald Trump, after the United States’ leader threatened military action over what he described as a threat to Nigerian Christians.
In an explosive post, Trump said on social media on Saturday that he asked the Pentagon to map out a possible plan of attack in Nigeria, one day after warning that Christianity was “facing an existential threat” in Africa’s most populous country.
Nigeria, which is almost evenly divided between a Muslim-majority north and a largely Christian south, is embroiled in numerous conflicts that experts say have killed both Christians and Muslims without distinction.
In his post, Trump said that if Nigeria does not stem the killings, the United States will attack and “it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians”.
Tinubu’s spokesman Daniel Bwala told AFP on Sunday that “Nigeria is the US’s partner in the global fight against terrorism. When leaders meet, there would be better outcomes. Nigeria welcomes US support to fight terrorism as long as it respects our territorial integrity.
“We do not see the [Trump’s social media post] in the literal sense. We know that Donald Trump has his own style of communication,” he added, suggesting the post was a way to “force a sit-down between the two leaders so they can iron out a common front to fight their insecurity.”
Earlier, Bwala had suggested in a post on X that the two leaders could meet soon.
“As for the differences as to whether terrorists in Nigeria target only Christians or in fact all faiths and no faiths, the differences if they exist, would be discussed and resolved by the two leaders when they meet in the coming days, either in State House or White House”.
Bwala, who was speaking on the phone from Washington, declined to disclose details of any potential meeting
Although the US Department of Defence referred Reuters to the White House for comment on Trump’s threat, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth released a social media post of his own.
“The Department of War is preparing for action,” Hegseth wrote on X. “Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
Trump’s post on Nigeria came a day after his administration added Nigeria back to a “Countries of Particular Concern” list of nations that the US says have violated religious freedom. Other nations on the list include China, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, and Pakistan.
Before Trump posted his attack threat, Tinubu earlier on Saturday pushed back against claims of religious intolerance and defended his country’s efforts to protect religious freedom.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians,” Tinubu said in a statement, citing “constitutional guarantees to protect citizens of all faiths.”
Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry, in a separate statement, vowed to keep fighting violent extremism and said it hoped Washington would remain a close ally, saying it “will continue to defend all citizens, irrespective of race, creed, or religion. Like America, Nigeria has no option but to celebrate the diversity that is our greatest strength.”
The US military footprint in West Africa was significantly diminished when about 1,000 troops withdrew from Niger last year. While the US sometimes has small groups of troops in the region to take part in drills, the largest US military base on the continent is in East Africa in Djibouti, which hosts over 5,000 troops and is used for operations in the region.
Trump put Nigeria on ‘concern list’ during first term
Trump had designated Nigeria a country of concern during his first term in the White House. His Democratic successor, Joe Biden, removed it from the US State Department list in 2021.
On Friday, Trump said “thousands of Christians” were being killed in Nigeria by “radical Islamists”, but offered no details.
Nigeria, which has 200 ethnic groups practising Christianity, Islam and traditional religions, has a long history of peaceful coexistence, but it has also seen flare-ups of violence among groups, often exacerbated by ethnic divisions or conflict over scarce resources.
The extremist armed group Boko Haram has also terrorised northeast Nigeria, an insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of people over the past 15 years. Human rights experts have said most Boko Haram victims have been Muslims.
US lawmakers such as Representative Tom Cole, a Republican who chairs the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, hailed Trump’s move on Friday, citing what they called “the alarming and ongoing persecution of Christians across the country.”
The committee’s fiscal 2026 national security appropriations bill included increased funding for international religious freedom programs and support for programs supporting communities in Nigeria targeted by extremist violence.
Trump’s redesignation of Nigeria as a country of concern opens the door to a range of policy responses, such as sanctions or waivers, but they are not automatic.
Some religious groups pressed Trump for the redesignation in a letter last month, according to a copy on the Hudson Institute think tank’s website.
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter,” Trump wrote without offering any specifics. He also called on the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee to investigate.
