The United States president, Donald Trump, is threatening army motion in Nigeria over what he sees because the persecution of Christians there. He has accused the Nigerian govt of now not doing sufficient to stop radical Islamists from committing “mass slaughter” in opposition to Christians within the west African country.
In a video posted on social media on November 5, Trump mentioned: “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands and thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible.” He warned that, if US forces have been to assault, it could be “fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”
Riley Moore, a Republican US congressman who has been requested by way of Trump to steer an investigation into violence in opposition to Christians in Nigeria, has prior to now referred to as the rustic “the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian”. He claims that greater than 7,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2025 by myself – a mean of 35 in step with day. Masses extra were abducted, tortured or displaced, he says.
However, without reference to whether or not or now not those figures are right kind (assessing their accuracy is hard), the USA govt’s framing of the violence in Nigeria as Islamists killing Christians oversimplifies a posh fact. Violence in Nigeria is pushed by way of greater than faith by myself, with land disputes, politics, ethnicity, historic grievances and inequality all taking part in an element.
Violence in Nigeria has various motives. Within the north-western and north-eastern areas of the rustic, assaults are in large part performed by way of jihadist teams comparable to Boko Haram, Lakurawa and Islamic State West Africa Province. Those teams search to determine an Islamic caliphate within the area, and assault whoever opposes their ideology – Christian or differently.
Boko Haram has traditionally been the dominant Islamist militant workforce in Nigeria. The Brookings Establishment estimates that Boko Haram has killed tens of hundreds of folks in Nigeria since 2009, and has displaced greater than 2 million others. The areas of Nigeria by which jihadist teams perform are predominantly Muslim.
The motives for violence in different spaces of Nigeria, together with the fertile agricultural Heart Belt area, are other. The Heart Belt, which is most commonly Christian, is wrongly suffering from violent struggle between sedentary farmers and nomadic herders. The herders, who have a tendency to be Fulani Muslims, transfer their farm animals from one area to some other.
I’ve studied this actual form of struggle in Nigeria since 2018. Violent conflicts between those teams of individuals are pushed by way of deficient governance, inequality, historic grievances and environmental injustice – and it could be faulty to signify they’re completely motivated by way of faith.
They’re best possible understood as eco-violence. The 2 teams conflict over get right of entry to to and keep watch over of water issues and land, which results in mass killings and the destruction of settlements. The Trump management’s grouping of Nigeria’s violence in combination below the label of Islamist extremism is thus deceptive.
Nigeria’s Heart Belt area:
A map appearing Nigeria’s Heart Belt, a area stretching around the centre of the rustic.
Kambai Akau / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA
The Heart Belt has turn into one among Nigeria’s maximum violent areas. Armed herder teams were accused of staging assaults on farming communities that experience ended in mass murders, the burning of houses and barns and the displacement of tens of millions of folks.
In some spaces, attackers have taken over and resettled in captured communities. Farmers have destroyed herds of farm animals price hundreds of US greenbacks in retaliation, and feature killed herders.
In keeping with Amnesty World, over 10,000 folks were killed in assaults around the Heart Belt since 2023, with Benue and Plateau states accounting for nearly all of those deaths.
In June 2025, armed attackers stormed the farming village of Yelwata in Benue state, killing round 200 folks within the area of a couple of hours. Then, in early November, 17 folks have been killed by way of armed males believed to be Fulani herders within the farming agreement of Kwi and the city of Damakasuwa. Either one of those puts are positioned close to the border between Plateau and Kaduna states.
A couple of days later, after Trump had threatened army motion in Nigeria, suspected armed herders killed no less than seven folks in an assault on Anwuel village in Benue state. Herders have additionally been accused of sporting out assaults in different areas of Nigeria, together with the south-west and south-east.
Nigerian safety operatives right through an army operation forward of an election in Benin Town, southern Nigeria, in 2020.
Oluwafemi Dawodu / Shutterstock
Amnesty World has blamed the escalating violence in Nigeria at the “shocking failure” of the rustic’s government to offer protection to lives and assets from assaults by way of armed teams and bandits. Rural communities say that Nigerian safety companies continuously fail to offer protection to them, even if they’re warned of approaching or ongoing assaults.
Then again, Nigerians don’t have a international saviour. What the rustic wishes is a brand new charter. The present charter used to be created by way of an army management, now not thru a democratic procedure. Many of us have argued that it lacks legitimacy and centralises over the top energy on the federal stage.
This focus of energy has fuelled corruption, nepotism and normally deficient governance, ensuing within the rampant lack of confidence noticed in Nigeria as of late. Nigeria wishes an inclusive, democratically drafted charter that displays the desire of its folks.
It’s troubling that it has taken a danger by way of the USA president to once more remind Nigerian leaders in their tasks to offer protection to civilians. However optimistically this leads to higher safety and beef up for sufferers of violence in rural communities throughout Nigeria.
