Trump Threatens to Invade Nigeria Over Deaths of Christians

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to send the military into Nigeria with “guns-a-blazing” if Africa’s most populous country does not stop what he described as the killing of Christians by Islamists, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Trump's claim that “thousands of Christians are being killed (and) Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter" was without evidence.

Trump, who had campaigned unsuccessfully for the Nobel Peace Prize, said he asked the Pentagon to map out a plan of attack a day after warning that Christianity was “facing an existential threat in Nigeria.”

He added: “If the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing 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.”

Al Jazeera, Politico, Reuters, and the Associated Press (AP) also reported on Trump’s comments.

“The characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said on social media Saturday after Trump’s interventionist announcement.

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

Trump had posted recently, without evidence, that “thousands of Christians are being killed (and) Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.” Conservative politicians have amplified similar accusations.