Christians in Nigeria have welcomed Donald Trump’s threat to send the US military to the West African nation ‘guns-a-blazing’ – but its leaders are wary.
Nigeria has been roiled by internal violence in the wake of a jihadist insurgency spearheaded by extremist group Boko Haram in the northeast since 2009.
Trump, 79, had already designated Nigeria a ‘country of particular concern,’ but he took his condemnation of the situation in the country even further last week after hearing about it on Fox News, threatening to cut aid and even send in US troops.
Some Christian communities have welcomed the US president’s menace, believing that foreign armies are needed to restore peace in their homeland.
‘We see President Trump as our second God,’ Christian community leader Bamshak Daniel told the Wall Street Journal.
‘We have been praying for a supernatural intervention to save the lives of our people. President Trump must make haste and carry out this military intervention.’
Daniel is based in the small town of Mangu in the Plateau state, where herdsmen have slaughtered many Christians in surrounding villages this year.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu was shocked by the fiery ‘guns-a-blazing’ rhetoric coming from the leader of one of his country’s most important partners.
He was stunned when he first saw Trump’s Truth Social post – which occurred during his morning routine of drinking a shot of espresso and having his routine doctor’s check-up, the Journal said.
Tinubu – a 73-year-old Muslim married to a Christian Pentecostal preacher – said Trump’s interpretation of his country’s malaise is a ‘gross misrepresentation of the reality’.
Amid the various forms of bloodletting around the country – including ethnic rivalry and banditry – the Islamist militants have been slaughtering Christians as well as Muslims they regard as ‘apostates’ for failing to comply with their brand of Islam.
There has also been a separate onslaught by Fulani Muslim tribesmen against mainly Christian farming communities, a protracted crisis linked to a tangle of issues like religion, ethnicity and a scramble over the dwindling supply of arable land.
While Christians are among those targeted, analysts say the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, where most attacks occur, according to the Associated Press.
Trump’s threat, which came after he watched a Fox News segment about the conflict in Nigeria, triggered alarm bells across West Africa.
Anonymous sources from the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), which directs American military operations across the continent, told the Washington Post Trump’s announcement prompted concern.
They said a US military operation in an area where there is little US intelligence was unlikely to make a difference, and leaders called for their sovereignty to be respected.
‘We welcome U.S. assistance as long as it recognizes our territorial integrity,’ Daniel Bwala, an adviser to President Tinubu, told Reuters.
Trump’s explosive announcement came last week via Truth Social.
‘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,’ he wrote.
‘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!’
Bwala sought to play down tensions between the two states, despite Trump calling Nigeria a ‘disgraced country.’
‘We don’t take it literally, because we know Donald Trump thinks well of Nigeria,’ Bwala said.
‘I am sure by the time these two leaders meet and sit, there would be better outcomes in our joint resolve to fight terrorism,’ he said.
Nigeria, a country of more than 200 million people and around 200 ethnic groups, is divided between the largely Muslim north and mostly Christian south.
Islamist insurgents such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province have wrought havoc in the country for more than 15 years, killing thousands of people, but their attacks have been largely confined to the northeast of the country, which is majority Muslim.
While Christians have been killed, the vast majority of the victims have been Muslims, analysts say.
In central Nigeria there have been frequent clashes between mostly Muslim herders and mainly Christian farmers over access to water and pasture, while in the northwest of the country, gunmen routinely attack villages, kidnapping residents for ransom.
Nigeria ‘does not discriminate against any tribe or religion in the fight against insecurity,’ Bwala said. ‘There is no Christian genocide.’
Courtesy: UK MailOnline
