US President Donald Trump reignited political controversy on Friday after launching a harsh verbal attack on Nigeria, calling the country “a disgrace” and accusing its government of failing to protect Christian communities from extremist violence.
News Point Nigeria reports that speaking during a conservative radio broadcast, Trump repeated allegations that Christians in Nigeria are facing “genocide” and warned that the United States could withdraw financial support if Abuja does not “do more” to curb attacks attributed to Islamist militants.
“Nigeria is a disgrace. The whole thing is a disgrace,” Trump said on air.
“They’re killing people by the thousands. It’s a genocide, and I’m really angry about it. And we pay, you know, we give a lot of subsidies to Nigeria. We’re going to end up stopping.”
The remarks mark Trump’s most aggressive public criticism of Nigeria since returning to the White House, escalating a narrative that has gained traction within US conservative and evangelical circles despite repeated factual disputes by analysts and Nigerian authorities.
Nigeria has long grappled with overlapping ethnic, communal, and religious violence across its northern and middle-belt regions. Both Christian and Muslim populations have suffered mass casualties.
However, right-wing groups in the US have increasingly framed the violence as a targeted extermination of Christians—an interpretation many conflict scholars argue is overly simplistic and politically motivated.
Trump’s latest comments came just 24 hours after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth hosted Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, at the Pentagon for discussions on security cooperation and counter-terrorism.
Following the meeting, Hegseth posted on X: “Under @POTUS leadership, DOW is working aggressively with Nigeria to end the persecution of Christians by jihadist terrorists.”
The term “DOW,” short for Department of War, is the Trump administration’s preferred rebranding of the US Department of Defence.
The Pentagon said in a statement that Hegseth and Ribadu discussed “tangible progress” achieved so far in preventing attacks on Christian communities and combating jihadist groups operating in West Africa.
President Bola Tinubu has consistently pushed back against claims that his administration enables or tolerates religious persecution.
Tinubu, a Muslim married to a Christian pastor, insists that Nigeria remains a multi-faith democracy with constitutional protections for all communities.
“The characterisation of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality,” Tinubu said, responding to Trump’s latest comments.
His administration argues that the drivers of violent conflict in Nigeria are banditry, land-use disputes, poverty, and terrorism, not state-backed religious discrimination.
In a separate development, US Representative Riley Moore met with NSA Nuhu Ribadu in Washington on Wednesday, as part of what officials describe as “ongoing high-level engagements” aimed at addressing concerns raised by US conservatives about Christian safety in Nigeria.