On November 9, 2025, the international community was rocked by a new diplomatic crisis: President Donald Trump’s threat of a "guns-a-blazing" military intervention in Nigeria. Ostensibly, this threat was issued to protect Nigerian Christians, who, according to Trump, face a campaign of mass slaughter at the hands of radical Islamists. Yet, as both Nigerian and international commentators have pointed out, the story—like so many in the Trump era—is far more complex than a simple tale of good versus evil or Christians versus Muslims.
According to ThisDay Live, Trump’s statements were prompted by media coverage—most notably a Fox News segment that aired while he was en route to Florida. Within an hour, Trump took to his social platform, Truth Social, posting, “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter.” He also directed his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, to prepare for possible military action, declaring Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act.
Trump’s threat, however, has been met with skepticism and outright criticism from a range of Nigerian voices. As Chidi Amuta wrote in TheNiche, “The US threat to intervene militarily in Nigeria ostensibly to protect Nigerian Christians is a typical Trump fake narrative. The inventor of ‘fake news’ is wrong as usual. Nigerian Christians are not under a genocidal threat.” Amuta and others argue that while Christians have indeed suffered attacks—most notably from Boko Haram and other jihadist groups—so too have Muslims and other innocent Nigerians. Churches and mosques have both been bombed, and markets, homes, and public spaces have all been targets of violence. Nigeria’s insecurity, they say, is not a matter of religious genocide, but a broader crisis that affects people of all faiths.
Still, the perception of anti-Christian violence has deep roots. As Bola A. Akinterinwa explained in ThisDay Live, “Based on verifiable facts, we argue here that there is genocide at the level of Christians in Nigeria. Muslims have also been killed as rightly pointed out by many observers, but that does not imply genocide, because it is more of killings of Moderate Muslims by more radical Muslims.” Citing attacks on churches in Adamawa, Port Harcourt, and Owo, as well as the infamous kidnapping of Leah Sharibu—held by Boko Haram for refusing to convert to Islam—Akinterinwa contends that religion is an undeniable factor in Nigeria’s violence, even if it is not the only one.
The debate over whether these killings constitute genocide is heated. TheNiche counters that “characterizing Nigeria’s killing industry as anti-Christian genocide is ignorant and mischievous. Nigeria has a problem of safety of life irrespective of where you face to worship.” They point out that violence often arises from conflicts over land and resources, with farmers and herders clashing in the country’s middle belt, and that faith is sometimes interwoven with these economic disputes. “Matters of faith are inextricably tied to these issues of economic survival,” Amuta writes. “In a dominantly Muslim and Christian nation, it is easy to see religious dominance in nearly every crisis.”
Underlying Trump’s threat, critics argue, are deeper geopolitical and economic interests. Nigeria, after all, is a nation of nearly 300 million people, home to over 30 billion barrels of oil, vast gas reserves, and rare earth minerals. As TheNiche notes, “Direct access to Nigeria’s over 30 billion barrels of oil means something to America’s imperial mindset. Our gas supply is an attraction as well. Vast deposits of all kinds of minerals including rare earth minerals is an additional irresistible allure.” With China’s growing economic presence in Nigeria, the US may see an opportunity—or a necessity—to reassert its influence.
Yet the record of US military interventions abroad is, to put it mildly, checkered. Amuta lists Vietnam, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, and Syria as cautionary tales, arguing that “America has no acumen for fixing nations. Though exceptional in self-healing, America cannot fix other lands.” TheNiche warns that a US intervention in Nigeria would be catastrophic: “Nigeria as the world has come to know it will cease to exist. It would be a military catastrophe and humanitarian disaster of the greatest magnitude in history. The out flux of refugees from Nigeria will overwhelm West Africa, Western Europe and even the US.”
International law provides little support for Trump’s proposed action. As ThisDay Live points out, Article 2(7) of the United Nations Charter prohibits intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states, and the principle of International Responsibility to Protect (IR2P) cannot be invoked unilaterally by the US. “Any United States intervention in Nigeria is inconsistent with international law,” Akinterinwa argues. “The United States does not and cannot single-handedly constitute the international community.”
Even within Nigeria, the prospect of US intervention is widely opposed. TheNiche predicts that “the Nigerian military whose jobs would be on the line, Muslims who would find support from Middle East radical groups, ordinary Nigerians whose reality would be disrupted” would all resist foreign troops. China and the European Union have also expressed opposition to any US military action, further complicating the picture.
Some see Trump’s threat as part of a broader strategy to pressure Nigeria’s government. During his first presidency, Trump’s “America First” and now “Make America Great Again” policies have emphasized unilateralism, military might, and the prioritization of US interests above all else. According to ThisDay Live, the threat to Nigeria is “an ‘art of the deal’ type of strategy, meaning that Donald Trump wants ‘to see how Nigeria responds.’” In addition, Trump’s evangelical base in the US has long pushed for action on behalf of persecuted Christians abroad, and fulfilling campaign promises to this constituency may be another motivating factor.
In the end, both Nigerian and international commentators agree on one thing: military intervention would not solve Nigeria’s problems. As James Barnett of the University of Oxford wrote in The Washington Post, “a military intervention premised on the wrong diagnoses would not save Nigerian Christians. It would only deepen Nigeria’s troubles while drawing the US into a set of conflicts it is not equipped to solve.”
Instead, many urge diplomatic engagement and internal reform. TheNiche advocates for dialogue between Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Trump, as well as for greater seriousness from Nigeria’s political class in addressing insecurity. “The most elementary responsibility of a state is to guarantee the security of life and property of all in its sovereign space,” Amuta reminds readers. “Nigeria needs US assistance to overcome its insecurity. The US needs a safe, fair and stable Nigeria to better understand the emerging Africa.”
As the world watches, the stakes could hardly be higher. Whether the crisis is resolved through diplomacy or escalates into something much worse may depend on the willingness of all parties to look beyond simplistic narratives and confront the complex, interwoven realities on the ground.
