DONALD Trump, the 47th President of the United States, released a video on Truth Social threatening military action against Nigeria by stating, “I will do things to Nigeria that Nigeria is not going to be happy about” and threatening to “go into that now-disgraced country guns-a-blazing.”
Trump then claimed there is a genocide against Christians in Nigeria, instructing the Department of War to prepare for possible action, drawing a parallel to what he described as attacks on Christians.
This narrative about Nigeria did not begin with Trump. In recent months, campaigners and Washington politicians have alleged that Islamist militants systematically target Nigerian Christians. In September, TV host Bill Maher called it “genocide,” and Senator Ted Cruz, citing his Christian faith and support for Israel, echoed these claims.
At a February 2025 congressional hearing, Rep. Scott Perry asserted ironically, given past US foreign policy that USAID funnelled millions yearly through non-profits to Boko Haram, a group notorious for brutally targeting both Muslims and Christians across Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.
Hasn’t Trump/US just whitewashed al-Jolani, the ISIS (same root as Boko Haram) warlord, whom they installed as the President of Syria? They once offered a $10 million bounty on him!
Calls about Christian genocide in Nigeria grew after Vice President Kashim Shettima’s speech at the 80th UN General Assembly in September. His words seemed to provoke those who profess love for Israel, directing their focus to Nigeria.
Here’s part of his speech: “We do not believe that the sanctity of human life should be trapped in the corridors of endless debate. That is why we say, without stuttering and without doubt, that a two-state solution remains the most dignified path to lasting peace for the people of Palestine. For too long, this community has borne the weight of moral conflict. For too long, we have been caught in the crossfire of violence that has opened humanity’s conscience.
“We come not as partisans, but as peacemakers. We come as brothers and sisters of a shared world, a world that must never reduce the right to live into the currency of devious politics. The people of Palestine are not collateral damage in a civilisation searching for order. They are human beings, equal in worth, entitled to the same freedoms and dignity that the rest of us take for granted.”
To ground this controversy, it is necessary to define genocide. It is the deliberate and systematic killing or persecution of a large number of people from a particular national or ethnic group to destroy that nation or group.
“Genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphaël Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It consists of the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix – cide, meaning killing. Lemkin developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jews during the Holocaust, but also in response to previous instances in history of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people.
Articles 1 and 2 of UN General Assembly Resolution 96 (I), dated 11 December 1946, recognise genocide as a crime under international law, against the UN’s purpose, and condemned globally.
I tell whoever cares to listen that genocide does not describe the Nigerian situation.
In this country, no religious group is targeted for its beliefs. Killers using Islam as a cover have killed more Muslims than Christians. Anyone who refuses their ideology, Muslim, Christian, animist, pagan, idolater—is a target. I was a victim when they came to my house in Potiskum to kill me. Not finding me, they used explosives to destroy the house.
In Gaza, several authorities allege that Israel’s actions are premeditated. A UN Commission of Inquiry accused Israel of acts of genocide, with Gaza meeting four of the five genocidal criteria from the 1948 Genocide Convention: killing, causing serious harm, imposing destructive life conditions, and preventing births.
The report contrasted with Nigeria, where no group faces intended destruction.
On 21 November 2024, after probing war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for two Israeli leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes of starvation and crimes against humanity during the Gaza war. All 125 ICC member states are to arrest them if they enter their territory.
America’s steadfast support for Israel, even with the International Court of Justice’s ruling that Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories are illegal, starkly reveals a double standard. This contradiction undermines America’s claims of moral leadership and exposes the inconsistency in its foreign policy when compared to its calls for justice elsewhere, such as in Nigeria.
In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike has targeted one of the oldest active churches in the world, the 1,600-year-old Church of Saint Porphyrius, built in 425 CE, with the main part constructed by the Crusaders in the 1150s, located in the Zaytun Quarters of Gaza City, killing at least 18 civilians. It also targeted the Byzantine Church of Jabalia, approximately 1,578 years old, which was established in the 5th century AD. It was built around 444 AD during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II.
The Church of St. Hilarion Monastery/Tell Umm Amer, approximately 1,685 years old, founded in the fourth century CE (around 340 CE) by Saint Hilarion the Great, was also attacked by Israel. The monastery is one of the earliest and largest monastic communities in the Middle East.
The Holy Family Church, the only Catholic church in Gaza, was built in 1974, making it approximately 50 years old. This church and its associated school have been hit multiple times by Israeli airstrikes and tank fire, resulting in casualties and damage to the premises.
Israel also attacked the Gaza Baptist Church, founded in 1954, which is approximately 70 years old. These churches are considered vital parts of Gaza’s cultural heritage and have historically served as sanctuaries for both Christians and Muslims during conflicts. These attacks have also brought down the population of Christians in Gaza to half what it used to be two years ago.
The US, which has supplied at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel’s Gaza campaign, refused to attend the Universal Periodic Review of its human rights record before the UN Human Rights Council last Friday. The US knew that all 193 UN member states would examine its role in Gaza. There are Christians in Gaza, Palestine, and Lebanon. For the record, only the US and Israel have skipped the UN rights review.
Yet for these reprehensible actions and ongoing evasion of accountability, no one has called out Trump – twice impeached, indicted by the courts, and now busily collecting gifts from Arab leaders – or his country, now-disgraced.
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There are some questions that we need to answer for us to get a clear perspective of Trump’s threat, considering that he wants to invade Venezuela, which is ninety-eight percent Christian, with eighty percent of them Catholic. Or why has he opened the door for South African whites to move to the USA and not his “cherished” Nigerian Christians!
We will even look deeper to understand whether they want boots on the ground now because what (mineral resources) they have been getting through their sponsored thugs is not enough. Or is it still the divinely defeated grand design to dismember this country in 2015 that is coming back through the back door? Or will this serve as a wake-up call to Nigeria?
And we will also look at the revolution Governor Mai Mala Buni has brought to the Yobe State Civil Service by appointing Alhaji Abdullahi Musa Shehu as Head of Service. It is one appointment the state has not seen in a long time, and the state’s civil service has already started responding positively to it.
- Dr Gimba, anipr, is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime. His syndicated column, The Arbiter, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Monday.