President Trump said on Saturday that he will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria if its government “continues to allow the killing of Christians.”
Trump said the United States “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.”
“I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!” he added.
NBC News has more:
Trump’s announcement comes a day after he categorized Nigeria as a “country of particular concern,” a designation the U.S. gives countries the government deems as engaging in “particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” Other countries on the list include China, Cuba and North Korea.
The Nigerian government issued a statement Saturday after the designation, saying it remained committed to tackling what it called “violent extremism.”
ADVERTISEMENT“Like America, Nigeria has no option but to celebrate the diversity that is our greatest strength. Nigeria is a God-fearing country where we respect faith, tolerance, diversity and inclusion, in concurrence with the rules-based international order,” Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Trump during his first term declared Nigeria a country of particular concern, an action that former President Joe Biden’s administration undid in 2021, when former Secretary of State Antony Blinken found the country “did not meet the criteria” to be included in the CPC list.
Trump said Friday that Christianity is facing an “existential threat” in Nigeria, saying “radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
“Thousands of Christians are being killed,” Trump stated.
“I am hereby making Nigeria a ‘COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN’ — But that is the least of it. When Christians, or any such group, is slaughtered like is happening in Nigeria (3,100 versus 4,476 Worldwide), something must be done!” Trump said.
“I am asking Congressman Riley Moore, together with Chairman Tom Cole and the House Appropriations Committee, to immediately look into this matter, and report back to me. The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria, and numerous other Countries. We stand ready, willing, and able to save our Great Christian population around the World!” he added.
Newsweek shared:
Nigeria is Africa’s heavyweight with a population of around 240 million people and has long rejected suggestions by some U.S. evangelical Christian groups and politicians that killings of Christians are a deliberate campaign of extermination rather than being part of ongoing violence by Islamist radicals and bandits who also routinely kill Muslims in the West African nation.
A worsening relationship between the United States and Nigeria, which could now face potential sanctions, could have implications for the U.S. position more generally in Africa, where China’s diplomatic weight has been growing.
Nigeria, whose population is about evenly split between Christians and Muslims, has been beset by decades of violence whose roots lie not only in religion, but in ethnic division, criminality, local politics, poverty and battles over land between farmers and herders that have been exacerbated by shifts in the climate.
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