Nigerian leaders are pushing back on President Donald Trump’s calls to prepare the military for an operation over recent claims of Christian persecution in the West African country.
Daniel Bwala, a spokesperson for Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, told The Associated Press 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 Trump’s threats appear to be his “style of going forceful in order to force a sit-down and have a conversation.”
Over the weekend, Trump took to social media, doubling down on the 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 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 created 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, more than 20,000 churches, seminaries, and Christian-based institutions have been destroyed in the country, where the population of over 220 million people is roughly split evenly between Christians and Muslims.
As the AP reports, both Cruz and Trump have relied on older reports that date back over a decade ago when Nigeria’s homegrown Boko Haram Islamist group launched an insurgency to enforce Shariah law.
But Nigerian leaders are denying any claims of Christian persecution.