U.S. President Donald Trump has reiterated that he is not ruling out possible military action in Nigeria over the alleged killing of Christians, even as the Nigerian presidency called for dialogue and cooperation to address security concerns.
Speaking to an AFP reporter aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said the option of deploying U.S. troops or launching air strikes in Nigeria remained open.
“Could be, I mean, a lot of things — I envisage a lot of things,” Trump said when asked if he was considering a military intervention. “They’re killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We’re not going to allow that to happen.”
The remarks came a day after the former U.S. president made an explosive post on his Truth Social platform, revealing that he had instructed the Pentagon to draw up a potential plan of attack on Nigeria. Trump had claimed that Christianity was “facing an existential threat” in Africa’s most populous nation.
In the post, he warned that if Nigeria failed to halt the killings, the United States would strike, saying, “It will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians.”
Nigeria, nearly evenly divided between a Muslim-majority north and a largely Christian south, has faced years of violence from extremist groups, armed bandits, and separatists — conflicts that analysts say have affected people of all faiths.
Reacting to Trump’s comments, presidential spokesman Daniel Bwala told AFP that Nigeria remains a strategic U.S. ally in the global fight against terrorism and that any cooperation must respect the country’s sovereignty.
“Nigeria is the U.S.’s partner in the global fight against terrorism. When leaders meet, there would be better outcomes,” Bwala said. “Nigeria welcomes U.S. support to fight terrorism as long as it respects our territorial integrity.”
He added that Abuja does not interpret Trump’s comments literally, describing them as part of the former president’s unconventional communication style.
“We do not see the (Trump’s social media post) in the literal sense. We know that Donald Trump has his own style of communication,” Bwala noted. He suggested that the post might be aimed at “forcing a sit-down between the two leaders so they can iron out a common front to fight their insecurity.”
In an earlier post on X, Bwala hinted that a meeting between President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Trump could take place soon.
“As for the differences as to whether terrorists in Nigeria target only Christians or in fact all faiths and no faiths, the differences, if they exist, would be discussed and resolved by the two leaders when they meet in the coming days, either in State House or White House,” he wrote.
Bwala, speaking by phone from Washington, declined to provide details of any possible meeting.
Trump had earlier posted, without evidence, that “thousands of Christians are being killed (and) Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.”
However, Nigerian authorities have repeatedly rejected the narrative that Christians are being specifically targeted.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” President Tinubu said in a post on social media on Saturday.
