Trump Threatens Military Intervention in Nigeria Over Alleged Christian Persecution: Examining the Religious Conflict Claims

President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to deploy US forces to Nigeria with "guns-a-blazing" if the country fails to address what he described as the killing of Christians by Islamists.

The Republican leader shared an inflammatory post on his Truth Social platform, stating that he had asked the Pentagon to outline a potential attack plan. This came just one day after he warned about Christianity facing an "existential threat in Nigeria."

"If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA 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," Trump declared.

He added, "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," while warning the Nigerian government they "BETTER MOVE FAST!"

Nigeria is currently involved in numerous conflicts that experts indicate have resulted in casualties among both Christians and Muslims indiscriminately.

Trump posted on Friday, without providing evidence, that "thousands of Christians are being killed (and) Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter."

Conservative politicians have amplified these accusations. In March, US congressman Chris Smith advocated for Nigeria to be designated by the State Department as a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) – a move that Trump announced on Friday regarding what he termed an "existential threat" to the African nation's Christian population.

In early October, US Senator Ted Cruz and House Republican Riley Moore accused the Nigerian government of ignoring the "mass murder" of Christians.

Allegations of Christian persecution have also been promoted by some within Nigeria, where ethnic, religious, and regional tensions have previously escalated with deadly consequences and continue to shape the country's contemporary politics.

Some US officials contend that Christians in Nigeria are experiencing a "genocide" – an assertion that Abuja refutes.

"The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality," Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu posted Saturday on X following Trump's CPC announcement.

"Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so," Tinubu added.

Nigeria is divided almost equally between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south.

The country faces numerous security challenges. Its northeastern region is at the center of a Boko Haram jihadist insurgency, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives and displaced over two million people since 2009, according to United Nations data.

In central Nigeria, predominantly Muslim herders have repeatedly clashed with predominantly Christian farmers. While this conflict is often portrayed as religious in nature, it generally stems from competition over land access.