Nigerian leaders are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s calls to prepare the military for an operation following recent claims of Christian persecution in the West African country.
Daniel Bwala, a spokesperson for Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, told the Associated Press (AP) that the United States “cannot unilaterally carry out” a military operation in Nigeria and accused Trump’s military threats of being based on misleading reports. Bwala also said that Trump’s threats appear to be his “style of going in forcefully in order to compel a sit-down and have a conversation".
Over the weekend, Trump took to social media, doubling down on allegations that Nigerian leaders are failing to protect Christians from persecution.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killings 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,” he said on social media.
Trump’s warning to Nigerian officials comes just over a month after Texas Senator Ted Cruz introduced a bill in Congress to combat Christian persecution in Nigeria. Cruz announced that his Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act of 2025 was designed to hold officials accountable following reports that leaders were enabling Islamist jihadist violence and enforcing blasphemy laws.
As Premier Christian News previously reported, extremist groups and armed militias have killed more than 52,000 Christians across the country. In addition, over 20,000 churches, seminaries and Christian-based institutions have been destroyed in Nigeria, where the population of more than 220 million people is roughly split evenly between Christians and Muslims.
As the AP reports, both Cruz and Trump have relied on older reports dating back over a decade, when Nigeria’s homegrown Boko Haram Islamist group launched an insurgency to enforce Sharia law.
Nigerian leaders continue to deny claims of Christian persecution.