US President Donald Trump’s threat to initiate military action against Nigeria over the alleged targeted killings of Christians has met with criticism from the West African country, which called the warning “based on misleading reports”.
Trump on Sunday alleged Nigeria was killing record numbers of Christians. “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. 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 posted on social media.
Trump’s military threat was met with criticism from the Nigerian Presidential spokesperson, who said the US cannot unilaterally carry out any military operation in Nigeria over its claims of Christian persecution. “Military threats from US President Donald Trump are based on misleading reports and appear to be part of Trump’s style of going forceful in order to force a sit-down and have a conversation,” local media reports quoted Daniel Bwala, a spokesman for Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.
He also accused Trump of relying on “old reports from more than a decade ago” when Nigeria’s home-grown Boko Haram Islamic group launched an insurgency to enforce their brutal interpretation of Shariah law. “When it comes to matters of military operation in Nigeria, this is a matter that two leaders have to agree on. It is not something you can unilaterally do, especially since that country is a sovereign state,” he said.
Nigeria said it would welcome US help in fighting Islamist insurgents as long as its territorial integrity is respected, responding to threats of military action by Donald Trump over what he said was the ill-treatment of Christians in Nigeria https://t.co/5cirlDQEv7 pic.twitter.com/p04PAWK5eG
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 2, 2025
Besides the President’s office, other stakeholders also commented on Trump’s remark, calling it “misadvised, misdirected, and imperialistic.’’ Akin Oyebode, a professor of International Law, told The Nation that it was a jaundiced view by any country or person to assume that only Christians were being killed in Nigeria.
“Trump’s action is misadvised, misdirected, and imperialistic. Because he has gotten away with his acts of aggression against Venezuela, he believes that Nigeria is a small fry and that there is nothing we can do,” he added.
Oyebode said Trump was gravely mistaken because Nigeria is a significant member of the international community. “This is the world’s largest black nation, and he will not even enjoy the support of the African-American community in the U.S., let alone Nigerians here. Even though he might win the propaganda award to humiliate and embarrass Nigerians, history is on the side of the oppressed. We are the victims of imperialist threats,” he said, adding that this does not mean that Christians have not been massacred in Nigeria, especially in the Middle Belt.
“You know, he called us shithole before. But I’m saying that you have to show superior wisdom and not act out your own thinking. He definitely has no regard for black people. Unlike Joe) Biden, who had Nigerians in his cabinet, I have not seen a single Nigerian in the cabinet of Donald Trump. So, Donald Trump is giving full rein to African people from South Africa. That he is treating us with utmost contempt by telling us to go to hell,” Oyebode said.
