US President Donald Trump sparked alarm across Nigeria over the weekend, saying he was considering military action in Africa’s most populous country in response to what he called a “genocide” of Christians by Islamic militants.
Experts and analysts say the reality on the ground is more complex and nuanced. Christians and Muslims, the two largest religious groups in the country of more than 230 million people, have both been victims of attacks by Islamic extremists.
The West African country has long grappled with deep-rooted security problems caused by a variety of factors, including religiously motivated attacks. Observers say other violent conflicts stem from communal and ethnic tensions, as well as conflicts between farmers and pastoralists over limited access to land and water resources.
Nigeria’s government rejects claims it is not doing enough to protect Christians from violence and says it is perplexed by President Trump’s suggestion of possible military intervention.
Nigeria’s presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, told CNN that he was “shocked that President Trump is considering invading our country,” after the US president directed the Pentagon to prepare for possible military action.
President Trump also threatened to cut off all U.S. aid to Nigeria unless the Nigerian government takes steps to stop the killing of Christians. He warned that the proposed intervention would be “swift and vicious” and aimed at eliminating the “Islamic terrorists” he said were responsible for these atrocities.
As President Trump’s threat of war resonates with Nigerians, his assertion that “Christianity is facing an existential crisis in Nigeria” provoked strong reactions from many in the country.
Nigeria has roughly equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, with the northern region being predominantly Muslim and the southern region predominantly Christian.
In 2012, the Islamist group Boko Haram issued an ultimatum, telling Christians in the north to leave while calling on Muslims in the south to “return” to the north.
John Joseph Hayabu, a pastor who heads the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in northern Nigeria where attacks by Islamic extremists are prevalent, told CNN he agrees with President Trump’s assertion of a “systematic killing of Christians” in the region. But, he added, “there has been a bit of a change over the past two years,” with the scale of killings decreasing.
Hayabu said he had presided over numerous mass graves of murdered Christians and said, “Every state in northern Nigeria has suffered its own horrific murders targeting Christians.”
He called on the Nigerian government to acknowledge the problem and take steps to redress rather than deny the killings.
“We have raised this issue dozens of times and no one listens to us,” he asserted, acknowledging the role of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in drawing attention to reports of alleged persecution of Christians in Nigeria.
In August, Republican senators introduced a bill seeking sanctions against Nigeria for alleged violations of religious freedom.
Some analysts argue that while Christians are targeted by Boko Haram and other Islamist groups seeking to impose their extreme interpretations of Islamic law, Muslims, including supposedly moderate Muslims, are also victims of these groups.
Bulama Bukarti, a Nigerian human rights activist specializing in security and development, took issue with President Trump’s statements, telling CNN that they “reflect a dangerous oversimplification of Nigeria’s complex security crisis.”
“Claims of a ‘genocide of Christians’ by ‘Islamic extremists’ distort the reality on the ground and risk deepening divisions in a country already under great tension,” he said.
Northern Nigeria has seen a number of horrific murders targeting religious groups this year. In April, the Associated Press reported that an armed group believed to be Muslim nomads killed at least 40 people, including children, in a predominantly Christian farming village.
Two months later, assailants massacred more than 100 people in Yerwata, a Christian-majority community also in north-central Benue state, according to Amnesty International.
Pope Leo XIV offered prayers for the victims of the Yelhuata attack, many of whom were “internally displaced persons sheltered by local Catholic missions,” according to a Vatican news report.
Such targeted killings are rare outside the northern regions. In 2022, a mass shooting at a church in Owo, a community in southwestern Nigeria, left dozens of people dead. In court filings seen by Reuters, the suspects in the Owo massacre were linked to al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked militant group active in East Africa.
Muslims have also been victims of targeted killings this year. In August, gunmen attacked a mosque in northwestern Katsina state, killing at least 50 worshipers, some shot dead and others burned alive, according to Reuters.
Boko Haram and other armed groups have carried out numerous similar brutal attacks on Muslim communities in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria.
“Yes, these (extremist) groups sadly killed many Christians, but they also massacred tens of thousands of Muslims,” Bucarti said. He noted that because the majority of states where extremist groups operate are Muslim, “the group’s attacks on other civilian locations, such as markets, bus stops, and refugee camps, (disproportionately) harm Muslims.”
“Trump’s rhetoric (suggesting genocide of Christians) not only misinforms the international community, but also risks fueling extremist propaganda and undermining local peacebuilding efforts,” it added.
Claims that Christians are unfairly targeted by extremists in Nigeria are unsubstantiated with little available data.
Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a crisis monitoring group, reported that more than 20,400 civilians were killed in attacks in Nigeria between January 2020 and September this year. Of these casualties, 317 deaths were attributed to attacks targeting Christians, and 417 deaths were reported among Muslims, although the organization does not include the religious affiliation of the majority of the civilians killed.
Nnamdi Obasi, a senior advisor and security analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank, explained that extremist groups are wreaking havoc on both Christians and Muslims in northeastern Nigeria, while bandit groups are terrorizing predominantly Muslim communities in the northwest. Additionally, Christian-majority rural areas in parts of the North-Central Zone suffer from sustained violence from armed groups.
But “in most parts of the country, Christians and Muslims live peacefully with each other,” he said. “Reports of widespread persecution and genocide against Christians are grossly misconstrued and exaggerate the challenges in interreligious relations in this country.”
Ken Elma Asogwa, a spokesman for the opposition Labor Party, told CNN: “Despite the Nigerian government’s lackluster and disastrous efforts to protect its people from non-state killers operating under a variety of pseudonyms, there is no evidence to support President Trump’s claims that Christians are particularly targeted for extermination.”
On Friday, President Trump designated Nigeria a “country of special concern” under the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act. The label suggests that the administration perceives Nigeria to be engaging in or condoning “systematic and sustained (and) gross violations of religious freedom.”
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has so far remained silent on President Trump’s mention of possible military intervention, but pushed back against the designation, saying in a social media post: “The characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect the reality of our country and does not take into account the consistent and sincere efforts of our government to protect the freedom of religion and belief of all Nigerians.”
President Trump has not ruled out sending U.S. forces to Nigeria or conducting airstrikes there, telling reporters on Sunday that he is “thinking about a lot of things.”
But Obasi, the analyst, said the US’s unilateral military operations against Islamist groups in Nigeria would not address the root causes of instability in Nigeria.
He said that “without the involvement of the Nigerian security forces, such intervention would be predictably unwelcome to many Nigerians and could further destabilize the country and worsen the security situation.”
Instead, he called on the Nigerian government to “intensify efforts to end mass killings of its citizens” regardless of religious or other identity, and to address religious extremism, tensions over resources and banditry, which “are the root causes of most mass killings.”
Human rights activist Bulama believes the Nigerian government can “go beyond defensive” and address Trump’s criticisms.
“Fight misinformation with data,” he suggested, adding, “What we need in this moment is candor, not posturing.”
“Nigeria’s interests and the cause of peace will be best served by constructive dialogue, not by anger on social media,” he advised.
